Episode 24 The British East India Company
A History of India
Michael Fisher (2016)
Between 1757-1857 the British East India Company conquered all of India, an area (1.5 million square miles) larger than western Europe with a far greater population.* Unlike other British colonies, India was never a white settler colony, hosting no more than a few thousand British officials and military officers throughout the 18th and 19th century.
As many British lawmakers opposed imperialism based on military conquest, the colonial takeover of India began incrementally as growing numbers of native merchants, soldiers and servants finding employment with the British East India Company.
After the embarrassing 1756 Black Hole of Calcutta incident (where the Nawab of Bengal held Company troops as prisoners of war), the British parliament became even more squeamish about British forces (either governmental or those commanded by the Company) acquiring Indian territory by force. British commander Robert Clive ultimately conquered Bengal for the British East India Company in 1757 by bribing one of the opposing generals not to fight.
The Company’s control over India’s economy (via their monopoly over cotton and spice exports) ultimately enabled them to control a number Mughal kingdoms without conquering them military. In 1772-73 Clive, who became enormously wealthy, was investigated for corruption and relieved of his command.
In 1774 Prime Minister William Pitt passed the India Act, which specifically military annexation of additional Indian territories by either British forces of the British East India Company. The Company largely ignored the new law. Once they controlled India’s richest province Bengal, they had enough money of their own to pay their sepoy mercenaries to annex other kingdoms. Initially Company officials who annexed new territory were recalled to Britain and prosecuted. However the land they seized was never returned to native rulers.
In an effort to reign in the Company’s military activities, Britain appointed a series of governors general (of Bengal). The first, in 1772, was a former British East India company employee named Warren Hastings, who became extremely rich annexing territory through military expeditions and was ultimately impeached in the House of Commons. He was tried in the House of Lords, where it took 10 years for him to be acquitted.
The second, in 1786, was General Charles Cornwallis.** Cornwallis frequently used security as an excuse to invade and annex territories adjacent to those owned by the company. In 1805 he was forced to resign for excessive military zeal.
Provincial warlords, who had a long history of fighting with each other, found it impossible to unify against systematic dispossession of their land, especially when those who opposed the British ended up worse off than those who collaborated. India’s deteriorating economy made this even more difficult, especially when the British East India Company began shipping raw cotton to England for processing, putting thousands of Indian weavers out of work.
In 1820 the British East India Company was also awarded a monopoly on the opium trade.
*India had a population of 270 million in 1800, in contrast to Europe’s 180 million.
**Historically Cornwallis is best known for surrendering to American revolutionaries at Yorktown in 1781.
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