Colonization of India
Overview
Introduction
The British colonization provided a model of European colonization. The lessons that the British learned from the American colonization would prove to be important during the colonization of the Indian Subcontinent. The English were interested in gaining goods from the Indian colonial world. The English were interested in gaining a foothold in China. As the 19th century grew, the British became more and more interested in India as a site of resource and goods.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the causes of the problems of the Mughal Empire before the British arrival.
- Evaluate the differences in the English colonization of South Asia and North America.
The Mughal Dynasty
The Mughal Dynasty is an important part to understanding how the British came to gain power in South Asia. Since the Middle Ages, Asia was one of the most important economic and political regions in the world. For many Europeans, the big goal of exploration was always to gain more of an economic footprint in China because of the trade goods. The reason the British were interested in India was the fact that it was a gateway to China and had been since the Middle Ages and Early Modern World, when Europeans attempted to integrate many Chinese resources into their own systems. Due to this trade China proclaimed itself the “Center of the World”; however, India was a periphery that was rich with resources as well. South Asia was also attractive to many Europeans because of the goods that could be procured there, and cotton was the chief among them. This led Britain to desiring control of the area, in one form or another.
During the Middle Ages, the Delhi Sultanate was the regional power in the subcontinent. The Delhi Sultanate began in 1206 CE when the Muslim kingdoms in the Pashtun region of modern Afghanistan invaded the Indian Subcontinent; this made the Sultanate an important trade partner for the region because the biggest export of the Delhi Sultanate was cotton—a material that is light weight and proved to be excellent as a material for textiles. This was the economic engine of the Delhi Sultanate that would reign for close to 300 years.
The problems that the Delhi Sultanate faced, at first, were mostly cultural. The major religion of the Indian Subcontinent in the Middle Ages was Hindu—the polytheistic religion that emerged in ancient India. The Delhi Sultanate was mostly Muslim. While it might be easy to point out the antagonisms that would be present in the modern world when a new religion is introduced through rulers, the introduction of Islam to the Indian Subcontinent was important but did not provide major difficulties for the Delhi Sultanate’s reign. The Delhi Sultanate, instead mostly suffered from the problem of integrating their wants to expand throughout the southern Deccan region of India and the abilities to pay for it.
The Delhi Sultanate was a conglomeration of princes and princely states that allied together with the sultan at the top of the political hierarchy. These princely states allied because of an economic promise made to them: every year, for the princes’ support, the sultan would increase the prince’s land holdings. At first, this arrangement was very suitable for both sides, because the Delhi Sultanate was to stay in the northern regions, where there was many great farmlands. The problem was, over 300 years, the northern region of India was conquered and brought into the Delhi Sultanate, which meant that there were no more lands easy to conquer in the Indian Subcontinent. The Himalayan Mountains that were to the north were a significant barrier and the region to the west was a desert; the eastern border was very difficult to move large armies through and would have been in direct conflict with China. This left moving south into the Deccan as the only real option for the Delhi Sultanate.
The problem that the Delhi Sultanate faced was the need to expand, but the location for expansion was incredibly costly and dangerous. The Deccan proved not ideal for military action; it was very hot, with limited resources for conquering armies, and indigenous populations were resistant to integration. Princely states, who found conquering the Deccan too costly, began to rebel, which significantly weakened the power of the Delhi Sultanate by the beginning of the 16th century.
As the Delhi Sultanate began to fracture, there was another group that was posed to take over. In the western regions of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, there was a new kingdom that was beginning to emerge as a power center—a kingdom led by Babur. Babur (1483 – 1530 CE)—a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan—was known as the first of the Mughal Emperors that would eventual come to rule all of India. He was a devout Muslim and approached colonization in a pragmatic fashion. Babur saw his opening as the Delhi Sultanate was weakening and decided that this was the proper time to launch an attack. He was successful in conquering the northern region of the Indian Subcontinent, as he was able to get aid from the Safavid and Ottoman Empires to successfully defeat the Delhi Sultanate.
Babur combined Persian culture and forces to create a successful empire that he reigned over for only a few years before he died at the age of 47 in 1530 CE. Babur reigned for a very short time and established the idea of treating Islamic and Hindu cultures the same. Babur was succeeded by his eldest son Humayun, who lost parts of Babur’s conquest in India. Humayun proved to have significant political problems and his death in 1556 CE elevated his son Akbar to be the next emperor.
