The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

It was a hugely significant moment: with one stroke of the pen, in return for a relatively modest payment of Rs2.6 million,* and Clive’s cynical promise on behalf of the Company to govern ‘agreeably to the rules of Mahomed and the law of the Empire’, the Emperor agreed to recognise all the Company’s conquests and hand over to it financial control of all north-eastern India. Henceforth, 250 East India Company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 Indian sepoys would now run the finances of India’s three richest provinces, effectively ending independent government in Bengal for 200 years. For a stock market-listed company with profit as its main raison d’être, this was a transformative, revolutionary moment. Even though the Company’s military power was now placed within a ritualised Mughal framework, the radical change on the ground brought about by what the Company referred to as the Treaty of Allahabad was immediately apparent. As the Riyazu-s-salatin noted shortly afterwards: ‘The English have now acquired dominion over the three subahs [provinces] and have appointed their own district officers, they make assessments and collections of revenue, administer justice, appoint and dismiss collectors and perform other functions of governance. The sway and authority of the English prevails … and their soldiers are quartering themselves everywhere in the dominions of the Nawab, ostensibly as his servants, but acquiring influence over all affairs. Heaven knows what will be...