(a) How did English utilitarian thinking impact India in the British era? (20 marks) (b) The same Gandhiji who withdrew the…

(a) Utilitarianism and British India

Utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham, James Mill and J. S. Mill held that law and government should be judged by the greatest happiness of the greatest number. James Mill's History of British India (1817) and Haileybury training carried the doctrine to officials, and Eric Stokes showed its influence on policy from the 1820s to the 1850s.

Its impact was wide. It favoured codification of law, shown in Macaulay's Law Commission, the Indian Penal Code (1860) and later procedural codes, and the principle of uniform law and equality before it. It promoted an efficient, centralised administration and rule by expert officials, with the 1833 Charter Act's Law Member. In land revenue, Ricardian rent theory lay behind ryotwari and mahalwari assessments aimed at taxing economic rent. It supported English education (Macaulay's Minute, 1835), a free press under Metcalfe (1835), free trade, public works and social legislation such as the abolition of sati (1829) under Bentinck.

But utilitarianism also justified authoritarian paternal rule, held Indian society and tradition in low regard, and its laissez-faire economics left famines and handicraft decline unaddressed. Thus it gave India modern law and administration, with an overall colonial purpose.

(b) Gandhi's attitude to violence: Chauri Chaura and Quit India

In 1922, Gandhi suspended Non-Cooperation after Chauri Chaura, where a mob killed policemen. In 1942 he refused to condemn mass violence after his arrest. The contrast is real, but does not show loss of faith.

The contexts differed. In 1922, Gandhi had directed the movement and its discipline, and he held that a single lapse showed the country unfit for civil disobedience. In 1942, the leaders were jailed on 9 August before directing the people, and the violence came from a leaderless uprising provoked by the government's repression. Gandhi's "Do or Die" call expected non-violent struggle, but he blamed the government's "leonine violence" for the outbreak and would not condemn the people while it continued, while writing to Linlithgow, and later undertaking a fast in 1943.

Some, like Sumit Sarkar, note that Gandhi was willing to take greater risks in 1942 because of urgency in the war, but he never abandoned ahimsa in principle. His change was one of strategy and judgement, not belief.

(c) The Marathas and corporate spirit

The statement has force. Maratha power under Shivaji rested on his ability and a loyal following, and after him the Peshwa-led confederacy of Scindia, Holkar, Gaikwad and Bhonsle chiefs was a loose federation whose members pursued personal and family interests. Rivalries such as that between Raghunath Rao and the Peshwa's ministers, and between Scindia and Holkar, weakened them. At Panipat (1761) the Marathas failed to unite Indian powers, and later chiefs fought the British separately in the Anglo-Maratha wars.

Their vision was of power and chauth and sardeshmukhi, not a national state. Nana Phadnavis did hold the confederacy together for a time, so the lack of corporate spirit was a limit, not an absolute.