The East India Company and British Expansion to 1857

This handout covers why the East India Company (EIC) came to the subcontinent, how it changed from a trading company into a ruling power between 1757 and 1856, and why the British were able to take control. It belongs to Section 1 of the syllabus: the cultural and historical background to the Pakistan Movement.

Key dates

Date	Event
1600	Queen Elizabeth I grants a charter to the EIC to trade with the East
1608	The first EIC ship reaches Surat
1757	Battle of Plassey: Robert Clive defeats Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah of Bengal
1764	Battle of Buxar: the EIC defeats Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Oudh and the Mughal emperor
1773	Regulating Act: the British government begins to supervise the Company
1784	Pitt's India Act: a Board of Control is set up in London
1799	Tipu Sultan is killed defending Seringapatam; Mysore falls
1803	The British take Delhi
1843	Annexation of Sindh
1849	Annexation of the Punjab after the Second Sikh War
1856	Annexation of Oudh

Why did the East India Company come?

1. Trade and profit. The Company was a group of English merchants. India produced goods that sold for high prices in Europe, such as spices, cotton cloth, silk, indigo and saltpetre (used for gunpowder). The merchants hoped to make large profits.
2. The spice islands were closed to them. The Company first wanted the spice trade of the East Indies (modern Indonesia), but the Dutch already controlled it and kept the English out. The Company turned to India instead.
3. Rivalry with other Europeans. The Portuguese, Dutch and French were all trading in the East. England did not want to be left behind, and trade was seen as a source of national wealth and power.

The Company gained permission from the Mughal emperor Jahangir to trade at Surat. During the seventeenth century it set up fortified bases at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta.

From trader to ruler: Bengal

The Battle of Plassey, 1757

The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, was angry that the Company had strengthened its fort at Calcutta without his permission and was abusing its trading rights. He captured Calcutta in 1756. The Company sent Robert Clive with an army to recover it.

Clive made a secret agreement with Mir Jafar, one of the Nawab's commanders, who wanted to be Nawab himself. At Plassey in June 1757, Mir Jafar's troops did not fight. The Nawab's much larger army was defeated and Siraj-ud-Daulah was later killed. Mir Jafar became Nawab, but he depended on the Company. The Company and its officers gained great wealth from Bengal, the richest province of India.

The Battle of Buxar, 1764

Mir Jafar was replaced by Mir Qasim, who tried to resist the Company's control. He joined with Shuja-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Oudh, and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. The Company defeated all three at Buxar in 1764.

In 1765 the emperor granted the Company the diwani, the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Company now had the income of a large state and used it to pay for a bigger army.

The British government takes a hand

Company officials became very rich through private trade and gifts, while Bengal suffered misrule and a terrible famine in 1770. The Company itself got into financial difficulty. Parliament decided that a private company could not be left to govern millions of people without supervision.

Act	Main terms
Regulating Act, 1773	A Governor-General of Bengal was appointed (the first was Warren Hastings) with a council of four members. He was given authority over the governors of Bombay and Madras. A Supreme Court was set up in Calcutta. The Company had to report to the British government.
Pitt's India Act, 1784	A Board of Control was set up in London to direct the Company's political and military affairs. The Company kept its trade. The Governor-General's council was reduced to three and his authority over Bombay and Madras was made stronger.

Expansion across the subcontinent

Mysore and Tipu Sultan

Mysore in the south, under Haider Ali and then his son Tipu Sultan, was one of the strongest opponents of the Company. Tipu modernised his army, used rockets in battle and sought help from the French. The British fought four wars against Mysore. In the fourth, in 1799, British forces stormed Tipu's capital at Seringapatam and he was killed in the fighting. His defeat removed the main obstacle to British power in the south.

The Marathas and Delhi

The Marathas were weakened by quarrels among their chiefs. The British defeated them in a series of wars, took Delhi in 1803 and ended Maratha power by 1818. Many other rulers signed subsidiary alliances, under which a ruler kept his throne but paid for British troops in his state and let the British control his foreign affairs.

Sindh, 1843

The British wanted to control the Indus and the routes to Afghanistan, where they feared Russian influence. They had also been humiliated in the First Afghan War (1839 to 1842) and wanted to restore their reputation. Although the Amirs of Sindh had signed treaties of friendship, Sir Charles Napier provoked a war, defeated them and annexed Sindh in 1843.

