class 8 history chapter 2
- 1. *East India Company Comes East In 1600. *The East India Company acquired a charter from the ruler of England, Queen Elizabeth I. *With this charter the Company could venture across the oceans, looking for new lands from which it could buy goods at a cheap price, and carry them back to Europe to sell at higher prices. Ch.2 - FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY (HISTORY) TIME- 1600 - 1857
- 2. ADVENT OF EEIC – IN THE EAST • The royal charter, however, could not prevent other European powers from entering the Eastern markets. • By the time the first English ships sailed down the west coast of Africa, round the Cape of Good Hope, and crossed the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese had already established their presence in the western coast of India, and had their base in Goa. • In fact, it was Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, who had discovered this sea route to India in 1498. • By the early seventeenth century, the Dutch too were exploring the possibilities of trade in the Indian Ocean. Soon the French traders arrived on the scene
- 3. REASONS OF EUROPEANS REACHING IN THE EAST • The fine qualities of cotton and silk produced in India had a big market in Europe. • Pepper, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon too were in great demand. Competition amongst the European companies inevitably pushed up the prices at which these goods. • The urge to secure markets therefore led to fierce battles between the trading companies. • This effort to fortify settlements and carry on profitable trade also led to intense conflict with local rulers. T
- 4. East India Company begins trade in Bengal-1651 • The first English factory was set up on the banks of the river Hugli in 1651. • This was the base from which the Company’s traders, known at that time as “factors”, operated. • The factory had a warehouse where goods for export were stored, and it had offices where Company officials sat. • By 1696 it began building a fort around the settlement. • Two years later it bribed Mughal officials into giving the Company zamindari rights over three villages. • One of these was Kalikata, which later grew into the city of Calcutta or Kolkata as it is known today. • It also persuaded the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to issue a farman granting the Company the right to trade duty free. • Aurangzeb’s farman, for instance, had granted only the Company the right to trade duty free
- 5. How trade led to battles? • Through the early eighteenth century the conflict between the Company and the nawabs of Bengal intensified. • After the death of Aurangzeb, the Bengal nawabs asserted their power and autonomy, as other regional powers were doing at that time. • Murshid Quli Khan was followed by Alivardi Khan and then Sirajuddaulah as the Nawab of Bengal. • They refused to grant the Company concessions, demanded large tributes for the Company’s right to trade, denied it any right to mint coins, and stopped it from extending its fortifications. • EEIC was refusing to pay taxes, writing disrespectful letters, and trying to humiliate the nawab and his officials. • It was also convinced that to expand trade it had to enlarge its settlements, buy up villages, and rebuild its forts. • The conflicts led to confrontations and finally culminated in the famous Battle of Plassey.
- 6. The Battle of Plassey -1757 • When Alivardi Khan died in 1756, Sirajuddaulah became the nawab of Bengal. • The Company was worried about his power and keen on a puppet ruler who would willingly give trade concessions and other privileges. • So it tried, though without success, to help one of Sirajuddaulah’s rivals become the nawab. • After negotiations failed, the Nawab marched with 30,000 soldiers to the English factory at Kassimbazar, captured the Company officials, locked the warehouse, disarmed all Englishmen, and blockaded English ships. • Then he marched to Calcutta to establish control over the Company’s fort there. • On hearing the news of the fall of Calcutta, Company officials in Madras sent forces under the command of Robert Clive, reinforced by naval fleets. • Finally, in 1757, Robert Clive led the Company’s army against Sirajuddaulah at Plassey. • The defeat of the Nawab was that the forces led by Mir Jafar, one of Sirajuddaulah’s commanders, never fought the battle. • Clive had managed to secure his support by promising to make him nawab after crushing Sirajuddaulah. • The Battle of Plassey became famous because it was the first major victory the Company won in India.
