East India Company from 1600 to 1857.

t. The Indian history has been divided into three parts

1) Ancient history 2) medieval history 3)Modern history.

Modern history (8 - 18th century) = time when India was under the rule of British Empire.

13th to 18th century - India was under the Islamic rule. Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire were
the direct rulers of major portion of the Indian subcontinent.

End of medieval period - the Mughal Empire came to an end after the death of Aurangzeb, their last
influential and powerful emperor. None of them were that influential. However, Bahadur shah was the
last emperor until 1857. So we can say that the Mughal Empire officially came to an end by 1857.

So that's where the real story starts.

Europeans had already discovered India way before Mughal invasion.

Mughal era started in 1526, with Babur being the first emperor.

Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese explorer => First European to discover the sea route to India. In 1498,
he went to the harbour in Calicut, which is now KohKozhikode on the Malibar coast. There they had
set up their first trading post.

Now, as soon as a powerful, influential ruler died, all of his governors, who were also known as
subhadars and the Big zamindars started dividing because it is now beneficial for them to establish
their own small regional kingdoms.

Now we have the dates 1707and 1498. Let's get to know what happened in between.

At 1498, Portuguese came to India (calicut)

Dutch fleet arrived in Pulicut in 1595.

British, who landed in Surat in 1607.

Danish came to Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district of the Indian
state of Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel Coast in 1616.

And at last, the French came to Pondicherry in 1664.

They all were collectively called as European traders.

How the British arrived in India?

Since Portuguese came to India almost 100 years before any of the European traders, they had more
number of trading posts compared to other European traders.

It started in 1600.

English company acquired a charter from the then ruler of England, queen Elizabeth 1. (Charter means
a written legislative paper of a country.) This gave the English company complete individual right to
trade with the eastern countries. T he company went to the eastern side through ocean route, looking
for new lands from which it could buy goods at cheap price and carry them back to Europe to sell at
higher price; wanted to be the loan shark. There are other European traders that already arrived in
India before the British, like the Portuguese and Dutch. While they didn't see any competition from
their own country, but their competition with the other European traders.

All these European trading companies were interested in buying the same products, and that was fine
qualities of cotton and silk. Apart from silk, they were also interested in spices like pepper, cloves,
cardamom and cinnamon.

Plan to take it back to European market and sell it for higher prices to make huge profit.

Demand was high, Indian traders increased the price (demand price economics)

This affected the profit margin of the European traders. So instead of finding different ways to
minimize the cost, the only reasonable solution they could think of was to eliminate their competitors.

Fierce battles between these European trading (1600 to 1700), they regularly sank each other's ships,
blocked routes and prevented rival ships from moving with supplies of goods. They even fortified
their posts, meaning they build big walls to protect their trading post.

fortifying trading post and trying to maximize profits in foreign location => led to intense conflict with
local rulers.

So now we have the European traders fighting with each other, then the local rulers are fighting with
them, and these traders in return are fighting with the rulers.

The English company had to then start politics, and it was difficult to separate politics from trade.

This kept on going till 1651, when they finally decided to set up their first English factory on the banks
of River Hooghly.

=> prior to this, they only had a trading post. And now they actually built a fully equipped factory with
warehouses to stock their supplies and also offices where the company officials would sit.

As trade expanded, the company persuaded merchants and traders to come and settle near the
factory. By 1696, it began building a fort around the settlement. Two years later, in 1698, it bribed
Mughal officials into giving the company Zamindari rights over three villages { Sutanuti, Govindapur,
and Kalikata } Mughal Emperor during this time was Aurangzeb. The English company also
persuaded Aurangzeb to issue a Farman (a royal order, like how the English acquired a charter in the
beginning from the Queen)

Also acyuired a Farman from the Emperor Jahangir while setting up their first trading post in Surat. So
this Farman that they wanted from aurangzeb had a condition that would give the company the right
to trade duty free.

This would cause enormous loss of revenue for Bengal. But the company did not care. In fact, they
went for more and more concessions and wanted more privileges. Now I'll tell you where they actually
wanted more of such privileges. So the main objective of the company was to buy goods and ship it
back to the European market to earn profit. This was the initial main goal. Company had many corrupt
officials who were doing private trade. Officials made millions of pounds and lived a lavish lifestyle
back in England by doing private trade; were not paying any tax.

Now, this was causing heavy loss of revenue to the Bengal government (1700).

In 1707, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb died.

Situation changed drastically. After his death, Bahadur shah 1 was the next Mughal emperor, but he
was not that powerful. And the reason we can draw such a conclusion is because of the fact that
after the death of Aurangzeb, all the regional nawabs wanted to execute their power and authority in
their respective regions - bhadurshah 1 was not as influential as aurangzeb. After bhadurshah 1, his
son jahandhar shah and after him, farukkhsiyar became the emperor.

Bengal: All regional Nawabs wanted to execute their power and authority in their respective regions.
The same happened in Bengal as well. Murshid quli khan was the first Nawab of Bengal from 1717 to
1727.

Company was doing unfair trade as well as tax free trade => huge revenue loss to the Bengal
government.

This was a serious concern for mushid quli khan because he was the Nawab and the ruler of Bengal.