The Punjab, 1849

Ranjit Singh had built a strong Sikh kingdom in the Punjab, and the British had respected a treaty with him. After his death in 1839 the kingdom was weakened by struggles for power. Two Sikh Wars followed. After the second, in 1849, the British annexed the Punjab, which included the north-west frontier area.

The Doctrine of Lapse and Oudh

Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General from 1848 to 1856, applied the Doctrine of Lapse. If the ruler of a state under British protection died without a natural male heir, the state passed to the British; an adopted son was not accepted. Satara, Nagpur and Jhansi were taken in this way. In 1856 Oudh was annexed on the grounds that it was badly governed. These annexations caused great resentment among Indian rulers and were one cause of the War of Independence in 1857.

Why were the British able to take control?

1. Mughal weakness. After Aurangzeb's death in 1707 the empire was in decline. There was no strong central power to stop the Company.
2. Indian disunity. Indian rulers were rivals. They fought each other and some sided with the British against their neighbours, as Mir Jafar did at Plassey. The British were able to deal with their opponents one at a time.
3. Military superiority. The Industrial Revolution gave the British better muskets and artillery. Their soldiers, including Indian sepoys, were well trained, disciplined and regularly paid. They also controlled the sea, so they could bring in supplies and reinforcements.
4. Wealth. The revenue of Bengal paid for armies that conquered other regions. Each conquest provided income for the next.
5. Organisation and confidence. The British had a clear chain of command, the support of their government after 1784, and a strong belief in their own right to rule. They also used diplomacy, such as subsidiary alliances, to gain control without fighting.

How to judge it

British strengths. Modern weapons, disciplined troops, sea power and the wealth of Bengal gave the Company advantages that no single Indian state could match for long. Government supervision after 1773 gave its policy direction.

Indian weaknesses. The British were few in number and far from home. They could not have won without Indian soldiers, Indian money and Indian allies. Plassey was decided by Mir Jafar's betrayal, not by fighting. Rulers who resisted, such as Tipu Sultan and the Sikhs, were strong enough to cause the British real difficulty, but they fought alone.

Judgement. British military and economic strength mattered a great deal, but it was the decline of the Mughals and the lack of unity among Indian rulers that gave the Company its opportunity and let it turn local victories into control of the whole subcontinent.

Key terms and people

• Diwani: the right to collect land revenue, granted to the Company in 1765.
• Warren Hastings: first Governor-General of Bengal under the Regulating Act.
• Board of Control: the body in London set up in 1784 to supervise the Company.
• Tipu Sultan: ruler of Mysore, killed at Seringapatam in 1799.
• Subsidiary alliance: agreement by which a state paid for British troops and gave up control of its foreign policy.
• Doctrine of Lapse: Dalhousie's policy of taking states whose rulers died without a natural heir.

Exam practice

1. Describe the Battle of Plassey. [4]
2. Why did the East India Company become involved in the subcontinent in the seventeenth century? [7]
3. "The military strength of the British was the main reason why they were able to take control of the subcontinent by 1857." How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [14]

Outline answers

Question 1 (4 marks): It was fought in 1757 between the Company's forces under Robert Clive and Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. Clive had a secret agreement with Mir Jafar, whose troops did not fight. The Nawab was defeated and later killed. Mir Jafar became Nawab and the Company gained control over Bengal and its wealth.

Question 2 (7 marks): Three explained reasons. (1) Profit: Indian goods such as spices, cotton, silk and saltpetre sold for high prices in Europe. (2) The Dutch shut the English out of the East Indies spice trade, so India was the alternative. (3) Competition with the Portuguese, Dutch and French: trade overseas brought wealth and influence.

Question 3 (14 marks): Agree: superior weapons from the Industrial Revolution; trained and regularly paid troops; sea power; victories at Buxar, Seringapatam, and in Sindh and the Punjab. Other reasons: decline of the Mughal Empire; disunity and betrayal among Indian rulers (Mir Jafar); the wealth of Bengal; subsidiary alliances and the Doctrine of Lapse, which gained land without war; government backing after 1784. Judgement: military strength won the battles, but Indian disunity and Mughal weakness created the opportunity and supplied the men and money, so military strength alone is not a full explanation.