Lord Ripon : George Frederick Samuel Robinson (1827-1909), succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Ripon 1859: M.P. of Gladstone’s Labour Party in charge of Hull, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, W. Riding, 1852-9: Under Secretary for War (1859-61) & for India (1861-3): Secretary for War (1863-6) & for India (1866), Lord President of the Council 1868-73: made a Marquis 1871: as Viceroy of India in 1880-84, he first brought to end the costly 2nd Afghan War (started by his predecessor Lytton in 1878) in 1881 by recognising Abdur Rahman as Emir of Afghanistan & withdrawing the British armies & giving up Kandahar; introduced complete free trade retaining small duties on a very few articles like wines, spirits, & arms & ammunitions; lowered the salt tax; tried in vain to persuade the Home Govt. to abstain from increasing revenue of districts already surveyed except on the sole ground of a rise in prices; established in each tehsil (subdivision) of a local board of elected popular representatives (his version of panchayats) with power to administer funds that the local governments may place at their disposal for management of roads, watch & ward set-ups & such local needs; empowered popular district boards with charge of education, public works & duties; where municipal bodies existed he permitted them to elect their own chairman. Most importantly, he repealed Viceroy Lytton’s despotic Vernacular Press Act of 1878 permitting the Indian-language press the freedom enjoyed by the English-medium press; in 1881 he returned the administration of Mysore to its Maharaja subject to his supervision, passed an Act regulating the conditions of under-age employees in Indian factories & stipulating the steps to safeguard them from heavy machineries; in 1882, on the basis of the Report of the Hunter Commission he had appointed he expanded the extent of Western education system by increasing the number of Govt.-run primary & secondary schools. His attempt in 1881 to reform the injustice against natives arraigned in British courts, by proposing what became known as the Ilbert Bill (q.v.) cut short his illustrious his rule in 1884. He was recalled by his bosses in Whitehall for doing more for the natives than official policy, British India’s bureaucracy & European leeches could stomach & given the innocuous posts of First Lord of the Admiralty & Secretary for Colonies. However, his proposals in Ilbert Bill increased his already unprecedented popularity among natives whose leaders presented him with hundreds of grateful addresses & his journey from Shimla to Bombay resembled a triumphal processions. [Buckland; Bhattacharya; S. Gopal’s The Viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, W.S. Blunt’s India under Ripon; s/a Lālā Lajpat Rai’s Young India, published by Jagan Nath, Servants of the People Society, Lahore, 4th Reprint 1927]
... leaders. The Nationalist draft resolutions were written by Sri Aurobindo. DRAFT RESOLUTIONS I. That this Conference places on record its profound feelings of regret and sorrow at the death of Lord Ripon who has justly been called the father of local self-government in India and whose policy of justice and righteousness will for ever enshrine his memory in the hearts of the people of this country... to organise village Committees, Sub-Divisional Associations and District Associations. NATIONALIST DRAFT RESOLUTIONS I. That this Conference places on record its sorrow at the death of Lord Ripon who was an earnest and sincere sympathiser with Indian aspirations and did much for the cause of local self-government. II. (a) As in the Committee's draft. (b) That this Conference emphatically ...
... the institution can easily be converted into a source of strength to the bureaucracy instead of a source of weakness. Since the beginning of the reactionary policy which followed the Viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, this has been the increasing tendency of the High Court and the trust and reverence of the people has decreased proportionately, and the hold of British rule on their imaginations has decreased ...
... employment, was very anxious to do something for me." Expressing confidence in his lucky star, he added, "I have at least succeeded in gaining one valuable friend, since I came to London . . . Lord Ripon has been exerting his influence in my favour in the British Museum business." So he thought he had "the strongest influence" to back him. Therefore he had a "fair chance of nomination after a year ...
... also fully appreciated his brother's poetic merit. In June 1890, one month after the publication of Primavera, when Mano asked Binyon to send him four more copies — "I want to send one copy to Lord Ripon" —he did not forget his young brother: "Would you also mind giving my brother a copy, with your name and Cripps' inscribed on it in your own handwriting ?" Prolific reader that he was, Sri Aurobindo ...
... in Bengal therefore that a quick succession of shrewd and dangerous blows was dealt at the once useful but now obnoxious class. The last effort to bribe it into quietude was the administration of Lord Ripon. It was now sought to cripple the organs through which this strength was beginning slowly to feel and develop its organic life. The Press was intimidated, the Municipalities officialised, the University ...
... But what most drew my attention was Mr Richard's beard; it hung down to his breast and was dark, dark black. Never before have I seen such a jet-black and so long a beard on any European —except on Lord Ripon." Sri Aurobindo received Richard for two days. Each day they talked for two to three hours. What were the subjects discussed? We do not know. But presumably they exchanged ideas about occultism ...
... Times , secret societies have existed for upwards of forty or fifty years. How is it that they had no success and no one was aware of their existence until the reaction after Lord Ripon's regime culminated in the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon? Dissatisfaction is not created by public criticism, it is created by the adverse facts on which public criticism fastens, and it crystallises either in public criticism... the proclamation of all India as seditious is, doubtless, the first step in the new policy, the policy of conciliation and Page 419 liberalism. It is the sign-manual of the great reformer, Lord Morley, upon his work, the loud-tongued harbinger of the golden Age. No particular motive can be alleged for this sudden proclamation, nor is any alleged. The people are left to speculate in the... Vigilance Committees of leading citizens organised to patrol the E.B.S.R. at night even in this chilly weather, and those in which the Deccan Sabha drinks deep of the political sermons and homilies of Lord Morley's personal friend, Mr. Gokhale. Was it to stop these that the proclamation of all India became necessary? It has been freely alleged that the prevalence of bombs and Terrorism in Bombay, Punjab ...
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