The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

After the Battle of Plassey in 1757 – a victory that owed as much to treachery, forged contracts, bankers and bribes as it did to military prowess – he transferred to the EIC treasury no less than £2.5 million

The transfer took place privately, inside Clive’s tent, which had just been erected on the parade ground of the newly seized Mughal fort at Allahabad

India then had a population of 150 million – about a fifth of the world’s total – and was producing about a quarter of global manufacturing; indeed, in many ways it was the world’s industrial powerhouse and the world’s leader in manufactured textiles.

England then had just 5 per cent of India’s population and was producing just under 3 per cent of the world’s manufactured goods.

Mughals kept a staggering 4 million men under arms.

Around a dozen Hindu temples across the country were destroyed, and in 1672 he issued an order recalling all endowed land given to Hindus and reserved all future land grants for Muslims. In 1679 the Emperor reimposed the jizya tax on all non-Muslims that had been abolished by Akbar; he also executed Teg Bahadur, the ninth of the gurus of the Sikhs.

credit networks of a family of Marwari Oswal Jain financiers, originally from Nagaur in Jodhpur state,

the access these Marwari bankers gave the EIC to streams of Indian finance, would radically change the course of Indian history.

treat us with indulgence, they whisper, or we take our business elsewhere.

looting and burning the suburban villages of Malcha, Tal Katora, Palam and Mehrauli,

Qu’tb Minar, the victory tower which marked the arrival of the first Islamic conquerors of India 600 years earlier.

Ile de Bourbon – modern Mauritius

The standard infantry tactic was now a bayonet charge after devastating volley firing, supported by mobile and accurate field artillery.

Clive lost much of his baggage off Brazil, then managed to fall overboard and narrowly avoided drowning; he was only spotted by a sailor entirely by chance, fished out and saved.

He was lonely, homesick and miserable. Before long he had developed a profound hatred for India that never left him.

he turned his innate violence on himself and attempted suicide.

its people whom he dismissed as universally ‘indolent, luxurious, ignorant and cowardly’.

for the first time started training up their own sepoys – at first mainly Telugu-speakers – and drilling them to fight in infantry formations, supported by mobile European field artillery.

The Marathas followed a scorched-earth policy, burning the neighbouring villages to prevent grain from reaching the enemy.

Marathas ‘are niggard of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans

two-thirds of the Company servants who came out never made it back

25 per cent of European soldiers died each year.

This thoughtless young man had no real talent for government. He ruled only by inspiring fear, but at the same time he was known to be the most cowardly of men.

He was by nature rash, but lacking in courage, was stubborn and irresolute.

It was the Prince’s ill fate that he was born during an era when naked aggression and brute force seemed to yield more reliable results

‘Without them the English would never have carried out what they have. The cause of the English had become that of the Seths.’

Clive sent angry messages forward, threatening to arrest Kilpatrick for insubordination; but the act of disobedience won the battle.

Mir Jafar was handed by Clive onto the masnad, the throne platform, and saluted by him as Governor.

The pair then went straight to pay their respects to the man who had put both where they were now: Mahtab Rai Jagat Seth.

‘But she declined and sent this reply: “having ridden an elephant before, I cannot now agree to ride an ass.”’

The Company’s plunder of the same region a decade later was more orderly and methodical,

but its greed was arguably deadlier

It initiated a period of unbounded looting and asset-stripping by the Company which the British themselves described as ‘the shaking of the pagoda tree’.

If anyone had changed it was in reality the smugly victorious and now supremely wealthy Clive.

nature & dispositions of these Musselmen: gratitude they have none; [they are] bare Men of very narrow conceptions, and have adopted a system of Politicks more peculiar to this Country than any other, viz: to attempt everything through treachery rather than force.

British soldiers and traders permit themselves all sorts of liberties in the pursuit of private profit or in the hope of impunity. I have seen some so far forget their duty, that they beat to death unfortunate Indians to extract money not owed to them.

Mir Atish,’ wrote Law, ‘that is Master of Mughal Artillery,

As with the failure to keep up momentum after the victory outside Patna, it gave Shah Alam’s opponents time to catch up and regroup.

violent and rapacious way private Company traders

‘If our people instead of erecting themselves into lords and oppressors of the country, confine themselves to an honest and fair trade, they will everywhere be courted and respected.’

Their army scum – dark, low-caste sepoys from Telengana – set about plundering goods from shops, dispersing across the city, pillaging the homes of innocent citizens.

was obliged to borrow great sums of money from their servants at eight per cent interest,

Forty-five Company servants perished in what came to be known by the British as the Patna Massacre.

In the end it was, as ever, the superior discipline of the Company’s troops that won them the day. Munro liked to remind his troops that ‘regular discipline and strict obedience to orders is the only superiority that Europeans possess in this country’,

There are, perhaps, few events in history more remarkable than these transactions. Results so disproportionate to the means which produced them seem quite inexplicable.’

the best gamekeeper is a former poacher.

Aware of the positive effect this would have on the Company’s share price, Clive’s first action was to write secretly in cipher to his agent in London to mortgage all his property and to buy as many Company shares as possible.

Bengal. Clive took great care to distance the EIC from the humdrum affairs of daily administration: even the existing methods of revenue collection were maintained, run out of Murshidabad offices that were still entirely staffed with Mughal officials. But frock-coated

the Company no longer had to ship anything from Britain in order to pay for the textiles, spices and saltpetre it wished to buy and export: Indian tax revenues were now being used to provide the finance for all such purchases.

‘it must give pain to an Englishman to think that since the accession of the Company to the Diwani, the condition of the people of the country has been worse than it was before;