Akbar (reigned 1556 – 1605 CE) is generally considered to be one of the best Mughal Emperors because of his ability to finally conquer the Deccan region, to stabilize the internal conflicts that plagued Humayun, and integrated the Hindu and Islamic populations together. One of the keys to Akbar’s success was his abilities to treat both the Muslim and Hindu populations as equals. If a Muslim population asked for money to build a mosque, Akbar gave the same amount of money to Hindu groups to build temples. This integration and treatment of both the Islamic and Hindi populations as equals meant that the Mughal Empire was built with integration in mind instead of division. This would be a foundational difference between the Mughal and the British colonizations. Akbar’s almost 50-year reign proved to be one of the most stable periods of the Mughal Empire. Following Akbar’s death in the early 17th century, the Mughal Empire saw significant problems with the leadership that caused direct consequences for the stability of the territory.
The next Mughal Emperor after Akbar was Jahangir (1605 – 1627 CE), who was a very powerful leader and military conqueror. Jahangir’s name meant “the world-conqueror” or “world-Seizer” in Persian. Jahangir was an important leader for the Indian subcontinent because he was powerful and united significant territory inside of the subcontinent, and he expanded the Mughal Empire in the southern reaches of the Deccan. The British became very interested in exploring and expanding their territorial empire in the Indian subcontinent in the early 17th century, and Jahangir kept a separation between the British and the Mughal Empire. He maintained a favorable relationship with the British while keeping the British at an arm’s length.
Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan also achieved territorial expansion and power in the Indian Subcontinent. Shah Jahan is known as the creator of the Taj Mahal, which was a mausoleum for his wife. The building of the Taj Mahal required many resources and demonstrated the wealth and power of the Mughal Empire of the time period. Shah Jahan was able to rule as an effective leader throughout the 17th century and saw the Mughal Empire grow in economic trading patterns with Europeans.
The end of Shah Jahan’s reign is very important to how the English grew their own empire in the Indian Subcontinent. Shah Jahan became intensely focused on honoring and developing the Taj Mahal and this took so much of his resources and time that in the last few years of his reign he did not focus on other rising issues. At the same time, the English were very interested in growing their political and economic interests on the Indian Subcontinent and other European powers were trying to take over the subcontinent as well. With Shah Jahan’s focus on the development and integration of the Deccan region in Southeastern Asia and on the Taj Mahal, European powers, such as Portugal and Holland (the Dutch), were able to gain access and attempt to develop positions of power on the subcontinent. The Portuguese and Dutch were two of the key traders on the Indian Subcontinent at the time.
As Shah Jahan was slowly loosing power in his last years, his two sons, Aurangzeb and Dara were vying for power. Dara was Shah Jahan’s favorite son, a courtly individual who had limited success on the battlefield. Aurangzeb was a highly decorated military leader with significant experience in battles and leadership. Aurangzeb and Dara began fighting between one another; this eventually led to Aurangzeb ordering his men to have brought Dara’s head to him as proof that Dara was dead. Shah Jahan witnessed Dara’s head being delivered to Aurangzeb and passed out.
Aurangzeb is often thought of as the last significantly important political leader of the Mughal Empire. The power of Aurangzeb was very important to the Indian subcontinent. The economic and political growth of the Mughal empire was very important during this period, as new markets provided a positive expansion of Mughal products. But there were three decisions that Aurangzeb made that had a deep impact on the Mughal Empire, and subsequently the British colonization of India. The first was that Aurangzeb was instrumental in expanding southward to the Deccan region; this was an important test of the alliance system that the Mughal empire had integrated from the Delhi Sultanate and meant that Aurangzeb was constantly at battle and needed significant funds for these expeditions. The second consequential decision that Aurangzeb made was the push for more Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent by conversion; this would mean that the Muslim population of 31% would grow significantly, as well as a push back from the Hindu population that felt threatened by this new goal of Aurangzeb. The Mughal Empire long rested their political and social integration of Islamic and Hindi populations together, and this was a direct challenge that would prove to be a major change in those relationships that the British would further exploit in their conquests. The third consequential decision of Aurangzeb was allowing the British to maintain and integrate positions of power on the Indian Subcontinent. Aurangzeb was so centered on his own conquests that the British requests for establishing bases and regions of power were granted as almost an afterthought. By allowing the British to establish forts and trading posts in cities, he allowed the British to leverage those political and economic power situations for their own purposes. This would give them a home base in which to trade further.
In response to Aurangzeb’s permissions, the British quickly established the cities of Calcutta and Bangladesh. These two centers of trade would have economic consequences because the British were not only establishing trading posts, but these became militarized area, complete with fortresses. The militarization was a very important part of how the British would become a regional territorial power as the Mughal Empire disintegrated more and more following Aurangzeb’s rule.
The leaders following Aurangzeb had many problems, mostly they lacked the political and military experience to fight back against other regional powers and address the growing British foothold. Following Aurangzeb’s death there was a political struggle between Aurangzeb’s sons and Shah Jahan’s sons; the consequence was a politically divided and fractured Mughal Empire. The resulting chaos meant that there were two noblemen brothers—Husain and Hasan Ali—who were interested in getting more political power. This struggle for power went as far as hiring assassins to kill the Mughal Emperors.
