Impact of East India Company 's administration
IMPACT OF East India Company
Impact on Indian states due to Company trade and rule
In 1600, the East India company acquired a charter from Queen Elizabeth to trade with the east. The first English factory was set up on the banks of the Hugli in 1651. They also got a farman from emperor Aurangzeb to trade duty free. After the death of Aurangzeb, independent Indian states assumed control as the Mughal empire weakened. The Bengal nawabs asserted their power; Murshid Quli Khan was followed by Alivardi Khan and then Sirajuduallah as the Nawab of Bengal. They denied the company concessions, demanded large tributes and denied the right to trade. The East India Company decreed removal of duties and it was also convinced that to expand trade, it had to enlarge settlements, buy up villages and rebuild forts. The conflicts culminated in the battle of Plassey in 1757 after which Sirajudalah was assassinated and Mir Jafar was made the Nawab and later in 1765 the Company became the Diwan of the provinces of Bengal. It allowed the company to use the resources of Bengal. After 1764, the company appointed residents in Indian states leading to interference in their internal affairs. It was the Subsidiary alliance put forward by then Viceroy Lord Wellesley. As an Indian state entered the alliance, they were not supposed to have independent armed forces. They were to be protected by the East India Company and had to pay for the company forces, if payment was not made, the territory was taken away.
Direct military confrontation of Company with Indian states
The East India Company resorted to direct military confrontation due to threat to economic interests. Mysore had grown as a powerful state under Haider Ali. It controlled the trade of Malabar coast of pepper and cardamom. In 1785, Tipu Sultan stopped the export of sandalwood, pepper and cardamom through the ports of his kingdom. The British were really enraged and fought four wars from 1767 to 1799 after which they were crushed. Mysore was placed under Wadeyars and a subsidiary alliance was imposed.
Wars with the Marathas
From the late eighteenth century, the company wanted to curb and destroy the Marathas who had become a powerful state after the Mughals. They were defeated in 1761 by the invasion of Ahmad Shah Abdali. They were divided into many states under different states under different chiefs in a confederacy under a Peshwa who became an effective military head based in Pune. The Marathas were subdued and crushed in 1782 in a series of wars with the treaty of Salbai.
Aggressive Expansion of Indian states
In the period of 1830’s Russia became a source of worry due to which they fought a series of wars with Afghanistan between 1838 and 1842 and established indirect company rule later Punjab in 1849.
Doctrine of Lapse
A wave of annexations of Indian states occurred under Lord Wellesley from 1848 to 1856, he devised a policy known as Doctrine of Lapse which decreed that if an Indian ruler died without a heir, his territory was lapse to the Company ex- Satara ( 1848), Sambhalpur( 1850) , Udaipur , Nagpur ( 1853) and Jhansi ( 1854) and in 1856 Awadh was also annexed citing misrule enraging the people and leading to the revolt of 1857.
Economic Impact of British rule
The Industrialisation of Britain coincided with the conquest and colonisation of India. In the late eighteenth century, the Company was buying goods in India and exported them to England and all over Europe. As industrial production grew, British industrialists began to see India as a vast market for industrial products.
Indian textiles and world market
Before the East India company conquered Bengal, India was the world’s largest producer of cotton textiles due to its quality and workmanship. They were traded in South East Asia. From the sixteenth century, European traders began to buy Indian textiles for sale in European markets. But, by the early eighteenth century, the popularity of Indian textiles worried wool and silk makers in England. In 1720, the British government enacted a legislation banning the use of printed cotton textiles called chintz in England. At this time, textile industries were just developing in England. English traders wanted a secure market for their textiles which were imitated and printed in England on white muslin cloth. In 1764, the spinning jenny was invented by John Kaye increasing the productivity of traditional spindles.
Decline of Indian textiles
The development of cotton industries had a disastrous impact on textile producers in India in several ways. First, they had to compete with British textiles in European and American markets. Second, export of Indian textiles to Britain became difficult due to imposition of high duties. With the beginning of the nineteenth century, English goods ousted Indian cotton goods from their traditional markets in Africa, America and Europe. Thousands of weavers in India lost their livelihood. English and European companies stopped buying Indian goods and the weavers did not get advances for supplies. Weavers became agricultural labourers, others migrated to cities and worked in cotton mills in Sholapur, Nagpur and Kanpur which produced raw cotton. Peasants had to rely solely on cultivation. India became an agricultural colony which supported Britain's expansion by providing raw materials.
Impact on agriculture and peasantry
The peasants were severely impacted due to British rule; earlier peasants were the owners of land, now with the new systems of revenue, zamindars and middle men held sway. The Permanent Settlement enacted in 1793 by Lord Cornawallis had far reaching impact in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Zamindars were given hereditary succession due to which they could oppress the peasantry at will, they could transfer the land. Land assessment was not done properly. It was overcharged leading to peasants depending on money lenders for loans and debts. The revenue rates were too high leading to the Bengal famine. People died in millions in droughts and famines leading to impoverishment of peasantry.
Social Reform movements
Indian society was riddled with archaic customs such as Sati, child marriage and plight of widows was horrible which led to social reform movements in the nineteenth century in Bengal and many other states of India which were supported by certain Britishers such as William Darymple and Lord William Bentick who abolished Sati which was met by opposition by Indian people but support by Indian intellectuals who wanted to develop India such as Raja Ram Mohun Roy who was particularly moved by the plight of widow. He began a campaign against Sati. In 1829 sati was banned. Ram Mohun Roy formed the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta. He was keen to spread Western education and wanted greater freedom and equality for women. He tried to show through his writings that widow burning had no sanction in Indian texts. One of the other famous reformers was Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar who campaigned for widow remarriage. His suggestion was adopted and in 1856, widow remarriage was legalised.
Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar set up schools for girls. People were afraid of these schools. They felt that girls would be led away from their home and domestic duties. Schools for girls were established by Jyotibha Phule and Arya Samaj established by Swami Dayananad Saraswati.
By 1880’s Indian women began to enter universities. Some trained to be doctors and teachers. Many women began to write and publish critical views on the place of women such as Tarabai Shinde published a book called Stripustulna which criticised differences between men and women. Pandita Ramabai a great scholar of Sanskrit wrote a book on the miserable lives of upper class Hindu women. She also founded a widow home at Pune to provide shelter to widows and trained to become economically independent.
All these reforms alarmed the orthodox section leading to unrest and agitation, according to them, this would corrupt Hindu culture and people would adopt western ways of thinking. Economic causes, social and political causes were an impact of the East India company and later British rule into the Revolt of 1857.
