PRIMARY DOSSIER № 03 / 02
CURZON, G. N.
VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA (1899–1905)
Authoritarian viceroy who executed the 1905 Partition of Bengal to dismantle Indian nationalist solidarity, oversaw the famine of 1899–1900, and created the North-West Frontier Province.
Viceroy Salary: £20,000/yr (Rs. 250,000) from Indian Revenues
- Kedleston Hall Estate, Derbyshire
- Bodiam Castle restoration financing
- 1903 Delhi Durbar state expenditure: £200,000+ charged to India
PRIMARY INVESTIGATION & FINDINGS
Enacted the Partition of Bengal in October 1905 along religious communal lines, explicitly writing in confidential dispatches that 'Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways.'
Presided over the 1899–1900 Indian Famine (1M–4M dead), maintaining rigid tax collection and criticizing relief works as encouraging 'demoralizing pauperism.'
Organized the opulent 1903 Delhi Durbar at massive public expense while rural famine mortality continued across central India.
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