As the Mughal Empire slowly started to devolve with internal political turmoil, outsiders saw their opening to attack and gain political power for themselves. Farrukhsiyar was a Persian prince who wanted to gain a part of the Mughal Empire’s political power. Farrukhsiyar invaded the subcontinent and was welcomed by the Ali brothers. Farruksiyar was successful and would be a long serving emperor in the Indian subcontinent, although he was controversial at the time because he promoted the Sunni faith on the subcontinent. The British East India company also gained more political power in the region when Farruksiyar gave them a formal right to reside and trade in the Mughal Empire and gave them a yearly payment. Following Farrukhsiyar, political and economic turmoil increased in the Mughal Empire, resulting in a more direct challenge by the British East India Company.
Like the American colonization by the British, at the center of their initial reasons for being in the region were purely economic. Many of the early British merchants were at the outskirts of Indian society, and they were looking to gain goods and resources to bring back to the English countryside. These goods included cotton and spices. Cotton was the backbone of the transformation of the English textile industry and the earliest seeds of industrialization. These British merchants originally suffered what they perceived as unfair and unequal laws because the taxes by the Mughal Empire were significant and the Mughal Empire did not allow for many British merchant trade rights. When Aurangzeb allowed the British to trade on the subcontinent and build fortresses in Calcutta and Bangledesh, this allowed the British began to expand their trade and push the Portuguese out of their trading posts in the subcontinent. The British merchants also attempted to stop their French rivals from having trade access but did not accomplish this during the Mughal Empire.
While the British East India Company was formed in 1600 CE, Indian Subcontinent merchants quickly became the central force of power. As the political turmoil at the top of the Mughal Empire started to become clear to the British, the merchants began to band together and reform the British East India Company. The British East India Company maintained a formal monopoly on the goods leaving India by British ships, this was almost 15% of all British imports from India came through this company. English Parliament gave these rights because many of the members held stock from the company and directly benefitted from the trade monopoly that was quickly forming. Additionally, the British merchants quickly became interested in expanding their footprint beyond simply trade goods and started making deals with the local governors for tax collection, which enriched their ability to further their impeding colonization.
Throughout the 18th century, the British East India Company gained more and more power on the Indian Subcontinent. The British forces began harassing and pushing against the French traders that were in the region. A conflict that would be resolved with the Seven Years War in the middle of the 18th century. The British East India Company was increasingly fearful of the political unrest and began to formulate a plan of action, in case of collapse of the Mughal Empire. The key event that crystalized the transition of power was when forces of the Mughal Empire arrested and held over 140 British individuals in a Calcutta jail cell known as the “Black Hole,” where almost 120 of these individuals died. This was the last straw for the British East India Company, and they began to buy arms and soldiers.
The British East India Company developed a standing army and pushed back the Mughal Empire. It is important to note that this is a company that developed a military force to fight the Mughal Empire, not a formal government. This occurrence is very strange and demonstrates how important the British East India Company was to the presence of the British in the subcontinent. The British East India Company became highly successful in establishing a basis of political power that rested on having the military to support the company.
Enlightenment Approaches-Hasting vs Cornwallis
The British had two different approaches to the formation of the colonization of India. The first was Lord Hasting's approach, focusing on the Enlightenment and how to engage populations from a historical background. The second approach was Cornwallis, who had a different manner of colonization that had a problem of economics. These two leaders had a profound impact on the future of the Indian Subcontient.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the differences between Hastings and Cornwallis approach to colonization.
- Evaluate the impact of Cornwallis’s engagement with the Indian Subcontinent and how this created social and political differences in the subcontinent.
- Evaluate the Indian Civil Service and its importance to the Indian Subcontinent.
- Analyze the impact of the Enlightenment on the British Indian colonization.
The British East India Company Raj
Today India and Pakistan are two important countries in South Asia, yet, in many ways they are enemies of one another. While there is a deep history that is complex, in many ways the origin point of the antagonism between these two states started in the 19th century with the rise of Warren Hastings and Charles Cornwallis as the British officers in charge of the subcontinent. These two leaders fundamentally reshaped the relationship between the Hindu and Islamic populations in South Asia, and that would have a direct result on the conflict that arose between India and Pakistan. To better understand these two men, an examination of the British East India Company is important, especially as it was rising to power in the late 18th century.
Early Operation
Between 1601 and 1608, four voyages instigated the British establishment of trade with the East Indies. Initially, the British East India Company struggled in the spice trade because of the competition from the already well-established Dutch East India Company. The East India Company (EIC or the Company) opened a factory in Bantam on the first voyage. Imports of pepper from Java were an important part of the Company’s trade for 20 years. In the next two years, it established its first factory in south India in the town of Machilipatnam in Bengal. The high profits reported by the Company after landing in India initially prompted King James I to grant subsidiary licenses to other trading companies in England. But in 1609, he renewed the charter given to the EIC for an indefinite period, including a clause that specified that the charter would cease if the trade turned unprofitable for three consecutive years.
