ABSTRACT
Risley’s ‘services were placed at the disposal of the Government of India’ in August 1898 and he then served as the officiating secretary of the Financial department until April 1899, when he went to Europe on leave and furlough for six months. As the Financial secretary, his most important responsibility was to prepare the government’s annual financial statement and budgetary estimates for the new year in April, but this and many other tasks were similar to his previous ones as Bengal’s Financial secretary. In Calcutta, too, his new office in the imperial secretariat was only a short walk away from his old one in the Writers’ Building. All in all, therefore, Risley probably found it easy to adapt to his new job. But he may actually have started in Simla and, if he had not gone to Europe in 1899, he certainly would have spent the hot season in Simla, instead of Darjeeling. Indeed, in the last decade of his ICS career, both as a departmental secretary and the census commissioner, Risley spent more time in Simla than Calcutta, the two very different capitals of the Raj.
