Lord Ripon – Viceroy of India (1880-1884)

Lord Ripon remained India’s Viceroy from 1880-84. This liberal politician is known for many reforms in the internal administration of India. The most important events during this time were as follows:

• The Vernacular Press Act was repealed in 1882
• A Resolution in 1882 set off the institution of local self-government in India.
• Hunter Commission came in 1882 for the purpose of education reforms.
• The age for entry in the Civil Services was once again raised to 21 years.
• The First factory Act was enacted in 1881
• Introduction of Ilbert Bill in severely compromised state.
• The years 1882 and 1883 are memorable for these great measures. One important one was the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act, which was passed by his predecessor Lord Lytton in 1878.

Thus, he sat free the native journals from the last restrains on the free discussion of public questions. In 1882, he granted freedom to the Press. He was the founder of local self government in modern India and was fondly called “Ripon, the Good”.

The Afghan Affairs

Immediately after the Second Anglo Afghan War, Abdur Rahaman, the male heir of the Dost Muhammad stock was made the Amir of Afghanistan. The British Viceroy Lord Ripon withdrew the policy of disintegrating the Afghanistan and accepted it as a Buffer state (between British and Russian/ Persian territories), which later culminated in Durand Line. However they retained the rights to handle the foreign relations of Afghanistan. In 1885, a military skirmish occurred and the Russian encroached the Merv Oasis and an Afghan territory south of the Oxus River around an oasis at Panjdeh. (It is now in Turkmenistan). Later, possible war was averted with diplomacy of Lord Dufferin, who managed to secure a settlement. As per this settlement Russia kept the Merv Oasis, but relinquished further territories taken in their advance, and promised to respect Afghan territorial integrity in the future.

Local Self Government (Resolution of 1882)

Lord Ripon is known to have granted the Indians first taste of freedom by introducing the Local Self Government in 1882. His scheme of local self government developed the Municipal institutions which had been growing up in the country ever since India was occupied by the British Crown. He led a series of enactments in which larger powers of the Local self government were given to the rural and urban bodies and the elective people received some wider rights.

Lord Ripon is known as Father of Local Self Government in India. This was not enacted by any act; it was a resolution that was passed in 1882.

First Factory Act 1881

A committee was appointed in 1875 to inquire into the conditions of factory work in the country. This committee had favored some kind of legal restrictions in the form of factory laws.

During Lord Ripon’s time, the first Factories Act was adopted in 1881. Following this act, a Factory Commission was appointed in 1885. There was another Factories Act in 1891, and a Royal Commission on Labor was appointed in 1892. The result of these enactments was the limitation on the factory working hours. This was an answer of the Government to the pathetic conditions of the workers in the factory, wherein, only when a laborer exhausted, new laborer was to take his / her place.

Hunter Education Commission 1882-83

In 1882, Lord Ripon organized the Hunter Commission under William Wilson Hunter. William Wilson Hunter was the statistician, a compiler and a member of the Indian Civil Service, who later also became Vice President of Royal Asiatic Society.

He was appointed as a Magistrate in the Bengal Presidency in 1862, and form there only he started compiling the local traditions and records.

He published “The Annals of Rural Bengal” and “A Comparative Dictionary of the Non-Aryan Languages of India” but his best known work is “The Imperial Gazetteer of India” on which he started working in 1869.

This work was delegated to him by Lord Mayo. The work appeared in 9 volumes in 1881. In 1882 as a member of the Governor General in Council he was appointed he chairman of the Commission on Education. In 1886, he was also elected as Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University.  The Hunter Commission brought out the neglect to the primary and secondary education in the country. The commission recommended that the responsibility for the Primary Education must be given to the Local Boards and Municipal Boards. The important recommendations were as follows:

• The government should take special care to extend the primary education.
• There should be literary and vocational training in secondary education.
• The commission brought out inadequate facilities available for the female education in the country.

The recommendations were partially implemented and there was a slow growth in the number of the secondary schools in the country.

Ilbert Bill 1884

Ilbert Bill is named after Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, who was appointed as legal adviser to the Council of India. The bill was introduced in 1883 by Viceroy Ripon, who actually desired to abolish the racial prejudice from the Indian Penal Code. Ripon had proposed an amendment for existing laws in the country and to allow Indian judges and magistrates the jurisdiction to try British offenders in criminal cases at the District level. It was never allowed before.

So naturally, the Europeans living in India looked it as a Humiliation and the introduction of the bill led to intense opposition in Britain as well as India (by the British residents). So it was withdrawn but was reintroduced and enacted in 1884 in a severely compromised state.

The amended bill had the provisions that the Europeans would be conferred on European and Indian District Magistrates and Sessions Judges alike. However, a defendant would in all cases have the right to claim trial by a jury of which at least half the members must be European. Thus, this enactment held that Europeans criminals would be heard only by the Indian Judges “helped by the European Judges”.

The passage of this bill opened the eyes of the Indians and deepened antagonism between the British and Indians. The result was wider nationalism and establishment of Indian National Congress in the next year. The amended Ilbert Bill was passed on 25 January 1884, as the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Act 1884.  It came into force on May 1, 1884.