1) Was military superiority the main reason for the expansion of British influence in India in the

period 1757 to 1785? Explain your answer.

For the 19th Century historian Thomas Macauley, “military superiority”, along with other perceived superiorities
(cultural, administrative, moral), was undoubtedly one of the main causes of the expansion of British influence in
India. On closer inspection, however, not only is the very concept of “military superiority” at best questionable but
it obscures more than it clarifies the structures and processes that underpinned the growing influence of the British
in India between 1757 and 1785.
Undoubtedly the geo-political map of India changed vastly, from a British perspective, between 1757 and
1785. The French challenge to the mercantilist ambitions of the British in India was quelled and the Governor
General of India could boast vast tracts of territory under his taxable control. But the history of the period is not a
19th Century narrative of conquest, annexation and the realization of a golden east. It is more about the immense
challenge of consolidation – as opposed to conquest – and that challenge was as much about military inferiority as
military victories. Indeed, in some respects the period’s history is only partly about the British at all. To grasp the
expansion of British influence, itself a term meriting a closer look, we must look to India herself – the decay of the
Mughal Empire, the lack of concerted opposition to British ambitions, the pre-existing administrative structures and
the importance of trade for both the British and the Indian.
Firstly, the British East India Company was not militarily superior per se. It won battles, was arguably better
structured and was sometimes better armed. But it was, in fact, not “British” at all. The bulk of the “British”
soldiery was Indian, with troops drawn from various parts of the subcontinent.
Secondly, when we look at British battles, which often prefigured the acquisition of territories, the military
superiority of the “British” is dubious. The Battle of Plassey in 1757, for example, was won not through Robert
Clive’s military genius or superiority (two thirds of his troops were in any case sepoy not British) but by the
treachery of Mir Jafar against his own Nawab and the lack of French gunners in the Nawab’s ranks. There was very
little fighting and any superiority went unproven though it did secure Bengal for the British. The British were
defeated in 1768/1769 by Hydar Ali who recaptured the northern Circars and territories previously taken by the
British. The territories of the Rohillas were taken in 1774 following a battle won largely because of the death of
Hafez Ruhmet.
If there is a case for British military superiority between 1757 and 1785, it was against the French, rather
than the Indian leaders, during The third Carnatic Wars. The British East India Company forces took control of the
French settlement at Chandannagar in 1757, defeated the French at Battle of Wandiwash in 1761. But yet again, we
have to question whether the British were actually militarily superior. These victories over the French, of course,
did not happen in a vacuum. The context was the French defeat in the wider Seven Years War which spanned
Europe, North America, India and the Caribbean. France, struggling at home and in North America, was unable to
engage its considerable resources in India. The diplomatic resolution of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 effectively
ended the French challenge to British influence in India. Besides, even if the British, given the context, were
military superior to the French at the time, this fails to explain how the Company gained such a foothold in India.
Its forces were outnumbered almost beyond count in India, so how can the British expansion be explained?
The answer, paradoxically, is the military inferiority of the British. From 1773 until 1785, Warren Hastings
was acutely aware of just how outnumbered his meagre forces were. This is demonstrated by his approach to the
considerable challenge of consolidating Company territories in India. Hastings sought out treaties and agreements
with various provincial leaders, such as the Nawab of Oudh in 1773, and created an intricate architecture of
administrative control, a wealth extraction system wholly reliant on native interlocutors and intermediaries acting
on the Company’s behalf. It was, rather like the armed forces of Clive, powered not by British superiority, but by
the effective use of Indian resources – whether soldiers or tax collectors.
And it is in this peculiar structure of interweaving forces – British commercial interest and native the legacy
of Indian forms of power that the expansion of British influence between 1757 and 1785 evolved. Conditions in
India during the 1750s to the 1780s were ripe for Britain. The power of the Mughal Empire was in rapid decline,
opening vacuums of power fought over by aspiring potentates across the sub-continent. These rivalries, which the
British increasingly found themselves involved in, such as the battle against the Rohillos, signalled a seed-change in
the usage of the Company’s military. Increasingly, rather than existing to protect the Company’s trading stations,
they ended up serving as mercenaries on behalf of those provincial leaders favoured by the British. In return, the
British received monies or, increasingly, tax rights or territory, which was in turn consolidated into the growing
British machine in India.
The fractured nature of power in India with the decline of Mughal influence, also helps explain why India
was unable to expel the British. Certainly there was growing resentment against the British amongst some Indian
leaders, all too aware of the vast sums being made by the British mercantilists in their midst. The fact was while
India united, as at the height of Mughal power prior to the 1600s, was capable of expelling European powers,
divided it was not. And the legacy of the crumbling Mughal Empire was a vast nexus of administrators and
intermediaries who found new employers in the British.
