First of all, I apologise to all historians of India. I am of mixed heritage, Indian and English and my Indian family has always been an important part of my life and my personal history.
One relic of the Raj is that Anglo-Indians were always considered villains in novels at that time. Even in a film with Kenneth More, called North-West Frontier, the villain was an Anglo-Indian played by Herbert Lom. So as the villain of the piece, I write a very simplified history of the British Raj, one that should shame us all.
The East India Company – 1757- 1858
To put the East India Company into perspective, I am going to use a modern company today as an example. Take BP, the oil company. If BP were to behave like the East India Company, it would behave even more badly than it does at the moment. This a scenario and of course not true.
The first thing that would happen is that BP would invade a country with its own mercenaries. It would fight battles and eventually have its own armies with local armies. It would be a law unto itself with the support of the British government, but the Company would have total control.
When the East India Company arrived with its mercenaries to loot and steal from India, one would never realise that a British company would rule India for a hundred years with no controls over it, and government support.
The company and its mercenaries fought the battle of Plassey and won. This was their first step into India. Under the leadership of Robert Clive they beat the Nawab of Bengal with his French allies.
In 1793, they made Calcutta the capital of India under their power. The EIC appointed its own Governor General, Warren Hastings. During those 100 years, there were several of them and the last was Charles Canning.
The company’s power was only brought down after the Indian Rebellion in 1857, the power was handed over to the British Government when the British Raj began. They made English the official language of India.
The Company caused a great deal of damage in India during those 100 years. They were responsible for a famine in Bengal from 1769 – 1770. 7 to 10 million people died.
Demands for revenue for the Company meant that the Indian peasants had little protection and had to pay more and more money to it. The Brahmin and Kayastha employees of the Company made sure that they could buy up the land and they had a good system of ownership for the Company. This soon became a system of tenant farmers.
The Company was forever seeking more and more power and wealth in India. With the support of Britain and its military, they fought wars and rebellions to keep the status quo.
During three decades of the 18th Century, Robert Clive led armies for the Company to fight against the Kingdom of Mysore. It took three Anglo-Mysore wars for the Company to win.
In the 1850s, there were scandals when the Company’s revenue agents used torture to meet the Company’s demands for money.
During that time, there was also the Vellore mutiny. This South India city had to cope with a one day mutiny against the Company. The mutineers seized the fort and killed or wounded 200 British troops.
The total in death of the suffering mutineers was 350, and 100 were summarily executed after no trial.
The company by this time had the largest standing army in the world of 154,500 Indian soldiers, or sepoys as they were known. Could you ever envision BP having the largest standing army in the world? That comparison shows just how monstrous the Company was.
It continued annexing other parts of India and, due to that, the Anglo-Sikh war took place in 1846. It saw India as its own country.
Various events due to the Company, over the last years of its power, led, eventually, to the Indian rebellion.
- Indian resentment for the British revenge for the Cawnpore massacre
- British soldiers committed atrocities and rapes against Indian women
- Harsh land taxes
- Appalling treatment of Indian princes
- General Neill massacred thousands of mutineers and civilians
- British reprisals meant entire villages were razed to the ground
- Delhi and Lucknow were laid waste by the British
- Some Indian states supported the British
- There were revolts against British oppression
- There was unrest
- Leaders were being executed
- Caste system was an issue
- The economic policies of the Company were very ant-Indian
- The Justice system was anti-Indian
- Their religious traditions were under threat
- The Company continued with torture
There were so many different things going on that the Indian soldiers themselves were extremely unhappy. Then the final straw!
There were already grievances of British oppression of Indian troops. The last thing was the rifle. The cartridges for the sepoys’ rifles were pre-greased with both beef and pork animal fat, thereby offending both Hindu and Muslim soldiers.
They had to bite the cartridges to release the gunpowder. The military secretary then urged that they be de-greased which convinced the sepoys that the rumours were true.
The Indian rebellion started in a small way and then started to spread. It posed a considerable threat to British power and was eventually contained the following year. The British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder.
This was the end of Company rule in India and the transfer of rule took place to the British Crown. The British Raj rule began.
