THE SCANDAL OF EMPIRE

INDIA AND THE CREATION OF IMPERIAL BRITIAN

BOOK REVIEW

Subject: History-I

Submitted to: Dr. Hota Agni Kumar

Submitted by: Varun Venkatesh Dhond

Roll No.: 2016-5LLB-53

NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction …Page 3

2. Book Summary and Core Analysis …Page 4

A. Commercialization of Sovereignty …Page 4

B. Transformation of Empire …Page 5

C. Establishment of State …Page 7

3. Critical Analysis …Page 9

4. Conclusion …Page 10

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INTRODUCTION:

The book “The Scandal of EMPIRE” by Nicholas B. Dirks deals with the establishment of
The East India Company in the 18th century. A lot has been written about the colonial
conquests of the Company its extraordinary successes and excesses. The conquest and
establishment of imperial rule over the golden sparrow 1 were followed by stories of plunder
and exploitation. These plunders made the directors of the Company immensely wealthy, but
this was only one aspect. When Edmund Burke put Warren Hastings to trial, these exploits
came to the attention of the public.

The aftermath of this trial led to a perceptional change by the British Government which
transformed public understanding of the Company and its corruption. This created an image
of a vulnerable India which required British assistance. Intrusive behavior was transformed
into a civilizing mission as it camouflaged the illegitimate origins of the Empire and justified
British imperial rule. The expose of these exploits thus led to the foundation of the British
Empire. Mercantile trade was linked to the colonial prosperity which provided a basis for
imperial expansion. The acceptability of such a scandal as analyzed in the book has
ramifications on the nature of a modern colonizer and has manifold implications on the
colonized.

1
Mark Twain referred to ancient India as a golden sparrow (sone ki chidiya) due to immense riches, resources
and treasures. Clive was personally held responsible for misleading the company that India overflowed with
riches which the company relied upon to believe treasures were about to flow into its lap.

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BOOK SUMMARY AND CORE ANALYSIS

A. COMMERCIALIZATION OF SOVERIEGNTY

When we primarily study the establishment of the British Empire in India we look at it
through the lens of the East India Company. Burke felt that opening of the veil of any
government or established power was to be seen through its ORIGIN. This gives rise to a
significant ambiguity: The possession of India by The East India Company. There was
extensive power in the hands of merchants, thus the question arising: With what authority did
the Company control India?

Over time, the features of the East India Company had mimicked the features of a modern
state-
1) Political Functions: Waging war and making peace through alliances
2) Economic Functions: Minting of coins and assessment of taxes and land revenues
3) Judicial Functions: Administration of Justice

It was held that the Great Mogul was “sold”:

The Mughal Empire and the East India Company held various privileges and
acknowledgements which depended on each other. In 1765, it was granted diwani rights over
Bengal which allowed it to collect revenue directly. It was believed that the Mughal Empire
was ruled by the Company under a covert arrangement through which they had effective
control over large parts of India but could simultaneously take on the Marathas and Mysore.
Since it took six to twelve months for correspondence between India and Britain, the
Company acted as an independent entity. It was effectively “a fully functional state that was
sovereign and autonomous, for all practical and symbolic purposes too”.

It was argued that the the Company was reluctantly drawn into military conflict and political
activity. It only took interest in conquering territory and collecting revenue as a last resort to
its trading interests. This claim lacked merit as Company had the legal right and military will
to wage wars from the mid-seventeenth century. It became aggressive in its pursuit of greater
territorial expansion and expanding its political footprint.

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B. TRANSFORMATION OF EMPIRE:

Edmund Burke was a critic of the excesses and abuse of power of the British empire. The
impact of his trial was such that it later brought embarrassment to the Empire, turning its
claims of being glorious hollow. Hastings as a symbol of imperial greatness was tarnished.

It is yet ironic that Burke never held the Company directly responsible for its imperial
conduct and excesses. Burke’s true legacy lay in transformation of the British Empire. His
trial of Warren Hastings helped turn corruption into a virtue, private malfeasance into public
good and mercantile disgrace into a national triumph by changing the legacy of the Company.
It was a period of transition in 1785 when the British had lost their colony in America and
had established their presence in India. This was also the time at which Clive and Hastings
were Governors and this transformation into an Empire by the time of Lord Cornwallis. The
trial of Warren Hastings helped identify the company and the Indian colony with the British
empire. It was the final act which consolidated imperial power in the hands of the British
empire and it consolidated it as a “state” and “nation”. Following his trial, commercial
constraints were removed, economic and political interests were restructured as national
interest and most importantly, the taint of a scandal was viewed as a moral mandate for
imperial rule.

