Unlike the American and West Indies Colonies, the British expansion in India was down to force of arms rather than through the settlement of white colonisers. India was taken into the British Empire gradually over decades as increasingly valuable trading posts became protected by ever-greater numbers of soldiers. As the riches of the subcontinent were exploited more and more, military alliances were formed with local rulers and divisions amongst the Mughals and their rivals were exploited to the East India Company's advantage. Lord Bryce described the emerging British Raj as having 'a permanently military character' and by the 1770s the East India Company had over 100,000 men under arms. Yet the constant strand throughout the period was the fear amongst the comparatively tiny white garrison that what had been won by force could be lost by force.
Originally Queen Elizabeth had given the East India Company its charter in 1600 and it would grow to become the main power in India within the next 200 years. Gradually overtaking competitors like the Dutch East Indian Company, they established their outposts on the fringes of the Mughal Empire in order to trade in spices. The 17th Century was a golden age for Mughal culture and the Mughals had more opulent cities than Europe. However the standard of Mughal Emperor declined in the 18th Century as power struggles erupted and, as Macaulay described, successive incumbents 'sauntered away life in secluded palaces, chewing bang (cannabis), fondling concubines, and listening to buffoons.' Internal revolts combined with Persian and Afghan invasions meant that the disordered land was ripe for the British and the French to exploit. In making alliances with local rulers, the East India Company could gain control of further commerce which paid for more sepoys (native soldiers) to conquer further territory, which in turn gave more tax revenue and yet more commercial gains. With a superior navy and better military leadership the British outdid the French easily and by 1761 had crushed their allies and controlled Bengal.
Yet the East India Company was only interested in commercial gain and not in administration. This meant that the province of Bengal was plundered by the tyrannical Company men who were to build vast palaces and extract valuable gifts, before returning home to scandalise society with their ill-gotten gains. Piers Brendon supposes that they may have been 'rendered callous by their own likely fate: about 60 per cent of the Company's appointees died before they could get back to England'. However, vast fortunes were made for the surviving Company employees whilst the province collapsed into famine and death. Between 1773 and 1774 around 5 million people starved to death: one third of Bengal's population. Less people meant less tax revenue and the East India Company's share price began to fall. In 1784 the India Act saw the government take control away from the Company; in 1788 Governor-General Hastings himself was impeached by the House of Lords under charges of misgovernment and corruption.
Although Hastings had been relatively respectful of Indian culture and had seized less riches personally than previous Governor-Generals, the perpetual warfare of his regime was not only costly to Britain; his self-made nabobs that had corrupted the elites of India were now seen as spreading their immorality to British society with many buying rotten borough parliamentary seats. This meant that his never-ending trial would see the British debating the very nature of their new Empire with the great debater Burke accusing Hastings of being 'a ravenous vulture devouring the carcases of the dead.' However, key witnesses were to contract amnesia when it came to providing evidence of Hastings personal culpability in corruption and he was acquitted in 1795. By then, any collective guilt surrounding imperial adventure had been overtaken by a new centralised zeal that insisted that Indians were uncivilized, their culture backward and that India must be 'ruled by an absolute power.'
Source:
Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781 - 1997.
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