The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

As Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi put it, ‘disorder and corruption no longer sought to hide themselves and the once peaceful realm of India became the abode of Anarchy (dâr al-amn-i Hindûstân dâr al-fitan gasht). In time, there was no real substance to the Mughal monarchy, it had faded to a mere name or shadow.’6

almost all eyewitnesses of late eighteenth-century India remark, over and over again, on the endless bloodshed and chaos of the period, and the difficulty of travelling safely through much of the country without a heavily armed escort.

Banditry became endemic: in the mid-1690s the Italian traveller Giovanni Gemelli Careri complained that Mughal India did not offer travellers ‘safety from thieves’.

which directly led to one of the oddest events in world history: a trading company based in one small building in the City of London defeating, usurping and seizing power from the once-mighty Mughal Empire.

what really attracted Indians to this foreign-owned Company town was the sense that it was safe and secure.