- 7. CONSEQUENCES OF BATTLE OF PLASSEY • After the defeat at Plassey, Sirajuddaulah was assassinated and Mir Jafar made the nawab. • The Company was still unwilling to take over the responsibility of administration. • Its prime objective was the expansion of trade. If this could be done without conquest, through the help of local rulers who were willing to grant privileges, then territories need not be taken over directly. • Soon the Company discovered that this was rather difficult. • When Mir Jafar protested, the Company deposed him and installed Mir Qasim in his place. • When Mir Qasim complained, he in turn was defeated in a battle fought at Buxar (1764), driven out of Bengal, and Mir Jafar was reinstalled. • The Nawab had to pay Rs 500,000 every month but the Company wanted more money to finance its wars, and meet the demands of trade and its other expenses. • By the time Mir Jafar died in 1765 the mood of the Company had changed. • Clive declared: “We must indeed become nawabs ourselves.” • Finally, in 1765 the Mughal emperor appointed the Company as the Diwan of the provinces of Bengal. • The Diwani allowed the Company to use the vast revenue resources of Bengal. • This solved a major problem that the Company had earlier faced. • The outflow of gold from Britain slowed after the Battle of Plassey, and entirely stopped after the assumption of Diwani. • Now revenues from India could finance Company expenses. • These revenues could be used to purchase cotton and silk textiles in India, maintain Company troops, and meet the cost of building the Company fort and offices at Calcutta.
- 8. Company officials become “nabobs” • It meant of course that the Company acquired more power and authority. • Each company servant began to have visions of living like nawabs. • They have enticed several merchants and others to go and take protection under them and they collect a revenue which amounts to Rs 100, 000 … they rob and plunder and carry great number of the king’s subjects of both sexes into slavery into their own country . • After the Battle of Plassey the actual nawabs of Bengal were forced to give land and vast sums of money as personal gifts to Company officials. • Robert Clive himself amassed a fortune in India. He had come to Madras (now Chennai) from England in 1743 at the age of 18. When in 1767 he left India his Indian fortune was worth £401,102. • Interestingly, when he was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1764, he was asked to remove corruption in Company administration but he was himself cross-examined in 1772 by the British Parliament which was suspicious of his vast wealth. • Although he was acquitted, he committed suicide in 1774. • Many died an early death in India due to disease and war and it would not be right to regard all of them as corrupt and dishonest. • Those who managed to return with wealth led flashy lives and flaunted their riches. They were called “nabobs” – an anglicised version of the Indian word nawab.
- 9. Company Rule Expands • If we analyse the process of annexation of Indian states by the East India Company from 1757 to 1857, certain key aspects emerge. • The Company rarely launched a direct military attack on an unknown territory. • Instead it used a variety of political, economic and diplomatic methods to extend its influence before annexing an Indian kingdom. • After the Battle of Buxar (1764), the Company appointed Residents in Indian states. • They were political or commercial agents the Residents, the Company officials began interfering in the internal affairs of Indian states. • Sometimes the Company forced the states into a “subsidiary alliance”. • According to the terms of this alliance, Indian rulers were not allowed to have their independent armed forces. • Nawab Shujauddaulah of Awadh, with his sons and the British Resident, painted by Tilly Kettle (oil, 1772) • The treaties that followed the Battle of Buxar forced Nawab Shujauddaulah to give up much of his authority. • King had to pay for the “subsidiary forces” that the Company was supposed to maintain for the purpose of this protection. • If the Indian rulers failed to make the payment, then part of their territory was taken away as penalty. • For example, when Richard Wellesley was Governor General (1798-1805), the Nawab of Awadh was forced to give over half of his territory to the Company in 1801, as he failed to pay for the “subsidiary forces”. • Hyderabad was also forced to cede territories on similar grounds.
- 10. Tipu Sultan – The “Tiger of Mysore” • The Company resorted to direct military confrontation • when it saw a threat to its political or economic interests. • This can be illustrated with the case of the southern Indian state of Mysore. • Mysore had grown in strength under the leadership of powerful rulers like Haidar Ali (ruled from 1761 to 1782) and his famous son Tipu Sultan (ruled from 1782 to 1799). • Mysore controlled the profitable trade of the Malabar coast where the Company purchased pepper and cardamom. • In 1785 Tipu Sultan stopped the export of sandalwood, pepper and cardamom through the ports of his kingdom, and disallowed local merchants from • He also established a close relationship with the French in India, and modernised his army with their help. • The British were furious. • They saw Haidar and Tipu as ambitious, arrogant and dangerous – rulers who had to be controlled and crushed. Four wars were fought with Mysore (1767-69, 1780-84, 1790-92 and 1799). • Only in the last – the Battle of Seringapatam – did the Company ultimately win a victory. • Tipu Sultan was killed defending his capital Seringapatam,
- 11. War with the Marathas • From the late eighteenth century the Company also sought to curb and eventually destroy Maratha power. • With their defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the Marathas’ dream of ruling from Delhi was shattered. • They were divided into many states under different chiefs (sardars) belonging to dynasties such as Sindhia, Holkar, Gaikwad and Bhonsle. • These chiefs were held together in a confederacy under a Peshwa (Principal Minister) who became its effective military and administrative head based in Pune. • Mahadji Sindhia and Nana Phadnis were two famous Maratha soldiers and statesmen of the late eighteenth century. • In the first war that ended in 1782 with the Treaty of Salbai, there was no clear victor. • The Second Anglo Maratha War (1803-05) was fought on different fronts, resulting in the British gaining Orissa and the territories north of the Yamuna river including Agra and Delhi. • Finally, the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-19 crushed Maratha power. • The Peshwa was removed and sent away to Bithur near Kanpur with a pension. • The Company now had complete control over the territories south of the Vindhyas.
