"The Anarchy - The East India Company, Corporate violence, and the Pillage of an Empire" by William Dalrymple

Above: "The Anarchy - The East India Company, Corporate violence, and the Pillage of an Empire" William Dalrymple - 397 Pages.

In 1617, the date when Moghul Emperor Jahangir, granted the EIC trading rights, the Moghul Empire accounted for a fifth of the world’s population and a quarter of the globe’s manufactured goods, while England, with a 20th of India’s population, produced three per cent of the world’s manufactured goods.

I completed reading this book today.

The East India Company (EIC) was an English company formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India. Incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600, it was started as a monopolistic trading body so that England could participate in the East Indian spice trade. It also traded cotton, silk, indigo, saltpeter, and tea and transported slaves. It became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century.

"The Anarchy" summarizes the history of the EIC from the time of its founding in 1600, then called "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies" to its name change to EIC in 1717 and then to1803. It took two hundred years for England's first joint stock company to gain effective political control of India, with its own army that by 1802 had grown to two hundred sixty thousand strong soldiers, Indian Sepoys, British and Scottish troops.

The period of EIC hegemony in India between the beginning of the nineteenth century and 1857, the year of "the Sepoy Mutiny" if you are British, or "The First War of Indian Independence" if you are Indian, is covered only cursorily in the book. The final almost six decades of the EIC's control over India, was a quiet period of EIC administration, and an overall decline in EIC influence. So, don't read this book if you are hoping to find a comprehensive account of the Mutiny/Rebellion.

In 1617, the date when Mogul Emperor Jahangir, granted the EIC trading rights, the Mogul Empire accounted for a fifth of the world’s population and a quarter of the globe’s manufactured goods, while England, with a 20th of India’s population, produced three per cent of the world’s manufactured goods.

One of the book's plates shows a painting of Mogul Emperor Jahangir and King James (they were never together... artist's license). Jahangir sits large on a pedestal surrounded by his Imam and other sycophants. King James is painted, half size, in the lower left corner of the painting. The the artist's intent is to show how James I fits, in relative importance, to Jahangir's powerful and wealthy Mughal domain. Jahangir, a benevolent emperor, was fascinated with the outside world and Christianity. His worldly curiosity was in large part responsible for his permitting the Christian British to trade in Moghul India.

During its first century of operation, the focus of the EIC was trade, not the building of an empire in India.

Following the First Anglo-Mughal War (1686 to 1690), the EIC interests turned from trade to territory at the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the EIC struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s.

The battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) in which the EIC defeated the Nawabs of Bengal, left the EIC in control of the industrializing Moghul Bengal, with the right to collect revenue, and as a major military and political power in India.

In the following decades the EIC gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, controlling the majority of the Indian subcontinent, either directly or indirectly, via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies which were composed of native Indian sepoys.

By 1803, at the apex of its power in India, the EIC had a private army of about 260,000—twice the size of the British Army. The EIC eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and seizing administrative functions. EIC rule in India effectively began in 1757 and lasted until 1858, when, following the Indian Rebellion in 1857, the Government of India Act led to the British Crown's assuming direct control of the Indian subcontinent in the form of the new British Raj.

Robert Clive, EIC military commander who with EIC troops defeated the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in 1757, became one of the wealthiest men in the world... the Bill Gates of his day, when he shared in the tribute demanded of the defeated Nawab of Bengal.

From 1669 to 1771 famine plagued India. Deaths in Bengal were estimated to be at ten million souls, one third of the population. Critics of the British role in India have scored the EIC for its cavalier and insouciant treatment of the locals during the famine, while continuing to remit sizeable EIC profits back to London.

