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Cornwallis:
- only British officers in EIC army
- alienates Indians, can't rise through ranks
- 1793 Code of Forty-Eight Regulations
- no more Indian judges, four courts with British judges
- British magistrates can immediately try small offenses
- abolished taxes and internal tariffs in EIC India
- EIC can start a tax whenever, wherever it wants
- monopoly on collection, sale, and importation of salt (Gandhi later)
- monopoly on production and sale of opium
Trade following the flag or the flag following trade? Which comes first?
Expansion:
- Mughals still fending off Afghan or Persian armies
- Marathas, Mysore, Hyderabad fighting each other
- 1793 - EIC only has Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar - populous and wealthy
- Richard Wellesley (1798-1805) expands up Ganges, takes Mysore
- 1802 - 1818 British takeover of Maratha lands
Afghan invasions:
- 1739 Nadir Kuli of Safavid Empire defeats Mughal forces, but returns to Central Asia
- 1748-1760 - five Afghan invasions of northern India
- January 1761 - massive Afghan-Maratha battle at Panipat
- Maratha army destroyed, but Afghans leave
- prevents a strong Maratha empire from taking place of Mughals
1761 - French power in India broken when British take Pondicherry during Seven Years' War
Battle of Buxar:
- new nawab of Bengal, Mir Kasim, dislikes EIC activity
- Mughal Emperor Shah Alam turns to help
- October 1764 - EIC forces defeat main Mughal army at Buxar
Impact:
- Clive warns against futility of occupying Delhi at this point
- EIC shouldn't attract animosity, should still rule through local nawabs
- EIC does take over diwan for Bihar and Orissa in addition to Bengal
- EIC controls some of wealthiest regions of India - tax income and trade without taxes
- 260,000 pounds annually owed to Mughals, but extracting millions
Initial actions:
- reputation for honesty/integrity
- believed in British ability to rule, if officials paid enough to avoid corruption
- fired bad officials and raised salaries
Permanent Zamindari Settlement of 1793:
- zamindars = Mughal tax collectors in rural areas
- changed to lump sum payment to gaurantee EIC income
- in exchange, gave land rights to zamindars as long as they paid the taxes
- previously, zamindars only had "an interest" in land and were mainly administrators of Mughal Empire
- private property was not a very important aspect of Indian society before this, at least at this scale
- rural society's interdependence ripped apart
- now a powerful landowing class that owed taxes
- floods/drought follow and many contracts bought by bankers/lenders in Calcutta who become absentee landlords
- creates class of pro-British Indians, but at a cost
- peasantry plagued by unknown absentee landlords
Key resources in Bengal:
- opium and saltpeter
- possibility of altering balance of power in Europe during war
- very lucrative during peacetime
- 1760s opium trade from India to China begins
- exchanged for tea from China - sold in Europe and America
- taxes on tea were 5-10% of British government revenue
- British gov - real problem with "nabobs" was inefficiency
India Act of 1784:
- sponsored by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger
- extends EIC monopoly in India, China, Indian Ocean
- new Board of Control (3-6 officials from Parliament) will oversee the EIC Board of Directors
- can recall any EIC official
- no nationalization due to potential backlash, cost of paying for EIC army in India
Concerns in Parliament:
- EIC will involve Britain in endless wars
- wars will drain British resources
- some worried about plight of Indians
Problems in India:
- 1767-1770 severe monsoons destroy crops
- in 1770 Bengal famine - 1/3 of peasantry die
- high white death rate leads to officials quickly accumulating goods and returning home
- EIC claiming it can't pay British taxes, but officials returning home wealthy
Parliament's reactions - late 1760s/early 1770s:
- EIC officials are embarrasing, immoral, unethical
- selfish enrichment at India's expense
- "nabobs" = wealthy goofballs
- did Clive/EIC redound to English morality and credit?
- view was that EIC using military means, not commerce, to become rich
- taxing foreigners to fill English treasury was wrong
- Edmund Burke - EIC leaders should be restrained/jailed, demanded reforms/investigations, said Britain should gaurantee stability and act on behalf of Indians, even governing India on its own terms
Demise of Hastings:
- opponents - wars in India just waste EIC resources and engander EIC position in India
- charged with stealing money - symbol of "nabobs"
- 1785 recalled to England
- 1786 Burke urges a trial
- 1788-1795 trial in House of Lords drags on
- acuitted but career/reputation in shambles
- historians - Hastings not at fault, a victim of politicans who legitimately cared about morality of EIC in India or saw EIC as rival
1773 India Regulating Act:
- longer terms for EIC directors in London = stability
- EIC presidencies of Madras, Calcutta, Bombay under single Governor-General in Calcutta
First EIC Governor-General Warren Hastings - 1774-1785:
- 1774 Clive commits suicide
- reduces corruption in Bengal
- clarifies peasant rights and taxes - undermines nawab as middleman
- makes nawab of Bengal pure figurehead
- ends annual EIC payment to Mughal emperor
EIC foreign policy:
- ensures Oudh's independence of Mughals or Afghans, dependence on EIC
- 1774 supplies mercenaries for Oudh's fight against Afghan forces
- seeks to undermine Maratha power
- 1760s - 1770s Marathas consumed by civil wars
- yet, 1782 EIC-Maratha treaty fo honor status quo, peace until 1800
- 1780 - EIC client in south, Arcot, attacks Mysore, which retaliates ferociously with siege of Madras by army of 90,000
- Mysore leader, Tipu Sultan, trying to enlist support of Marathas and the nizam of Hyderabad to unite against British, but fails