BENGALURU: Loot is one of the first Indian words to enter the English language, according to William Dalrymple, who has just written a riveting epic on the East India Company (EIC), the world’s first corporate raider. The author spoke to STOI on the British Raj and its legacy during a recent visit to Mumbai.
If this band of English brigands had not succeeded, where would India have headed after the 17th century?
The only thing to thank them is for uniting the country. India was a well-defined cultural, spiritual and geographical unit, but was never united politically; not under the Mauryas, Guptas, the Sultans or Mughals. Close sometimes, but never spanning the entire landmass. The EIC achieved this, through balance, subterfuge and generally behaving badly over an extended period. It did knock a fractured post-Mughal India into a single unit. It created the seed of the Indian army, and many units even today still survive from that time. But when the company first arrived here, India produced over a third of the world’s GDP. By the time the EIC was nationalised, it was down to single figures. It did irreparable damage to the Indian economy; it asset-stripped, looted, and plundered.
Indians have sought the return of the Kohinoor. Yet, you mention that a far greater treasure of imperial loot is stored in Powis Castle in Wales. Why haven’t we heard about this spectacular treasure?
Powis Castle contains good stuff, mainly Robert Clive’s loot. On display are hookahs of burnished gold, gleaming rubies, emeralds, tiger heads set with sapphires and yellow topaz, ornaments of jade and ivory, the campaign tent of Tipu Sultan and the palanquin of Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal. Many of these were takings in Murshidabad, after the battle of Plassey. But then, the treasure trove of Mughal loot is not in England. It’s in Tehran, because of Nader Shah. The Daria-i-Noor diamond, which no one mentions anymore, is bigger than the Kohinoor. Vault after vault of Mughal jewels Nader Shah looted are in Tehran. Of course, the EIC would have loved to loot them! The Kohinoor is tiny and it’s a comical sight to see Indians moonwalking backwards on these conveyor belts in the Tower of London, screaming ‘Chor, Chor’.
The EIC was history’s first corporate raider. Are there similarities with the company and modern-day MNCs?
The first half of the book tells this extraordinary, improbable story of how one corporation (EIC) took over the richest country in the world. Since the Victorian period people have talked about the British conquering India. But it wasn’t any more different than Facebook or Google, which are public companies owned by shareholders and not representatives of the American state. And that was the case with the EIC, which was owned by shareholders: a multinational which straddled the globe, the first corporation to run amok and engage at home bribing parliamentarians, in corporate lobbying, and bringing down governments abroad, just like Anglo-Persian oil companies brought down prime minister Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953 (other historians have also blamed the CIA and Britain’s MI6). It’s just like this very modern thing of giving large campaign donations in return for unspoken favours and quid pro quo.
To what extent did the British pauperise India over the centuries? We ask because you mentioned that during the Mughal era, India controlled over a third of world trade while England barely had a 2% share.
What the EIC did was to maximise Indian exports because at this point the British weren’t producing much. This was before the industrial revolution. The EIC rose to power as shipping agents for Mughal goods like textiles, particularly from Bengal. The asset-stripping started after the Battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), when the EIC got a taste for intervening in politics. And thanks to the immensely powerful banker Jagat Seth, who used the company as his muscle to topple Siraj-ud-Daula, who in turn threatened to circumcise Jagat Seth. The asset-stripping was mostly during the six years after the big Bengal famine in 1770. In the midst of the famine, company shareholders voted to increase their dividend from 10% to 12.5%.
So, what’s our history lesson?
I aim at myth-killing. Clive is meant to be this great imperial hero in Britain. He grew up as a small-town punk, running protection rackets. Equally, you have Siraj-ud-Daula, considered a nationalist hero, but he is not. He was a serial bisexual rapist. Mir Jafar is meant to be this great traitor, but he is no more than a puppet of Jagat Seth.
If this band of English brigands had not succeeded, where would India have headed after the 17th century?
The only thing to thank them is for uniting the country. India was a well-defined cultural, spiritual and geographical unit, but was never united politically; not under the Mauryas, Guptas, the Sultans or Mughals. Close sometimes, but never spanning the entire landmass. The EIC achieved this, through balance, subterfuge and generally behaving badly over an extended period. It did knock a fractured post-Mughal India into a single unit. It created the seed of the Indian army, and many units even today still survive from that time. But when the company first arrived here, India produced over a third of the world’s GDP. By the time the EIC was nationalised, it was down to single figures. It did irreparable damage to the Indian economy; it asset-stripped, looted, and plundered.
Indians have sought the return of the Kohinoor. Yet, you mention that a far greater treasure of imperial loot is stored in Powis Castle in Wales. Why haven’t we heard about this spectacular treasure?
Powis Castle contains good stuff, mainly Robert Clive’s loot. On display are hookahs of burnished gold, gleaming rubies, emeralds, tiger heads set with sapphires and yellow topaz, ornaments of jade and ivory, the campaign tent of Tipu Sultan and the palanquin of Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal. Many of these were takings in Murshidabad, after the battle of Plassey. But then, the treasure trove of Mughal loot is not in England. It’s in Tehran, because of Nader Shah. The Daria-i-Noor diamond, which no one mentions anymore, is bigger than the Kohinoor. Vault after vault of Mughal jewels Nader Shah looted are in Tehran. Of course, the EIC would have loved to loot them! The Kohinoor is tiny and it’s a comical sight to see Indians moonwalking backwards on these conveyor belts in the Tower of London, screaming ‘Chor, Chor’.
The EIC was history’s first corporate raider. Are there similarities with the company and modern-day MNCs?
The first half of the book tells this extraordinary, improbable story of how one corporation (EIC) took over the richest country in the world. Since the Victorian period people have talked about the British conquering India. But it wasn’t any more different than Facebook or Google, which are public companies owned by shareholders and not representatives of the American state. And that was the case with the EIC, which was owned by shareholders: a multinational which straddled the globe, the first corporation to run amok and engage at home bribing parliamentarians, in corporate lobbying, and bringing down governments abroad, just like Anglo-Persian oil companies brought down prime minister Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953 (other historians have also blamed the CIA and Britain’s MI6). It’s just like this very modern thing of giving large campaign donations in return for unspoken favours and quid pro quo.
To what extent did the British pauperise India over the centuries? We ask because you mentioned that during the Mughal era, India controlled over a third of world trade while England barely had a 2% share.
What the EIC did was to maximise Indian exports because at this point the British weren’t producing much. This was before the industrial revolution. The EIC rose to power as shipping agents for Mughal goods like textiles, particularly from Bengal. The asset-stripping started after the Battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764), when the EIC got a taste for intervening in politics. And thanks to the immensely powerful banker Jagat Seth, who used the company as his muscle to topple Siraj-ud-Daula, who in turn threatened to circumcise Jagat Seth. The asset-stripping was mostly during the six years after the big Bengal famine in 1770. In the midst of the famine, company shareholders voted to increase their dividend from 10% to 12.5%.
So, what’s our history lesson?
I aim at myth-killing. Clive is meant to be this great imperial hero in Britain. He grew up as a small-town punk, running protection rackets. Equally, you have Siraj-ud-Daula, considered a nationalist hero, but he is not. He was a serial bisexual rapist. Mir Jafar is meant to be this great traitor, but he is no more than a puppet of Jagat Seth.
Get the app