So “military superiority” was not the main reason for the expansion of British influence. Indeed, British
military superiority itself was at best debatable and barely, given its constituent parts, British. The East India
Company annexed territory not through military superiority but through opportunism – India was fractured, given
over to petty rivalries and had a vast legacy of native Indians usable by the British in consolidating its gains. These
gains emerged as a result of conflicts involving the Company’s military assets but also by deft diplomacy with
Indian provincial leaders. And French power was in decline, unable to effectively challenge British commercial
interests in India. It was in successful consolidation, driven by an awareness of British numerical inferiority, that
British influence continued to expand not only to 1785 but beyond in the hands of Cornwallis.
The expansion of British influence between 1757 and 1785 was accomplished by the power of the sword.
Admittedly, the British India Company was not in search of territorial conquest and its raison d'etre in India not to
do battle with either the French or native Indian rulers. However, in preserving and expanding its commercial
interests in the sub continent it found itself repeatedly engaged in pitched battles to defend those interests and its
smaller military forces tended to prove victorious. Naturally the concept of "military superiority" is somewhat
ambiguous. Here it is taken to mean superior in terms of weaponry, organisation and unity and mobilisation to
achieve a given aim. On each count, the British forces, admittedly drawing their numbers from the Indian populace,
enveloping them into the British army systems, worked to secure the Company's aims - either directly through
victory or indirectly by forcing treaties with native Indian provincial rulers - against forces often many times the
size of the British contingents. Military superiority was not the only cause of expansion but it was, if not "the" main
certainly "a" main, cause of the massive increase in British influence, both economic and territorial, between 1757
and 1785.
At the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the 3,000 or so British troops under Robert Clive defeated the Nawab and
the French forces, which outnumbered the British tenfold, with very few casualties. The victory saw Bengal fall
under British control. It should be conceded that treachery within the Nawab's ranks played a vital role in the
British victory - but if organisation, loyalty and the command structure are essential ingredients of a strong army,
then treachery simply goes to demonstrate the British military superiority over the Nawab's forces at the Battle of
Plassey. During the Third Carnatic Wars, the forces of the East India Company notched victories over the French at
Chandannager in 1757 and Wandiwash in 1761. And even when the British forces were overun, as was the case
against Hydar Ali in the northern Circars in 1768/1769 - causing a major tumble in the Company's stock value -
British forces recaptured the Rohillas in 1774. Throughout the period, the military forces of the company were
intimately alllied to the Company's overarching commercial interests in India, and was this alignment between
strategy and resources, which ultimately enabled the British to successfully expand its influence between 1757 and
1785.
Even when the British forces were not actively engaged in combat, the perceived superiority of its military
played an important part in the diplomatic process which was pivotal in further expanding British influence. The
Nawab of Oudh, for example, entered into a mutual protection treaty with Warren Hastings' administration in 1773 ,
perceiving the Company's military as useful for both the protection of his own interests against potential rivals and
for the prestige such an association conferred on him against those same rivals. And it was on the back of such
agreements, struck because of that perceived military superority, that the Company acquired increased taxation
rights or territories in India. Perceived military superiority is, in terms of meeting objectives, actual military
superiority.
Naturally, military superority, both real and perceived, was not the only reason for the expansion of British
influence. India was unable to mount a concerted and organised expulsion of the British because of the collpase of
Mughal power. This collapse had left a power vacuum which a mulititude of provincial leaders were eager to fill.
Petty rivalries between these leaders meant the British did not have to take on the Mughal Empire. These rivalries
not only made British expansion easier under Clive and Hastings, the first Governor General of India, it in fact had
the affect of sucking the British in.
It could equally be argued that British expansion owed a great deal to the French decline on the international
stage. The Seven years War in Europe had left French ambitions in India in tatters. Lacking a European rival again
played an important part in British expansion, but did not nullify the importance of British military superiority.
When French and British forces did meet in India, the British proved victorious.
The administrative structures brought to bear on India by Hastings were also pivotal in the expansion of
British influence in India. His use of native adminstrators, themselves debris from the Mughal collapse, helped
fortify British control of the territories acquired. Was the Hastings system, which used Indians to extract wealth
from their fellow Indians for the benefit of the Company, a more important factor than the Company's military? No,
the two were intertwined. The consolidation and administration would founder were it not backed up by a strong
military presence (or at least the perception of such).
Some historians argue that the expansion of British influence and its seizure of vast swathes of Indian land
was a marked departure from the Company's commercial strategy, a failure even. Trade was undoubtedly the
primary purpose of British involvement in India. It was the military that supported and protected that trade. In
succeeding in delivering that protection - with vastly smalller numbers than the encountered opposition - the
military delivered to the increased land, increased sources of funds and treaties that provided the company with a
regular stream of wealth from the provincial leaders of India.
