THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA 143
accepting the sacred trust transferred to the Company by the present engagements, invites the people of the Carnatic to a ready and cheerful obedience to the authority of the Company, in a confident assurance of enjoying, under the protection of public and defined laws, every just and ascertained civil right, with a free exercise of the religious institutions and domestic usages of their ancestors”.
In may 1834 the following proclamation was issued to the people of Coorg when it was conquered :—
“Whereas it is the unanimous wish of the inhabitants of Coorg to be taken under the protection of the British Government, His Excellency the Right Honourable the Governor-General has been pleased to resolve that the territory heretofore governed by Veer Rajunder Woodyer shall be transferred to the Honourable Company. The inhabitants are hereby assured that they shall not again be subjected to native rule; that their civil rights and religious usages will be respected, and the greatest desire will invariably be shown by the British Government to augment their security, comfort, and happiness.”
In 1849, on the annexation of the Punjab, the following assurance was given to the people :—
“The British Government will leave to all the people whether Mussulman, Hindoo, or Sikh, the free exercise of their own religions; but it will not permit any man to interfere with the other in the observance of, such forms and customs as their respective religions may either enjoin or [: ] permit.”
Other similar proclamations may be cited. They were treated as pledges. Whether it was just and politic that such pledges should have been given, it was felt that it was unpolitic to ignore them once they were given. This was the general view. But there were always some who construed them literally and whose point of view was not to draw any distinction and make any reservations and who wished to interpret the pledges as amounting to saying to the Indians, “You have enjoyed it undisturbedly under the new” and who argued that “any departure from this would be a breach of faith.” Fear of breach of faith was one consideration. Fear of open rebellion was another. Fear of rebellion so far as the British Government in India was concerned was not a fear of the unknown. It was a fact of experience, There was one rebellion in 1801 which was known as the Vellore Mutiny. There was another rebellion in 1857. It was known as