English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The Company decided to explore the feasibility of gaining a territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction from both Britain and the Mughal Empire, and requested that the Crown launch a diplomatic mission. In 1612, James I instructed Sir Thomas Roe to visit the Mughal Emperor Nuruddin Salim Jahangir to arrange for a commercial treaty that would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the Company offered to provide the Emperor with goods and rarities from the European market. This mission was highly successful.
Expansion
The Company, which benefited from the imperial patronage, soon expanded its commercial trading operations, eclipsing the Portuguese Estado da Índia, which had established bases in Goa, Chittagong, and Bombay. Portugal later ceded this land to England as part of the dowry of Catherine de Braganza—Charles II’s wife. The EIC also launched a joint attack with the Dutch United East India Company on Portuguese and Spanish ships off the coast of China, which helped secure their ports in China. By 1647, the company had 23 factories and 90 employees in India. The major factories became the walled forts of Fort William in Bengal, Fort St George in Madras, and Bombay Castle. With reduced Portuguese and Spanish influence in the region, the EIC and Dutch East India Company entered a period of intense competition, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the EIC (in a series of five acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a trading company into a de facto administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government.
Monopoly
The prosperity that the officers of the Company enjoyed allowed them to return to Britain and establish sprawling estates and businesses and obtain political power; this allowed the Company to develop a lobby in the English parliament. Under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of the Company, who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a deregulating act was passed in 1694. This allowed any English firm to trade with India unless specifically prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that had been in force for almost 100 years.
By an act passed in 1698, a new “parallel” East India Company (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies) was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million. The two companies wrestled with each other for a dominant share of the trade over a period of some time, both in England and in India. But it quickly became evident that in practice, the original company faced scarcely any measurable competition. And the companies merged in 1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. Under this arrangement, the merged company lent to the Treasury a sum of £3,200,000 in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. The amalgamated company became the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Britain surged ahead of its European rivals. Britain’s growing prosperity, demand, and production had a profound influence on overseas trade. The EIC became the single largest player on the British global market. Following the Seven Years’ War (1756 – 63) and the defeat of France, French ambitions on Indian territories were effectively laid to rest, thus eliminating a major source of economic competition for the EIC. The Company, with the backing of its own private well-disciplined and experienced army, was able to assert its interests in new regions in India without facing obstacles from other colonial powers, although it continued to experience resistance from local rulers.
Changing Political Role
The EIC began to function more as an administrator and less as a trading concern over the hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757—in which the EIC defeated the ruler of Bengal Nawab and his French allies, which allowed them to consolidate the Company’s presence in Bengal—to the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The proliferation of the Company’s power chiefly took two forms. The first was the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, which collectively comprised British India. The second form of asserting power involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy. In the early 19th century, the territories of these princes accounted for two-thirds of India. When an Indian ruler who was able to secure his territory wanted to enter such an alliance, the Company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect rule that did not involve the economic costs of direct administration or the political costs of gaining the support of alien subjects. In return, the company pledged to defend its allies.
One of the key individuals in the transformation of the British East India Company was Sir Robert Clive (1725 – 1774 CE). Robert Clive was a British writer for the East India Company and became a military leader. Clive rose quickly in rank and at the Battle of Plassey was the winner. As a result, the British East India Company gave Clive the title of the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. One of the key ways that Clive won was supporting the overthrow of local nawabs over others and this helped to destabilize the region. Clive was notorious for offering weapons and money to local leaders for their support. If those local leaders did not return the wants of Clive, he would turn to their second in command in the area and offer the same deal to help destabilize the region. This is what led to the death of the nawab Mir Jafar. Furthermore, Clive took the funds earned from securing the trade in the region and pushed them through the Dutch East India Company to avoid taxes and penalties in England, worth several million dollars in British pounds in today’s money. Clive would become one of the most controversial figures in the British East India Company, earning more money through illegal means while also helping to kill people in the Indian Subcontinent.
These events together demonstrate the main issues with the British East India Company: the British were not clear about their goals or involvement in the subcontinent nor did they attempt to built clear rules to help the indigenous populations.
The next problem the British faced was how to govern such a region with their newly acquired political power. While the British East India Company was a military power, after the conquest, it also became a government. Governments are traditionally elected and have localized power, and they often rest/revolve around the needs of the people that they are serving. The British East India Company was a stock investment company that was responsible to the needs and wants of the stockholders in England, not the people of the Indian subcontinent.
