The District Officer Before the Advent of the British Raj

It must be remembered, the British did not invent the system of civil service in India. What they did, in essence, was build further on the stones of a pre-existing administration. As far back as the Mauryan Empire, the emperor employed advisors (mantrins) and civil servants (amatyas) to assist him – the amatyas were divided into three distinct levels and based on their qualifications acted on his behalf. “Of the amatyas, the two key civil servants were the samahartrs (who kept accounts and prepared the budget) and samnidhatr (who kept record of the taxes and managed the stores). There were many departments in the administration, each managed by a senior civil servant: panyadhyaksha (who headed the trade and commerce department), sitadhyaksha (who looked after land and agriculture), the rathadhyksha (the head of the defence department), the swarnadhyaksha (who looked after the mineral reserves of the state, including gold), the vanyadhyaksha (the head of forestry), the bhardhyaksha (the superintendent of weights), and the sutradhyaksha (the head of the textile department).” (C.K. Mathew)

The kingdom itself was divided into four distinct divisions, each under a civil servant called sthanikas, under whom were gopas who were effectively in charge of five to ten villages. The villages each had their own headman who, in turn, reported to the civil servant whose duty it was to collect, essentially, all the records of the villages. These reports were communicated back to the central committee of the empire itself. Corruption among civil servants, when proven, was punishable by death.

The Delhi Sultanate (1200-1256) introduced land grants to their civil servants, allowing them the complete administrative, judicial and political control of their area. Under this system, many of the civil servants would look on these grants as their hereditary right, passing them along to their descendants. Although they had all started as servants of the Sultanate, they evolved into de facto rulers, collecting the revenue not essentially for the Sultanate but for themselves. “The head of the civil administration was the wazir, who supervised revenue collection, checking of accounts, regulation of expenditure, etc. The other three most important civil servants were: the head of the military, the head of inter-state relations and the chancellor, who was in charge of spies and collection of intelligence.” (C.K. Mathew) Although there had been attempts to abolish these grants, they failed.

The Mughals had ideas of their own. Although they preserved the land grants, they instituted a system of transfers, which made it more difficult for the civil servants to take advantage of their erstwhile employer. Under the Mughals, the civil service was based not on individual appointments but on a pool of eligible civil servants called mansabdars, and according to their rank in the service, they were given their position.
A subahdar was recruited either from the ranks of the Mughal princes themselves or from officers who were at the top of the pool – they were essentially district officers, the heads of provincial administrations. Under Emperor Akbar, his entire territory was divided into 15 subahs, which were further split into mahals or Parganas, basically a group of villages in a district. Each province was divided into revenue circles or dastur ( a collection of mahals) with their rates of revenue and a schedule of individual crops or dasture-amal. This system was put in place only in those areas and regions where the Mughal administration could survey the land and maintain judicious records of accounts. Called the Dahsala system, the average production of different crops (as well as the average prices prevailing over the last ten years) was calculated. One-third of the average produce was the state’s share, and villagers were given remission in the land revenue if crops failed on account of drought, floods, etc. An elaborate practice of loans to the villagers was instituted to advance money in times of hardship.
Instead of outright paying civil servants, they were granted a jagir or land revenue allotment that was only for the duration of the mansabdars’ lifetime or tenure, thus ensuring their loyalty.
Within the administrative hierarchy, we find further divisions – the sipah salar, an army commander with the power of maintaining law and order in the district, the faujdar in charge of the cavalry who controlled not just the cultivators but the revenue collection, the quazis in charge of justice, the kotwal who supervised local issues and assisted the quazi, and the amal-guzar or financial officer at the provincial level.
To keep their various civil servants on the proverbial toes, the Mughals did not disdain from actually visiting them and by insisting they all regularly present themselves at court, the ruler could be kept abreast of the goings-on in his territory. As rising in the ranks was dependent on what the civil servant could give to the emperor in the way of gifts, it was in their interest to keep their administrative area running smoothly.

In the midst of all this, the British turned up.

