ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the unwieldy and top-heavy nature of British bureaucracy in India. The ‘company’ referred to is the privately owned East India company, which England wrested power from when its supervision over India was deemed disorganised and impracticable. Much diversity of opinion exists as to the various degrees of responsibility and culpability of the Indian officials in relation to the late famine in Orissa. All are agreed, however, that whose soever the blame, the system under which so serious a calamity has occurred is one that requires reform and reorganisation. If a famine so destructive as that which has been raging in Orissa for the last two years does not afford ground sufficient for the active interference of the supreme government in the affairs of Bengal, it is not easy to imagine what would constitute a sufficient ground for such interference.