The EIC, abandoning local Indians at time of need and building up unprecedented levels of wealth, continuing to remit profits to individuals and shareholders during these famines is where Dalrymple begins to credibly build his story about the evils of unrestrained EIC corporate greed. He draws modern day parallels to EIC behavior and argues for a stronger restraining force by governments to reign in the worst aspects of capitalism

During a June 2029 webinar hosted by Park City ROMEO group, La Societe Deux Magots, I asked guest speaker, Indian businessman Jerry Rao about the long term effects of the EIC role in India. "Well, he said, "if you are a Hindu, you should be happy with the British contribution to India. We're it not for the British, all Indians would be Muslim." Jerry Rao added that Britain brought a common language to India, an effective civil service, the first efforts to understand Indian history, a railroad network and a military. "Don't read Dalrymple's book," said Jerry. "It's a waste of time Dalrymple is a flaming leftist with a harsh view of Britain's colonial role in shaping modern India."
After Robert Clive, came Warren Hastings who became the first Governor-General of India in 1773, a position which he held until 1774. Unlike most of the other EIC leaders over the two EIC centuries, Hastings, a quiet unassuming type who kept to himself when not working, loved India. Hastings was successful in consolidating the EIC's control in India, removing power from the Nawab of Bengal and crippling the Mughal Empire. Hastings waged war and formed alliances to expand the EIC's control of India. He tried to build a better understanding of India in the minds of his countrymen back home.

Hastings wanted to let India, culturally anyway, be India. His successors, however, launched decades of "reforms" meant to westernize the sub-continent. More than anything, it was this cultural pressure to westernize India, that led to the Indian Mutiny in 1857.

The impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt between 1788 and 1795 to impeach the first Governor-General of Bengal in the Parliament of Great Britain. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal corruption.

The Hastings impeachment proceedings, the hottest ticket in London, was led by Edmund Burke.

The Hastings impeachment trial opened up a wider debate about the role of the East India Company and its expanding empire in India. Dalrymple devotes a full chapter to the impeachment hearings of Hastings. The Hastings impeachment marked the beginning of a growing cynicism amongst British politicians and the British public about whether or not a corporation should have so much power.

Lord Richard Wellesley served as the Governor General of India from 1798-1805 AD after Lord Cornwallis (who lost Yorktown to George Washington) and Sir John Shore. He was an Irish and British politician and colonial administrator. Lord Wellesley was an excellent administrator who came to India in 1798 at a time when the British were locked in a life and death struggle with France all over the world. During his period, the once mighty Mughal Empire was now tamed, Wellesley set his sights on acquiring new territory on the Indian sub-continent for the EIC.

Tipu Sultan also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a pioneer of rocket artillery. He introduced a number of administrative innovations during his rule, including a new coinage system and calendar, and a new land revenue system which initiated the growth of the Mysore silk industry.

Tipu was aligned with the French and a regular correspondent with Napoleon. Arthur Wellesley, who later eclipsed the fame his brother as The Duke of Wellington, author of Napoleon's downfall, was a young, highly resented by his peers, Brigadier in his brother's Army. Arthur Wellesley fought against Tipu at the sieige of Siringapatnam in 1799, which battle resulted in Tipu's death.

Circa 2017, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) visited Tipu Sultan's summer palace restoration in Bangalore.

I recently completed reading a historical novel, "Sharpe's Tiger," by Bernard Cornwell, about the campaigns leading up to the siege of Siringapatnam.

Following Seringapatnam, in September 1802, Wellesley learned that he had been promoted to the rank of major-general. He remained at Mysore until November when he was sent to command an army in the Second Anglo-Maratha War.

The Moguls now neutered, and Tipu Sultan of Mysore dead, the Maratha Empire, was the last remaining major, independent Indian power for the EIC to subdue. The single most important power to emerge in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Maratha confederacy. Initially deriving from the western Deccan, the Marathas were a peasant warrior group that rose to prominence during the rule in Western India.

In August 1803, Arthur Wellesley defeated the Marathas at Assaye. Wellesley (Wellington) later remarked that Assaye was his greatest victory.

1803. India was now the EIC's. End of book, but for ruminations in the Epilogue about the evils of unrestrained capitalism. But, I've already talked about that.

Look. If you admire the British colonial role in Asia you'll probably not like Dalrymple's spin. Notwithstanding, the narrative on the myriad of fascinating individual players, intrigue, betrayal, torture, violence, laciviousness, and take-no-prisoners battles fills in some gaps on important history about which most of us Westerners know little. If you have the time, read it. Its been fairly highly acclaimed by elite critics, most of whom, of course likely share Dalrymple's anti capitalist bent.