William Dalrymple
There was so much money in India – that’s one of my biggest takeaways from this book! Every other page has a note at the bottom that shows the current value of the money that was paid to a local mercenary or the Company as protection money, or a deal as simple as crossing the river safely! I am exaggerating only a little bit. It reminded me of the inane charging for random things by modern airlines, and corporations in general trying to squeeze out every bit of revenue from the average user. And the story of the East India Company is exactly that – a corporation that arrived in India for trade, and ended up pillaging the country and finally giving it to the Crown on a platter.
Dalrymple begins from where it all started – London, 1599, when the idea of the company was first discussed seriously by a diverse set of individuals. Though not an original idea, the joint stock process allowed the Company to raise resources efficiently in the beginning, and until things went south, provide handsome profits to its investors. The book traces the Company’s trailblazing journey in India, one that features not just its own principals like Clive, Hastings and Wellesley but the local rulers and power brokers as well – from the Mughal emperor (in name) Shah Alam, and Tipu Sultan to mercenaries like Benoît de Boigne who helped shape the Maratha army into one that matched the Company’s own fighting force, and interesting characters like Begum Samru, a feisty courtesan who became a mini-ruler in her own right! Some familiar from history, and others from the author’s own earlier works (like James Skinner from White Mughals). A word on Shah Alam – he is a far cry from his glorious predecessors, but in an age when living till 50 was a luxury, the man survived every tribulation that was thrown at him and lived into his late 70s even as his enemies perished around him.
It is amazing how, from an inconspicuous office in far away England, with less than a hundred employees, a corporation controlled the destiny of a land as large and diverse as India. It was in 1600 that the Company received the charter from the Queen, and by the early 1800s, they had defeated the last credible threat – the Marathas. These two centuries are full of intrigue, and there are multiple occasions when a single different decision or event (e.g. if Nelson had not sunk Napoleon’s navy and the latter had been able to give Tipu an assist) might have resulted in an entirely different contemporary history. Politics – the English replicated the Roman divide et impera, and economics – many of their moves would have been impossible without local financing – went hand in hand in what was the first hostile takeover of a nation by a business entity. That’s not the only first – abuse of corporate power, lobbying, unfair trade practices, the Company pioneered all this. And finally, in another first, it had to be bailed out by the government because it was too big to fail!
If you’re a history enthusiast, this is obviously a must-read, and even if you’re not, this is a fascinating piece of history that you’ll enjoy.