Without its military assets, the British would have been left bankrupt and possibly expelled from India. The
military was therefore a central reason for not only a coninuation of British influence, but its expansion between the
1750s and the 1780s. What made it superior was that it successfully, by its close alignment with the strategic
commercial aims of the Company and the diplomatic skills of both Clive and Hastings, quelled opposition - outside
from Franc and inside from within India. Moreover, this was accomplished against vaastly superior numbers as at
Plassey, or through perceived military superiority as with the Nawab of Oudh. Its commaand structures, use of
resources and the perception engendered amongst potential foes proved pivotal in the British expansion of influence
until 1785.
2) Estimate of Warren Hastings
Many of the Governor Generals and Viceroys of British India were notorious for their arrogance, superiority
complex and above all corruption. In fact, some of them were ordinary officers not even with good background.
Such people, when got vast power in a foreign land, saw the wealth of the Maharajas, their own low and poor
background made them corrupt and greedy. However, some of them had good qualities and are remembered for
their services to this country. In fact, Warren Hastings has a place in both the groups.
Quick promotions:
Warren Hastings was born in 1732 in England. Just at the age of 17, he joined East India Company as a clerk and
came to India. By hard work and also by pleasing his bosses, he got quick promotions and became the Governor of
Bengal. In 1773, he became the first Governor General of India. He made reforms in tax collection. With great
imagination and innovation, he appointed rich-men as tax collectors through auction and is said to have pocketed a
lot of money in this process. He took great interest in judicial matters and established courts at various places.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee said, “These British courts and brothel houses are similar because native Indians can
get into both of them only by paying money”.
Another contribution of Hastings was the establishment of Asiatic Society of Bengal for the study of
Indology under the guidance of Sir William Jones. While writing a foreword to an English translation of
Bhagavadgita, he expressed noble sentiments. “This work Bhagavad - gita will remain forever even after the British
go out of this country”. This prophecy has come true.
He also helped in establishing printing presses for printing Sanskrit works. He also established Islamic
Madarasas. In addition, he was also engaged in four important wars. Thus his period was full of activities. By
looking at these activities of Hastings, anybody would not hesitate to give him a certificate of merit for the service
he rendered to India. It is said that these good deeds did not cover up his corrupt, oppressive measures involving
abuse of power.
This ugly side became a black spot in his career and this was projected through corruption. Some historians
justify the corruption of British officers on the ground that they had to give large sums of money and gold to the
Directors of the East India Company in London to retain their influential positions. These officers could not give
the government money openly and naturally they resorted to corrupt practices and the native Maharajas were
obviously the milking cows for this purpose. Whatever it may be, some British officers were corrupt and became
notorious too.
Extracting money:
Hastings extracted huge amounts of money from Mir Jafar who was appointed as the Nawab of Bengal. On his
death in 1765, Hastings threatened his widowed queen and extracted bribe to the tune of three and a half lakh
rupees. Her sister was made to pay one and a half lakh rupees to Hastings. Maharaja Nandakumar made this
allegation against Hastings and wrote to the Board of Directors in London. Hastings became furious against
Nandakumar and filed a false case against him, imprisoned him and finally got him murdered. At this stage, a large
number of criminal allegations and corruption charges were made against Warren Hastings by highly influential
public men and Maharajas. To save his face and also that of the East India Company, he was advised to resign from
his post as the Governor General. He submitted his resignation and went back to England in 1785.
Observing the mounting pressure on the East India Company both in India and England, the Government
constituted an enquiry committee against Hastings for oppression, corruption and abuse of power. The famous West
minister Hall was the place of the trial. Edmund Burke, one of the greatest orators of the period was at the helm of
affairs at the trial and the famous playwright Mrs. Sheridon was one of the prosecutors. To dilute the case and the
intensity of hatredness against Hastings, the government dragged on the case for six years. Even the well-meaning
British citizens were horrified at the cruelties committed by the British in India. It also exposed the extraordinary
wealth amassed by the Company and its officers by gross abuse of power.
Rape of India:
Burke said that Hastings had done nothing less than rape of India, committed cruelties unheard of in a civilized
society, which made every Briton hang his head in shame. Abuse of young Bengali girls was highlighted during the
trial. The Police unauthorisedly entered into Bengali houses and dragged young girls and their mothers out of their
houses, removed their clothes and paraded them naked in public roads.
Worse was yet to happen, to these unfortunate, hapless young women. Their breasts became the target of
attack. They put the nipples of these women into the sharp edges of split bamboo and tore them. On hearing these
atrocities committed on young women, a shocked Mrs. Sheridon, one of the prosecutors, swooned and was carried
to the hospital for treatment. Neither the oratory of Burke nor the evidences against Hastings moved the British
authorities. Warren Hastings was acquitted. Thus ended the fiasco of a trial in London, and Warren Hastings
continued to be Honourable Warren Hastings and former Governor General of India.