Showing papers on "Indirect rule published in 1974"
01 Jan 1974
8 citations
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19 Nov 1974
TL;DR: In this paper, three major themes which represented the main determinants of the development of rural politics in South- Central Ghana between 1919 and 1951 are discussed. But the authors did not consider the role of the educated elite in these developments.
Abstract: There are three major themes which recur throughout this study and
which , it is argued , represented the main determinants of the development
of rural politics in South- Central Ghana between 1919 and 1951.The first theme is the attempt by the colonial Government from about
1927 onwards to introduce an increasingly interventionist system of indirect
rule. Before the 1920s the Government interfered very little in the
administration of the traditional states. It concentrated on administration
and development at the colonial level and left the day-to-day government
of the states to the chiefs and state councils. Officials usually intervened
in local affairs only in matters concerned with the administration of justice
and the prevention or settlement of disputes which were likely to lead to
a breach of the peace. After about 1927, however, the Government took a
much greater interest in local administration and development. It attempted
to extend its influence into the local political arenas and to incorporate
the chiefs to a much greater extent in the machinery of colonial administration
- to make them the agents of the colonial Government in the rural areas. The
chiefs were given direct responsibility for the implementation of central
Government policies at the local level and for the initiation of local
development schemes under official supervision. The main result of this new
approach was to increase the amount of interference by officials in the day to day
affairs of the traditional states.
The second major theme i s the transformation of factions within the
states into ' parties'. Before the mid-1920s, political conflicts within the
states were generally concerned with purely local issues and were fought in
purely local terms. After the mid-1920s, · however , colonial issue s were
introduced into the local political arenas and became the subject of disputes
between local factions. Conflicts over colonial issues reinforced existing
conflicts over local issues and gradually transformed factions into pro- and
anti-Government ' parties ' within each state. These parties usually had a
somewhat more stable membership and a stronger commitment to general normative
principles than the more impermanent, transactional factions of the earlier
period.
The third major theme is the role in these developments of the educated
elite in Cape Coast. It is argued that a certain section of the educated
elite, led by Kobina Sekyi and the rump of the Aborigines Rights Protection
Society, resented the new role of the chiefs, and the reduction of the
influence of the educated elite, under the system of interventionist indirect
rule. They therefore attempted to undermine the machinery of indirect rule,
not only by petitions and propaganda at the colonial level, but also by
sabotaging the implemention of the policy at the local level, within the
traditional states. This they did by encouraging the formation and activities
of the anti-Government parties within the states. Such parties would probably
have arisen without the assistance of the A.R.P.S., but the A. R.P.S. helped to
strengthen and co-ordinate their activities by providing legal and political
advice and by promoting widespread local propaganda against such instruments
of interventionist indirect rule as the Provincial Councils and the stool
treasury system.
7 citations
01 Jan 1974
6 citations