This transformation was further compounded by the fact that it was of significance for the
British empire itself. The legacy of the British empire lay not in England but in its colonial
might- America and India. The significance of the empire to national history was
misunderstood as its conquest by the British was by chance- accidental and unintentional.
The justification(/legitimisation) made was that British travelled with the intention of trade
which transformed into a political conquest without any planning or contrivance.

For military conquests and establishment of power i.e. imperial expansion an excuse was
required. This was done through propaganda by highlighting “that great crime, memorable
for its singular atrocity”2 The crime being referred to was the “Black Hole”, which was
underemphasised by Mill as he felt it was blown out of proportion.

2
Macaulay, “Lord Clive,” quotations on p. 331

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The trial of Warren Hastings was a critical moment in the transformation of the Empire as it
led to delineation of relations between managerial constraints which were fundamental to
early imperial trade i.e. The East India Company and the final imperial project which was an
extension of natural interest. The British were credited with the necessary (and benevolent)
role of modernisation. The impact left by the British Empire on India was dual-
i) It impacted politics as it established and enforced the rule of law and it enforced the belief
of democratic political systems and its institutions
ii) It impacted culture, the most prominent being the Anglicisation of the world

Seeley believed that the traders who managed seaport towns across India were induced
(almost forced) into the anarchy caused due to the fall of Mughals. Thus the prime
circumstance for territorial establishment was to fill the void left by the disintegration of
the Mughal Empire. This gave these traders military character as they employed troops
which resulted in acquisition of territory. It was just by chance that these traders were
Englishmen who had a proportionate number of English troops in their army. They acquired
territory till they had acquired large parts of India since “anarchy had already set in” and
India “lay there waiting to be picked up by somebody” Thus Seeley believed the
establishment of the British Empire in India was a product of an “internal revolution”
rather than a “foreign conquest”. Even if we examine the various wars that British fought
with other foreign powers such as the French, these wars were not foreign conquests by
nature. These were competing commercial interests which fought over trade influence.

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C. ESTABLISHEMENT OF STATE

When we analyze and document the political activity of a region, there is a stark difference
between the establishment of control through the means of conquering and the further
establishment of the rule of a state which would entail further administration of that state. The
author mentions:

“Robert Clive might have conquered Bengal, but it was Warren Hastings who first seriously
began to rule it”3

It was the appointment of Warren Hastings that left a significant impact on the modern
British “state” in India. The most prominent change was his functioning like a bureaucrat
rather than a soldier which was manifested in his actions such as the abolition of Robert
Clive’s dual rule in Bengal which thus gave exclusive powers of revenue collection.

Foundations of State: When Hasting’s imposed direct rule in Bengal, it involved devising a
revenue system which was entirely new as it established direct administration over the
landlords and other local agencies. There was a shift in the state from trade towards
agriculture. Hastings had changed the fundamental nature of the East India Company in
India by establishing the foundations of a colonial state. He set up structures which were
reformed by Cornwallis and would evolve with the changing needs of imperial conquests.

Recognition of Property: Foucault believed that a modern state is characterised by the

preoccupations of “governmentality” referring to the administrative apparatus of government
that controls its inhabitants. An important step taking towards this aim was the rule of
property which was based on the right of the state to collect “rent” (agricultural tax
collection) on the basis of its assessments of surplus. This revenue administration was
transformed into the “Permanent Settlement” by Cornwallis in 1793. Cornwallis introduced
official titles for the propriety rights over land based on the principle of fiscal responsibility.
Thus he furthered Hastings’ actions as the rule of law legitimised itself through the state and
its machinery. It expanded the domain of legal judgement since it shielded the state from
accusations that it only sought to protect itself. The local policing mechanism through its
3
“State making and Sovereignty and the English East India Company-State in the Late Seventeenth Century,”
unpublished paper, 2003, in authors possession.

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state institutions were custodians of protecting property and law and thus legitimised the
presence of the state.