- 12. The claim to paramountcy • It is clear from the above that from the early nineteenth century the Company pursued an aggressive policy of territorial expansion. • Under Lord Hastings -1813 to 1823 a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated. • Now the Company claimed that its authority was paramount or supreme, hence its power was greater than that of Indian states. • In order to protect its interests it was justified in annexing or threatening to annex any Indian kingdom. • British tried to annex the small state of Kitoor (in Karnataka today), Rani Channamma took to arms and led an anti-British resistance movement. • She was arrested in 1824 and died in prison in 1829.
- 13. The Doctrine of Lapse • The final wave of annexations occurred under Lord Dalhousie who was the Governor-General from 1848 to 1856. • He devised a policy that came to be known as the Doctrine of Lapse. • The doctrine declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir his kingdom would “lapse”, that is, become part of Company territory. • One kingdom after another was annexed simply by applying this doctrine: Satara (1848), Sambalpur (1850), Udaipur (1852), Nagpur (1853) and Jhansi (1854). Finally, in 1856, the Company also took over Awadh. • This time the British had an added argument – they said they were “obliged by duty” to take over Awadh in order to free the people from the “misgovernment” of the Nawab! • Enraged by the humiliating way in which the Nawab was deposed, the people of Awadh joined the great revolt that broke out in 1857.
- 14. Setting up a New Administration • Warren Hastings (Governor-General from 1773 to 1785) played a significant role in the expansion of Company power. • By his time the Company had acquired power not only in Bengal, but also in Bombay and Madras. • British territories were broadly divided into administrative units called Presidencies. • Each was ruled by a Governor. • Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General, introduced several administrative reforms, notably in the sphere of justice. • From 1772 a new system of justice was established. • Each district was to have two courts – a criminal court ( faujdari adalat ) and a civil court (diwani adalat). • To bring about uniformity, in 1775 eleven pandits were asked to compile a digest 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 Act of 1773, a new Supreme Court was established, while a court of appeal – the Sadar Nizamat Adalat – was also set up at Calcutta. • The principal figure in an Indian district was the Collector & his main job was to collect revenue and taxes and maintain law and order in his district with the help of judges, police officers and darogas. • His office – the Collectorate – became the new centre of power.
- 15. The Company army • Colonial rule in India brought in some new ideas of administration and reform but its power rested on its military strength. • The Mughal army was mainly composed of cavalry and infantry soldiers. • They were given training in archery (teer-andazi) and the use of the sword. • The cavalry dominated the army and the Mughal state did not feel the need to have a large professionally trained infantry. • A change occurred in the eighteenth century when EEIC started recruiting peasants into their armies and training them as professional soldiers. • As warfare technology changed from the 1820s, the cavalry requirements of the Company’s army declined. • This is because the British empire was fighting in Burma, Afghanistan and Egypt where soldiers were armed with muskets and matchlocks. • The soldiers of the Company’s army had to keep pace with changing military requirements and its infantry regiments now became more important. • In the early nineteenth century the British began to develop a uniform military culture. Soldiers were increasingly subjected to European-style training, drill and discipline that regulated their life far more than before.
- 18. Conclusion • Thus the East India Company was transformed from a trading company to a territorial colonial power. • The arrival of new steam technology in the early nineteenth century also aided this process. • Till then it would take anywhere between six and eight months to travel to India by sea. • Steamships reduced the journey time to three weeks enabling more Britishers and their families to come to a far-off country like India. • By 1857 the Company came to exercise direct rule over about 63 per cent of the territory and 78 per cent of the population of the Indian subcontinent. • Combined with its indirect influence on the remaining territory and population of the country, the East India Company had virtually the whole of India under its control.
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