talented Indian students to proceed to England for taking the ICS
examination, while the latter provided for filling one-fifth of the vacancies
in the ICS through nomination of young Indians of respectable families
and sound education. The Aitchison Commission (1886) was appointed by
Lord Dufferin ostensibly to find ways and means of admitting more
Indians into higher services. But the commission, instead of doing that,
proposed to reduce the ICS to an ‘elite corps’ by limiting its number to
what was necessary to fill the chief administrative appointments and to
transfer the remaining posts to a wholly Indian provincial serv-ice to be
constituted in each of the provinces.
Holding of the ICS examinations simultaneously in England and
India was done for the first time in 1922. Appointment of the Lee
Commission (1924) by Lord Reading and its recommendations of
stopping recruitment to services which primarily concerned the subjects
transferred to popular control, and acceleration of the pace of Indianisation
in the other services. Establishment of the Public Service Commission at
the Centre (1926) and the provincial ones later were the other significant
developments.
GOVERNORS-GENERAL AND VICEROYS
British India saw thirteen governors-general from 1773 to 1857. The main
events and developments of their respective tenures are listed.
Warren Hastings (1773–85)
Regulating Act of 1773.
The Act of 1781 (it made a clear demarcation between the jurisdiction of the
Governor General-in-Council and that of the Supreme Court at Calcutta).
Pitt’s India Act of 1784.
The Rohilla war (1774) and annexation of Rohilkhand by the Nawab of·Oudh
with help of the British.
First Maratha war (1775-82) and the Treaty of Salbai (1782).
Second Mysore war (1780-84)