From 1757 – 1856 CE, the British East India Company was in charge as the only political power in the region, and they were responsible for changing many parts of the Indian Subcontinent; this time period is known as the British East India Raj. The British East India Raj did not build much infrastructure, nor did it help the indigenous people of India; instead it made many laws about the way that Indian populations were allow to plant crops, restricting the cultivation of many food crops while demanding more cotton be planted.
The British East India Company was interested in extracting as many resources as they could from the subcontinent. And one of the most significant trade crops grown in South Asia was cotton. The Indian subcontinent was home to many of the world’s richest cotton fields and most important ones at that. Indian cotton had become famous with Dutch traders in the 16th century. Many of the reasons that cotton was so fashionable during this time period is the same reason that many of our clothes today are made of cotton, because of ease of use and dying for colorful and intricate designs. By the 18th century, many Europeans wanted this important fabric. Because cotton needs warmth and water to be successful, a climate trait that England does not fully possess, the product had to be obtained from India or other regions of the world. Cotton production soared in the late 18th century and would become one of the central imports for the British East India Company.
This relationship created a key to understanding the policies that the British would impose on future colonies and the imperialist period.
Hastings as Governor General
Warren Hastings had an outsized impact on the future of the British East India Raj. Hastings was born in England in 1732 to a poor gentleman. After getting an education, he joined the British East India Company in 1750 as a clerk and sailed to India, eventually going to Calcutta. His early experiences and education were deeply engrained in the Enlightenment, which provided a key model of the historical and political for Hastings. One of the most important concepts of the Enlightenment that Hastings would come to incorporate was the idea of rationality and the role of history to establish rule. This would prove very important to Hastings’s future as a governor.
Hastings was fascinated by Indian Subcontinent history and enjoyed learning about the past. Then, Hastings won promotion in 1752 and was sent to a major trading post in Bengal. It was here that Hastings was a part of the members that were locked up in the infamous “Black Hole of Calcutta,” where a garrison and civilians were jailed by the Mughal government and many died during one night in jail. Following this traumatizing event, Hastings would continue to expand and understand more of Calcutta.
In 1757 after British forces were pushed back from Calcutta, Hastings served under Robert Clive and helped to recapture the city. Hastings understood the importance of relationships between the British and Indian forces and made friends with local Nawabs. All the while, Hastings would relay information about the indigenous forces and their movements to his superiors with the intent of enabling the British to gain political and economic power in India.
Hastings pushed for the British as tax collectors on behalf of the Mughal Empire. This would prove the most beneficial because the British were able to collect official money for the Mughals, and they could easily hide their gains from the system.
As Hastings’ work became more central to the British East Indies Company, it was clear that he would start to lead the organization on the Subcontinent. In 1773 Hastings became the governor general of India for the British East Indies Company, the leader in charge of the British forces. This would prove to be a very important position because Hastings was a clear leader and saw the importance of history as a governor.
As leader, Hastings attempted to integrate many of the Enlightenment ideas into India as he could. By the time of his leadership, Hastings had become fluent in Persian and Urdu, making him suitable to read and write in the ancient texts of the subcontinent. Hastings read about the advancements of the Indian civilizations in the Mohenjo-daro region and was fascinated by the two “golden eras” of India in the ancient world. Hastings felt there had to be a logical reason that India was wealthy and powerful throughout the ancient world during that golden period, and he felt that India had fallen into a “dark period” under the rule of the Mughal Empire. Using the ideas of rationality from the Enlightenment, Hastings began to incorrectly theorize that the problem that caused India to fall from a propseperous time was the arrival of Islam on the subcontinent. While this was an incorrect assumption, it proved damaging to the subcontinent.
Hastings began to create policies that started favored Hindu populations, at the expense of Muslims. He pushed for the continuation of the caste system and for the return to the religious laws of the ancient world. These policies would result in slightly better jobs for the Hindi populations than their Islamic counterparts.
Hastings also established the Indian Administration Service, the government of British India that would guide the administration of the British East India Raj. This would prove fateful because the policies that Hastings established would continue to grow throughout the British East India Raj.
In 1785, after ten years of service to the British East India Company, Hastings resigned and returned to India. Upon his arrival in England, he was arrested and impeached by the House of Commons for alleged crimes and misdemeanors, such as embezzlement, extortion, coercion, and the alleged killing of a local leader; these totaled to twenty criminal counts against Hastings. Many of the actions on which these charges were based were common to the British East India Company, and they would not have been out of bounds in the empire. But the British Parliament wanted to make an example out of Hastings, who was a member of the opposition of members such as Edmund Burke. Hastings was eventually acquitted in 1795 and he would retire to Scotland to live his remaining life. Yet, the importance of Hastings’s policies would influence the next leader of the British East Indies Company: Charles Cornwallis.
