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Source 5 A major problem was that the Brahman pandits gave “I impeach the different interpretations of local laws based on different schools of the dharmashastra. To bring about uniformity, common enemy and in 1775 eleven pandits were asked to compile a digest oppressor of all.” of Hindu laws. N.B. Halhed translated this digest into English. By 1778, a code of Muslim laws was also compiled for the benefit of European judges. Under the Regulating Here is a passage from Edmund Burke’s eloquent Act of 1773, a new Supreme Court was established, while opening speech during a court of appeal – the Sadar Nizamat Adalat – was also the impeachment of set up at Calcutta. Warren Hastings: The principal figure in an Indian district was the I impeach him in the Collector. As the title suggests, his main job was to collect name of the people revenue and taxes and maintain law and order in his district with the help of judges, police officers and darogas. of India, whose rights His office – the Collectorate – became the new centre of he has trodden under his foot and whose power and patronage that steadily replaced previous country he has turned holders of authority. into a desert. Lastly in the name of human The Company army nature itself, in the Colonial rule in India brought in some new ideas of administration and reform but its power rested on its name of both the sexes, in the name military strength. The Mughal army was mainly composed of every age, in the of cavalry (sawars: trained soldiers on horseback) and name of every rank, I infantry, that is, paidal (foot) soldiers. They were given impeach the common training in archery (teer-andazi) and the use of the sword. enemy and oppressor The cavalry dominated the army and the Mughal state of all. did not feel the need to have a large professionally trained infantry. The rural areas had a large number of armed peasants and the local zamindars often supplied the Mughals with paidal soldiers. A change occurred in the eighteenth century when Mughal successor states like Awadh and Banaras started recruiting peasants into their armies and training them as professional soldiers. The East India Company adopted Dharmashastras – Sanskrit texts prescribing the same method when it began recruitment for its own social rules and codes army, which came to be known as the sepoy army (from of behaviour, composed the Indian word sipahi, meaning soldier). As warfare technology changed from the 1820s, the from c. 500 bce onwards Sawar – Men on horses cavalry requirements of the Company’s army declined. This is because the British empire was fighting in Musket – A heavy gun Burma, Afghanistan and Egypt where soldiers were used by infantry soldiers armed with muskets and matchlocks. The soldiers of the Company’s army had to keep pace with changing Matchlock – An early type of gun in which the military requirements and its infantry regiments now powder was ignited by a became more important. match In the early nineteenth century, the British began to develop a uniform military culture. Soldiers were 22 OUR PASTS – III Reprint 2024-25