SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Two things have been discussed in the introduction to this thesis. First, that the subject of economic and social changes in India between 1848-56 has received inadequate treatment from historians. Secondly, some consideration of the broad factors which were responsible for bringing about those changes at that particular time. Chapters II, III, IV and V deal with the three main economic innovations of Dalhousie. The origin of the policy of introducing railways, electric telegraph and modern post into India, and the subsequent measures taken for their establishment, have been traced. Chapters VI, VII, and VIII give an account of the two prominent educational developments of the period. Circumstances leading to the government recognition of its responsibility to educate the people in their indigenous languages, as well as the personal initiative of Bethune and Dalhousie resulting in the beginning of official encouragement to women's education, have been described. In chapters IX and X, measures which were adopted to put down antiquated social customs have been narrated. These customs included the practice of female infanticide among certain sections of people in the North West Provinces and the Punjab, and the rite of meriah sacrifice among the hill tribes of Orissa, Madras and the Central Provinces. In the conclusion, an attempt has been made to estimate the total effect of all these changes on the people of India. The bibliography contains a description of the unpublished private papers and their location, as well as of the official documents and other material from which the work has been constructed. Some relevant information has been added in the appendixes. A few published papers in support of the thesis are attached separately.