Cornwallis as Governor General
The next leader of the British East Indies Company was Charles Cornwallis, who was born in 1738 in London to a upper class family. Charles was educated at Cambridge and would eventually join the military and travel Europe with military officials, while learning about tactics. In 1760 he became a member of the House of Commons and voted against the Stamp Act. Cornwallis was a very unique man in history, because many American historians know him as the last of the British generals in the American Revolution. However, despite his defeat in the American Revolution, Cornwallis continued to gain the confidence of Parliament. In 1782 he returned to England and was paraded as a hero. By 1785, it was clear that Hastings was going to leave his post as the Governor General of India and the British Parliament wanted a clear leader, which is what they saw in Cornwallis.
Cornwallis is known for making significant reforms to the Civil Service of India and establishing several key institutions that would create issues between the different cultural groups on the Indian Subcontinent. The Indian Civil Service was significantly understaffed and had many problems with management. And one of the key issues that arose was due to the fact that the British East Indies Company wanted written correspondence in English. Not many people on the Indian subcontinent could write effectively in English. Cornwallis decided one of the key ways to get English speakers was to offer positions to those in London and England. But these jobs were often considered low level administration jobs and paid very little. Therefore, the positions were left unfilled or had to be filled by people who did not understand English as well as they would need to. Consequently, when Cornwallis opened these positions to those of the Indian subcontinent a key change happened. Cornwallis started to hire local individuals with skills and talent to run the Indian Civil Service. This is important because his hiring decisions were colored by Hastings’s promotion of Hindu populations over that of Islamic populations. And this situation is the key to understanding how these misaligned policies would cause direct consequences for the population of the Indian Subcontinent. Because well paying and high political positions were going to largely Hindi speaking cultural groups, a very distinct rift between the Hindi and Islamic populations on the Indian Subcontinent was created.
Because British policies discriminated against the Muslim populations of the Indian Subcontinent, many Muslims reacted in a significant ways against these policies. The Islamic populations began questioning Cornwallis’s approach and leadership. Cornwallis reacted to this questioning by encouraging Muslims to seek government jobs in the Indian Army. Unfortunately, the positions offered were mostly low-ranking and low-paying, such as soldiers. Many of the Muslims simply became “canon fodder,” and it was very clear the implications of Cornwallis’ goals.
Cornwallis would divide the Indian Subcontinent even further when he instituted laws and administration barriers that benefitted the Hindu populations over Muslims. Cornwallis demanded that the Hindi laws be translated to English for administrative selection on which laws to use. These collectively became known as the Cornwallis Code, which would institutionalize the discriminatory policies against Muslims.
Cornwallis also changed the way that taxes were collected in the subcontinent, creating a problem for landowners and tenants. Many of the landowners were originally Muslims, this would prove to be a significant problem because it caused many of these landowners to go bankrupt and forced them to sell lands, stripping away political and economic power of Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent. This would create a social and political imbalance in the Indian Subcontinent that would continue to divide and grow deeper between the Islamic and Hindi populations.
While it was not the original goal of either Hastings or Cornwallis, the social divisions that emerged between the Hindu and Muslim populations proved to be Colonization 2.0. European colonists would find ways to further divide those populations who already were experiencing cultural differences, and they did this as a means of gaining more power. This type of colonization was very different than the first version of colonization in the 15th to early 19th centuries, where Europeans went to regions around the world and would establish direct bases of political and economic power. The second wave colonization focused more on exploiting and removing goods from regions. This model of colonization can be seen in other regions, such as China, many of the African states in the 19th century, and Southeast Asia. By creating this social and political imbalance, it created opportunities for the British to expand their own political and economic power in the colony.
The Steel Frame of India
The reforms that Cornwallis enacted were incredibly important. Through his reforms he permanently altered the system of political power in India. By encouraging certain populations on the subcontinent to do certain jobs, Cornwallis deepend the social rift that was emerging. The use of the Indian Civil Service was one of the most important in the time to create a bureaucracy of the British government in India. The reforms were to create a government of 250 districts in British India that were to be the government of India. This was every government service from local administration to the colonial world total. This meant that all political power was in the English hands.
The Indian Civil Service government activities were conducted in English. Business conducted in English was a significant problem for the colonial world, because English speakers were limited. This meant, because of reform policies that were encountered in the earlier Cornwallis and Hasting’s administration, would heavily favor those of the Hindu population over that of Muslims. Lawyers and administrators that worked in the administration began to trend towards Hindu populations in the middle to late 19th century. These were high paying jobs and would constitute an economic imbalance in the subcontinent favoring Hindu populations.
The Army was another component of the Indian Civil Service, which was mostly comprised of Muslim workers. These job differences were stark. While the Hindu favored positions were mostly office based, the problem with the Army was that this was dangerous and often deadly work. This would be compounded by the terrible pay that soldiers were given. The quality of life for many in the British Army was not good. This highlights the difference in the Hindu and Islamic world treatment by the British government.