Regulations of 1773: The Regulations of 1773 intended to to bind the company securely to
British policies and thus effective control. 4 It diluted the original Charter of the Company
allowing state influence. This led to centralization of power in the hands of the Governor-
General with the influence of British authority eventually establishing a state system in the
Indian colony. A basic structure of a state was created which asserted itself with procedures
of ruling rather than sovereignty with its people.
It is emphasised that a time-lag of six to twelve months for correspondence between the
colony and its imperial power was a significant reason that allowed certain levels of regional
autonomy as local affairs were not influenced by the Empire directly.

British Exploitation: The British Empire amassed plenty of resources from India to establish
its dominance in Europe through its increasing imperial control of India. The colonial form of
administration included a bureaucracy that exercised control on the colonial state. The
objective at that time was to maximise the extraction of revenues through capturing of power
over local structures. Hastings military expansion in the years to come are seen as a failure of
the Company. It was believed that greedy traders couldn’t resist going to war as they felt it
was an opportunity to expand their economic influence and establish their control over new
markets. Thus the Company was viewed as a problem for management as Company trade
depended on political control to further its trade interests. Its economic profitability was
linked to its military expansions.
To further the above interests, the Company required deployment of large number of armed
forces which costed it dearly as it reduced scope for any potential profits. This thus led to a
realisation that profit from trade was insufficient to support an imperial state based on a
strong military and costly taxation. This policy of expansion casted aspersions on the
legitimacy of the state. A secured tax base was required to fund the military might of the state
but it failed to portray such interests as legitimate due to its perception of being irresponsible
and contrary to the interests of the state.

4
Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (New York Longman,1993), p.122

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The colonial state can be viewed initially as a field of power associated with trade
accompanied by military alliances. The origin of the empire was very ambiguous due to the
fact that the authority that it drew was highly sporadic, irregular and incoherent. Initially this
status quo was maintained consciously: The British made alliances with the Nawabs in the
form of dual government where fiscal matters were controlled by the Company, recognised
the authority of the Mughals by minting coins in their name and using Persian as the official
language. This thus prevented the Company from functioning like a state.

The beginning of the state was “multiple”- it drew power from various conquests, alliances
and other authorities. There were various sporadic political interventions that helped the
Company consolidate power over the state. It was a concealed state that drew its authority
through various means and after being established, it dealt with administration.

Compounding Causes: The trial of the Warren Hastings transformed the perception of the
company among the public. It showed India as vulnerable due to corruption and exploits of
the company and it thus needed assistance of the British. It was thus turned into an issue of
British benevolence and generosity. The deeper analysis of this trial was that it showed India
as dependant on the British. The further acts of the state were justified as the company was
replaced by an imperial power having a cleaner image. If the above effects are viewed in
exclusion they would be able to suit the implications put forth due to the colonial ideology.

Ideas of India:

 Orientalist School of Thought: The British forwarded the idea of India as a

“decayed system” which was based on the the British construction of India’s past.
India was portrayed to have a golden and glorious past which suffered degeneration
and it was the British who self-imposed it as their obligation to restore this. The
disintegration of the Aryan civilisation was later used to legitimise colonial rule and
rescue India and transform it into a state of progress modelled like Europe. This was
the orientalist school of thought that controlled knowledge of the past to suit the
requirements of the present colonial state.

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  Evangelical School of Thought: With the Industrial Revolution in Europe,
Evangelicalism brought a shift in colonial policy. It was believed that the
establishment of the empire was based on excesses or sins but in spite of this they felt
there was a need to reform Indians from their “barbaric” nature. They wished to
change the nature of India and remove the ignorance from their lives. The motive
was to “civilise” the conquered through actions such as enforcing the rule of law.
Following the revolt of 1857 the British did not favour reform as they felt it served no
purpose, apart from the fact that it antagonised sections of people. The quest for
reform fizzled out.

CONCLUSION:

The failure of the Orientalist School of Colonial Policy was used by the British Parliament to
reflect their capitalist interest because their leaders and policy makers were increasingly
capitalist industrialists. The change in political atmosphere at home believed that the
Company exploits were critical to England’s prosperity. The trial of Hastings and the fact that
the colonialists showed that India was insufficient of governing itself was probably a
superficial manifestation used as a cover to reflect their new ideologies back home. This was
the justification sought for transformation of the empire. The complimenting causes, although
happening independent of each other occurred at the same time. Hasting’s trial was more
explicit and popularly used rhetoric to justify rule whereas it was driven by the more implicit
factor of change in political ideology in England. These compounding causes led to the sea
change in the British approach to administering India and its people. Thus the political shift
in India from the East India Company to Colonial rule was established.

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