From Rulers to Servants: The I.C.S. and the British Demission of Power in India

Abstract

The study of the British demission of power in India has focused on the political story, on the nationalist pressures and the British policies that led inexorably to self-government and to partition. This began, explicitly at least, with the Montagu declaration in 1917. But the idea of gradually developing self-governing institutions seemed in many ways easier to implement in politics than administration. India was proceeding from an authoritarian to a popular government: the transfer of power was not only from British to Indians but also from administrators to politicians. And as Philip Woodruff, writing on the I.C.S., comments, ‘it is hard to serve where you have ruled’. On one level, the Service could be Indianized, and from the early 19205 Indianization proceeded apace. What was more complicated was the role the I.C.S. was expected to play in the changing constitutional and political circumstances from 1920 through to 1947—expected to play, that is, in addition to the sustained execution of the everyday functions of government.