The British went further than just economic and political reforms, they began to make policies as an empire that also hurt many of the constituents inside the Subcontinent. One of the biggest issues that the British faced was their use of what were deemed as the Home Charges. The Home Charges were the British telling India that the British were not in control of the territory, but simply advisors to the Indian Civil Service. As such, the Indian Subcontinent had to pay the British government for their administrative advising. It is important that the British held all the political, economic, and social power in the Indian Subcontinent following the British East India Company taking over in the early 17th century. The Home Charges were nothing more than a way to exploit and get as much money and wealth from the Indian Subcontinent as they could. This is compounded by the administrations use of laws towards growing and regulations on the economics of the colony as well.
Bengal: The Safety Zone for England
The English became deeply invested in Bengal because of their fears that other European empires, especially the French, would encroach on their territory and space in the region of India.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the British empire’s views of Southeast Asia.
- Evaluate the role of Southeast Asia in the British colonial administration.
Indochina
Indochina, originally Indo-China, is a geographical term originating in the early 19th century for the continental portion of the region now known as Southeast Asia. The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as indo-chinois in 1804, and the Scottish linguist John Leyden, who used the term Indo-Chinese to describe the area’s inhabitants and their languages in 1808. The name refers to the lands historically within the cultural influence of India and China and physically bound by India in the west and China in the north. It corresponds to the present-day areas of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and (sometimes) peninsular Malaysia. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today’s Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), and the entire area of Indochina is now usually referred to as the Indochinese Peninsula or Mainland Southeast Asia.
Greater India
In the pre-modern era, significant parts of the region that would later become French Indochina belonged to what is known as Greater India. Although the term is not precise, Greater India is most commonly used to encompass the historical and geographic extent of all political entities on the Indian subcontinent, as well as, to varying degrees, the area that had been transformed by the acceptance and induction of cultural and institutional elements of pre-Islamic India. Since around 500 B.C. Asia’s expanding land and maritime trade resulted in prolonged socioeconomic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs into a regional cosmology, particularly in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. The kingdoms that belonged to Greater India and eventually overlapped with what would become French Indochina were Funan and its successors Chenla, Champa, and the Khmer Empire.
Champa controlled what is now south and central Vietnam, starting about 192 CE. The dominant religion there was Hinduism, and the culture was heavily influenced by India. By the late 15th century, the Vietnamese—descendants of the Sinic civilization sphere—conquered the last remaining territories of the once powerful maritime kingdom of Champa.
Between the 3rd and the 5th centuries, Funan and its successor, Chenla, coalesced in present-day Cambodia and southwestern Vietnam. For more than 2,000 years, what was to become Cambodia absorbed influences from India, passing them on to other Southeast Asian civilizations that are now Thailand and Laos. The Khmer Empire, with the capital city in Angkor, grew out of the remnants of Chenla, firmly established in 802 when Jayavarman II declared independence from Java. He and his followers instituted the cult of the God-king and began a series of conquests that formed an empire, which flourished in the area from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Additionally, around the 13th century, monks from Sri Lanka introduced Theravada Buddhism to Southeast Asia. The religion spread and eventually displaced Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism as the popular religion of Angkor.
After a long series of wars with neighboring kingdoms, Angkor was sacked by the Ayutthaya Kingdom and abandoned in 1432 because of ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown. This led to a period of economic, social, and cultural stagnation when the kingdom’s internal affairs came increasingly under the control of its neighbors. The period that followed is today known as the Dark Ages of Cambodia—the historical era from the early 15th century to 1863, which is the year that marks the beginning of the French Protectorate of Cambodia. As reliable sources from this period are very rare, a fully defensible and conclusive explanation for the decline of the Khmer Empire, recognized unanimously by the scientific community, has so far not been produced.
In the 19th century a renewed struggle between Siam and Vietnam for control of Cambodia resulted in a period when Vietnamese officials attempted to force the Khmers to adopt Vietnamese customs. This led to several rebellions against the Vietnamese and appeals to Thailand for assistance. The Siamese-Vietnamese War (1841 – 1845) ended with an agreement to place Cambodia under joint suzerainty; this later led to the signing of a treaty for French Protection of Cambodia by King Norodom Prohmborirak.
British In Southeast Asia
Many of the problems with the British approach to Southeast Asia revolve around their conception of empire. The British were heavily invested in the growth of India. This can be seen in the descriptions of India as the “Crown Jewel” of the British Empire. The British understood that their economic and political success rested in the role of India as their main colony. Yet, the British were not alone in their perspectives of growing an empire in the region and this would cause direct problems with others in the area.
