Twilight of the British Raj: Last One and a Half Decades in Uttarakhand: 1933-49
Contents: Preface. Part I : British Kumaon: 1. Commissioners and charge notes. 2. Owen to Ibbotson 1933-1935. 3. Ibbotson to Vivian 1935-1939. 4. Vivian to Acton 1939-1941. 5. Acton to Finlay 1941-1944. 6. Finlay to Mehta 1944-1947. 7. Mehta to Shivadassani 1947-1948. 8. M.A. Qureshi to Arif 1947-1948. Part II: Native Tehri-Garhwal State: 9. Jyoti Prasad to Bhagwan Sahai (24 April 1950). Appendices. 10. A comparison and the legacy. Notes on Aabott Mount Colony . Notes on the Tarai and Bhabar Govt Estates. Annexure. Index.
Each state of the Repubic of India has had its unique trajectory of evolution and it is indeed surprising that not many states can lay a claim to have a book or a set of books which describes its gradual evolution in a chronological sequence. Broadly speaking the present states, 29 in number, including the Telengana and Seemandhra Pradesh, successor states of Andhra Pradesh, can broadly be divided under two categories, viz., those which were directly ruled by the British Crown and those which were either ruled by some Native Ruler or other foreign country, e.g. Goa and Sikkim. When Uttarakhand emerged as the 27th State in November, 2000 a need was felt to provide it with a set of three books which make an attempt to document its administrative evolution since its administration was taken over by the East India Company in 1815 A.D., Gazetteers of any kind simply fail to serve such a purpose. Edwin T. Atkinson’s three volumes are one such a Gazetteer (1881, 1884 and 1886), indeed a set of monographs contributed by several subject matter specialists.
The first book of this trilogy covered administrative evolution of Uttarakhand from 1815 to 1884, spanning nearly first seven decades, belonging both to the East India Company period and the direct rule by the British Parliament.
The second, consisting of four monographs, covered four major administrative aspects, i.e. the evolution of the office of Kumaon Commissioner, the key office of regional governance as it stood on 1884; first ever detailed narrative of events which nearly shook off the East India Company rule in northern India i.e. the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857; administrative evolution of Tehri Garhwal Raj from 1815 to 1948, the year of its merger with the Indian Dominion. The fourth aspect, in this volume, covers Land and Forest Management, so very significant elements of administration needing personal attention of all civil servants.
The third of the compendium, appearing after a gap of five years, covers the administrative tenures of the last six Kumaon Commissioners, from 1933 to 1947. The significance of this volume flows from the fact that it users, ‘Charge Notes’ left behind by the Commissioners it covers. It is arguably for the first time that ‘Charge Notes’ are being used as a source of history. This invaluable resource is likely to shed additional light over the period covered by published accounts.
These three books are designed to serve the purpose of a Primer on Administrative History of Uttarakhand, arguably the only one of their kind in the whole of India, based entirely on the archival or primary sources. It is earnestly hoped that these three volumes will be able to trigger interest in a range of stakeholders to fill the existing gaps, which undoubtedly exist. (jacket)
