How did the East India Company attain such a great political influence in India in the 2nd half of the Eighteenth Century

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How did the East India Company attain such a great political influence in India in the 2nd half of the Eighteenth Century?

By 1800 the East India Company had established policical, military and commercial dominance over large areas of India . One reason for this was their ability to transfer power between these areas. That is to say, the Company was very skilled in utilizing their economic power to gain greater political power, thus increasing their overall influence. No

Behind these economic, political and military successes were deeper factors which enhanced the Companys general ability to function. Such factors included

One method was military. The English, French and Dutch were fairly evenly matched in their military technology and tactics, but all were more advanced in them than Indian leaders. European infantrymen were far more tightly disciplined, enabling them to withstand the cavalry charges which characterised Indian tactics in the eighteenth century. Indian generals gave little thought to infantry, and respected only cavalry forces.

However, it would be entirely wrong to claim that the English attained influence through superior military force. The size of English forces was always small, and the East India Company was initially reluctant to provide sizeable funding for armies. This difficulty could partly be circumvented by training Indian footsoldiers, who demanded little pay. This military advantage remained at the end of the eighteenth century, when Lord Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington were able to lead a successful campaigna gainst Tipu Sultan.

All this gave the British an advantage over thier Indian rivals, but their advantage over the other European trading companies was less certain. The French, under the governor Joseph Francois Dupleix, were quicker to adapt to the difficulties of fighting in India by training Indian footsoldiers. Governor Dupleix also arguably provided France with better diplomatic leadership, and Admiral La Bourdonnais commanded the navy with equal skill. However, these advantages changed somewhat during the 1750s. French military plans were crippled by lack of support from the French government, which was concerned by the immediate decline in trade revenue. Both La Bourdonnais and Dupleix were recalled to France, and the former was even imprisoned. Even when the French decided to resume military conflict with the British, they undermined their position by appointing a general, Lally, who had no experience of India. On the English side, the return of Robert Clive to India, and the luck with which he succeeded in the risky venture of counting on a defection by Mir Jaffar to defeat the nawab of Bengal at hte battel of Plassey.

Trade was, of course, central to the success of trading companies. The British had an advantage over the French in their greater access to capital.

The British also benefited from close connections with Indian merchants and other power-holders. Partly this was a result of the private activities of Company merchants, who were banned from trade with England and so diverted their attentions to inland trade. Other relationships - such as those with the banking houses of Omichand and Jagat Seth - resulted from the British position in Bengal.

The Company also worked to exert direct control over textile supplies, and they obtained control over producers and small-scale merchants.

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Politics also benefitted the British. Part of this advantage was luck in experiencing favourable conditions in which their interests coincided with those of other Indian powers. For example the Great Mughal believed he could increase his own political power by allowing power to the British in Bengal. The British were in fact lucky to survive in India, given that in their early years there they could easily have been crushed by the main Indian powers. A far greater part, though, came from the skill with which the British manipulated the political situation. Burke in particular (and in defiance of censure in Parliament from Edmund Burke and others) entered into diplomatic adventures involving both the immediate neighbours of the British, and also kingdoms across India.

This should not, though, diminish the numerous political miscalculations made by the British. Their ruthless extraction of funds from Bengal after 1760 made them few friends.

The organisation of the East India Company was, at least initially, more a handicap than an advantage. The Company was designed for trading, not for empire, and was plagued by endemic corruption.

This corruption, or at least the private trading with which it was closely linked, had a beneficial side. The ban on private trade between India and Europe forced individual merchants to concentrate on trade within India. This built up the contacts between them and their Indian counterparts, and increased their usefulness for Indian rulers (for whom taxes on internal trade were a vital revenue source)

One advantage of the Companys organisation was the extent

Under this heading might also be considered some of the individuals whose personal abilities massively increased the capabilities of the Company. One was Warren Hastings, whose diplomatic and commercial ability, and knowledge of Indian languages, enabled him to succeed as governor of Bengal.

Underlying the military and commercial sucesses of the East India Company was its superior collection and use of information. It was their intentional policy, from the governor-generalship of Lord Cornwallis, to increase sources of information for the British, and to close down lines of communciation between their enemies. Cornwallis, for example, discouraged the state of Awadh from positioning newswriters in Maratha, and later the British tried to isolate the court of Delhi. The British improved internal postal communications, replacing existing postal services with their own daks (routes), and stablishing a regular post between Calcutta, Patna and Banaras by 1775.

Early Company attempts at obtaining military information were hampered by unwillingness to pay.

The British came to respect providers of information. According to one contemporary, the head harcara or head spy, in several of the best English houses, never fails to become their Major Domo and the hinge on which turn most transactions. Ever-expanding networks of Indian informers were controlled by skilled Company officers such as George Cherry, Neil Edmonstone and Mountstart Elphinstone

Like other states and organisation, the English received information from newswriters and informants at the courts of their rivals, with senior officials personally reading the Persian newsletters. They tried to reduce the effectiveness of their opponents newswriters by providing misinformation to ambassadors.

Such diligence brought its rewards.

The British were not alone in their concern for intelligence. The rulers of Mysore had, according to Bayly, a powerful intelligence service, and took advantage of defections from the East India Company to improve their knowledge.

Key to all this was the favour of Indian rulers, although such favour was rarely given without some form of pressure or inducement.

Bengal was the foundation for British expansion in India. Here, the British gradually expanded their power throughout the eighteenth century by both formal and informal means. The granting of the divani to the Company in 1765, although important, did not in itself give the Company complete power, since the Nazimaat was, in theory at least, separate from the diwani. However in practise the British ensured that most of the duties of the Nazim were carried out by a naib (deputy) appointed by the Company, although this arrangement was not formalised until 1790. Well before then the Nawab had been stripped of any practical power. In 1770 their local agents were removed, and in 1776 the Nawab was encouraged to disband most of his army. Connecting the right to administer civil justice with the diwani, the British took control of this from 1765. This control of Bengal was both an example of the Companys success in obtaining influence (itself driven by British military superiority) and a stepping-stone to further dominance. Further British expansion was funded by land revenue from Bengal

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bengal land revenue

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