The EICo Arrives
In previous posts, “A Little History” and “Presidencies and Provinces” we have already told the tale of the rise of the EICo. We will take up the story now in 1675 when the EICo set up their system of administrative hierarchy.
On the very lowest rung were apprentices whose only intention would be, after seven years, to progress to writers. These young men would quite literally sign themselves over to the EICo, pledging their allegiance to the terms and conditions of a “covenant”. As nefarious as this sounds, it would allow them to proceed up the ladder, to the position of factors, who would then be sent to India to manage the trading stations or factories. Running the factory itself was left to the favoured few, called Agents. From here, the mercurial rise of many of these factors would see them evolve into merchants, and if they were particularly talented and lived long enough, senior merchants. Anyone lucky enough to be appointed to run one of the important factories was dignified with the title of “President”, and under him, he would have his own council of senior merchants. In 1694, much of this was remodelled, and the lowest rank would be designated “Writer” – the lowest yet the most coveted position of many aspiring young men in India, those who wanted to join the civil service in the decades to come.
When the Portuguese left Calcutta (under some duress), the British established the “Bay Council” at Hooghly, settling into the vacancy left by the Portuguese. Job Charnock appointed himself Chief Council in Bengal and founded the city we now know today as Kolkata.
In this city, then called Calcutta, the English started to encourage local governments and judiciaries to use their services in their management and administration. John Sheldon, more enterprising than others, in 1700 was designated a zamindar to oversee the collection of rent and keep the peace in three villages adjoining Calcutta – he presided over his court and took under his wing all matters concerning land revenue, law and order. It could be said that here, in some rudimentary fashion, is the start of civil service, though not an incorruptible one.
The EICo did not think much of paying their officers – their salaries were quite low, and it was up to the officers to line their own pockets with what they could make from private trade. This opened up a whole host of other problems, but left the company with little choice but to recognise the right of private trade as these interests soon eclipsed those of the company itself.
After the Battle of Plassey, the Clive administration and the EICo took control of all revenue administration and, of course, of all the revenue. The Mughal emperor, in that very humiliating treaty signed in Allahabad in August 1865, was left with very little indeed in the way of actual power.
“The rest of administration was left to the Mughal Emperor’s nawab and his ministers. In return for acquiring the rights to all the land revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the Company agreed to pay an annual amount of £325,000 to Delhi. It also paid another £400,000 to buy London’s acquiescence (Garrett, 2007). Thus, was laid the first pillar in the bulwark of British administration that would, in time, spread across the entire country…” (C.K. Mathew)
What the emperor agreed to was the formal recognition of all company conquests, and of course, he handed all financial control to the EICo. 250 EICo clerks with 20’000 sepoys at their heels would run the finances of the three most profitable provinces in India – Bengal, Bihar and Orrisa. One of the ways they did this was by appointing district officers. These first civil servants of EICo would have the power to make revenue assessments, collect taxes, administer justice and take into their hands all the functions of government related to land and agriculture. The EICo was not just a colonial power it was a corporate state with the freedom to do more else anything it wanted.

After Clive
Following Clive’s departure from India, it became quite apparent that this new civil system was not exactly interested in the plight of the people. These civil servants were not bound by lofty ideals of improvement or self-sacrifice – their only interest in India as such was what they could take out of it. Unshackled from any obligations, with no oversight into their doings and not concerned with either public opinion or legal liabilities, they embarked on their crusade of how to get rich and how quickly. Clive himself would face charges of corruption and of accepting tributes from defeated rulers, while just about everyone else, from the lowly writer to the highest merchant, was scandalously engaged in unscrupulous endeavours, leaving some, like Harry Vereselt, who served the EICo as an administrator, reeling with disgust.

“All who were disposed to plunder assumed the authority of our name, usurped the seats of justice, and carried on what they called trade by violence and oppression…every illiterate mariner who could escape from a ship erected our flag and acted as lord of the district around him.’

They were helped along by Indian brokers who were employed by the EICo to lend a hand in the rapine of the provinces. When Clive returned in 1765 to clean house, he found his task nigh impossible. Bribery and the accepting of bribes were rampant, and anything he did to stop it was simply ignored. He filled the offices in Bengal with men from Madras whom he felt were less corrupt; free traders who ignored Company law were deported, and company servants in their far-away posts were recalled to Calcutta. He also introduced a system of salaries – the idea being that if everyone was paid a due amount, they would be less inclined to line their pockets with ill-got gains.