In the late 17th century, the British successfully pushed to control the majority of the Indian Subcontinent with the intent to control trade in the region, with the goal of replacing or subduing the Dutch settlers and traders that arrived before them. Throughout the 18th century, the British East India Company remained on guard against other European powers that were interested in India. The fear was that France or Spain would get a powerful hold on the very profitable subcontinent, which would end with another power struggle between the European nations. This is the reason that the English demanded the French be expelled from the Indian Subcontinent at the end of the Seven Years War, and the Treaty of Paris (1763) ensured that happened.
Regardless of law, the French still wanted to have a presence in and still attempted to move into the subcontinent. The French would establish colonies in the far Southeast Asia, in places like Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in order to get a toehold in the region; this worried the British, who felt the proximity of the French colonies to the English colonial world was a very big problem.
Bengal
Bengal is part of current day Bangladesh, which means it borders India on the east side. But in 1805 Bengal was the term used for a large swath of territory to the east of the Maratha Territory (or the bulk of what is now India). This means that geographically it would make sense as a point of entrance into the region for any invaders approaching from the east, where the bulk of French colonies in the region were.
The British solution of the French colonial proximity was to establish a new colony of Bengal. The British were not interested in establishing a long term colonial hold on Bengal, but instead focused on this as a buffer colony. If the French did decide to invade the region, that it would be Bengal that would be invaded. The British decided that this was a sacrifice that they were willing to make, a sacrifice of the Bengal people. Obviously, this was a terrible solution. The Bengali people were obviously not desirous of serving as a war front for England; furthermore, the recent major draught had deeply affected Bengal. Moreover, the British presence in Bengal also increased tensions in the colony between the Muslims and the Buddhists that were in the colony and fell subject to the British colonial policies that favored Hindus.
Primary Source: Sir Robert Clive The Battle of Plassey
Sir Robert Clive's Account of the Battle of Plassey
I gave you an account of the taking of Chandernagore in my last letter; the subject of this address is an event of much higher importance, no less than the entire overthrow of Nabob Suraj-ud-Daulah, and the placing of Meer Jaffier on the throne. I intimated in my last how dilatory Suraj-ud-Daulah appeared in fulfilling the articles of the treaty. This disposition not only continued but increased, and we discovered that he was designing our ruin by a conjunction with the French.
About this time some of his principal officers made overtures to us for dethroning him. At the head of these was Meer Jaffier, then Bukhshee to the army, a man as generally esteemed as the other was detested. As we had reason to believe this disaffection pretty general, we soon entered into engagements with Meer Jaffier to put the crown on his head. All necessary preparations being completed with the utmost secrecy, the army, consisting of about one thousand Europeans and two thousand sepoys, with eight pieces of cannon, marched from Chandernagore on the 13th and arrived on the 18th at Cutwa Fort. The 22nd, in the evening, we crossed the river, and landing on the island, marched straight for Plassey Grove, where we arrived by one in the morning.
At daybreak we discovered the Nabob's army moving towards us, consisting, as we since found, of about fifteen thousand horse and thirty-five thousand foot, with upwards of forty pieces of cannon. They approached apace, and by six began to attack with a number of heavy cannon, supported by the whole army, and continued to play on us very briskly for several hours, during which our situation was of the utmost service to us, being lodged in a large grove with good mud banks. To succeed in an attempt on their cannon was next to impossible, as they were planted in a manner round us, and at considerable distances from each other. We therefore remained quiet in our post. . .
About noon the enemy drew off their artillery, and retired to their camp. We immediately sent a detachment, accompanied by two field-pieces, to take possession of a tank with high banks, which was advanced about three hundred yards above our grove, and from which the enemy had considerably annoyed us with some cannon managed by Frenchmen. This motion brought them out a second time; but on finding them make no great effort to dislodge us, we proceeded to take possession of one or two more eminences lying very near an angle of their camp. They made several attempts to bring out their cannon, but our advance field-pieces played so warmly and so well upon them that they were always driven back. Their horse exposing themselves a good deal on this occasion, many of them were killed, and among the rest four or five officers of the first distinction, by which the whole army being visibly dispirited and thrown into some confusion, we were encouraged to storm both the eminence and the angle of their camp, which were carried at the same instant, with little or no loss. On this a general rout ensued; and we pursued the enemy six miles, passing upwards of forty pieces of cannon they had abandoned, with an infinite number of carriages filled with baggage of all kinds. It is computed there are killed of the enemy about five hundred. Our loss amounted to only twenty-two killed and fifty wounded, and those chiefly sepoys.
Source:
From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources, (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. VII: The Age of Revolution, pp. 59-64.
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text.
Attributions
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: New Indian Military: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Indian_Army_troops_in_winter_clothing%2C_Iran%2C_1944_%28c%29.jpg
Boundless World History
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/british-india/
Source information also reviewed from: Metcalf and Metcalf Concise History of Modern India