The Anarchy-William Dalrymple
History
The Anarchy-The East India Company, Corporate
Violience, And the Pillage of An Empire
William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple has written many books on recent Indian history. All
are highly readable. They do not present history as a collection of dry-as-bone
facts but read like a finely told story. These are meticulously researched and
provide verifiable references. Thus, they present historical facts, but in a
format that makes history accessible and joyful to a layperson.
Subtitle of Dalrymple’s latest book, rather long, makes the subject of
the book amply clear. This is the story of East India Company. Company began in
the last year of sixteenth century as a group of motley traders, some large,
many inconsequential like haberdashers, leather sellers, clothworkers, etc.
Each pledged an amount, not unlike stocks of companies today, thus making East
India Company one of the earliest stock companies of modern world. It foundered
for a century and a half, often courting failures and imminent bankruptcy, than
success. By the year 1765, Company had transformed itself completely from the
conventional trading corporation dealing in silk ad spices of East to a
formidable colonial power. In that year Company obtained Diwani of Mughal
Riyasat from the enfeebled, defeated, and titular monarch, Shah Alam, the
Mughal Emperor. Gradually, Company gained control over a vast continent, whose
riches had attracted plunderers, kings, emperors and empire-less princes in
search of an empire, for past two millennia. Dalrymple tells this tale with the
panache of a master story-teller and the rigour of a high academician.
Dalrymple obtained his material for the book from various sources.
Mainly from Company’s own bulky records now found in British Library in London.
Company’s Indian papers, an equally valuable source, are housed in the National
Archives of India in New Delhi. As has been his research methodology in
previous books, here too he relies extensively on histories written in regional
languages. He has widely referred to Persian language histories written by Mughal
historians, noblemen and scribes.
In a fairly long book spanning about four hundred pages, Dalrymple
tells the saga of Company growth from a non-descript quarters in London, to a
major corporate business house, controlling almost half of the world trade. He
illustrates how and why the Company which came into existence for business,
metamorphosed into a mammoth colonial power controlling the fate of millions of
people of a huge continent. Another fact that Dalrymple emphasises and clearly
enunciates in the book is that the Company was perhaps the first case of
state-corporate nexus for the mutual aggrandizement of both, at the cost of the
governed. The latter in this case were the people of India. Many of the
powerful British parliamentarians had large stocks in Company and they bent
every rule, overlooked gross improprieties of its Indian Officials, in the
greed to secure Company’s profits and thus assure theirs. It was a plunder of a
nation with no parallel in history. Nadir Shah’s carnage of Delhi in 1739, and
Ahmed Shah Abdali’s several attacks on Delhi pale into insignificance compared
to the systematic looting of the subcontinent by the company and its English
officials: ruthlessly, relentlessly, and massively for more than a century. A
measure of this gargantuan loot can be gauged from the plunder of merely one
province, though the richest in the country, Bengal. Robert Clive who joined
the company as a humble accountant and rose to occupy Governor’s seat in
Calcutta, had a personal fortune worth two hundred and thirty-four thousand
pounds, in value of those times, when he returned to England in late eighteenth
century. After the Battle of Plassey, in 1757, a victory owned as much to
cunning, treachery, bankers’ connivance, bribes, as to military prowess, he
deposited two and a half million pounds in Company coffers, all looted from the
province of Bengal.
Book tells the story of how company came to subdue and eventually usurp
the power of Emperor Shah Alam by systematically defeating Nawabs of Awadh and
Bengal, Tipu Sultan of Mysore Sultanate and the Great Maratha Confederacy.
Story of Shah Alam is the backbone of this tale and insinuates in every
narrative. Dalrymple brings our clearly the tragedy of Shah Alam: a refined,
sincere aesthete; perhaps unskilful in court shenanigans and duplicities of
diplomacy; who remained a puppet Emperor all his life; and who was used by
Britishers and Marathas for their profit and treated abjectly when it suited
them. Dalrymple puts his well-founded views forthrightly. Though, these are
contrary to popular myths and biased histories. He lays bare the rapacious,
profiteering and buccaneer creed of Robert Clive even as he talks bout his
qualities of courage and perseverance in adversity and intrepid nature. He
talks at length, unhesitatingly, about Warren Hasting’s true love for India and
devotes much space to his impeachment proceedings in British Parliament. It was
heartening to learn about the great qualities of Tipu Sultan, a much-maligned
figure in today’s India. Tipu was highly accomplished in all statecraft, was
patron of art and culture and protected Hindu and Muslim interest of his
citizens without a bias. He revered many Hindu saints of his empire and gave
lavish donations to their monasteries. Dalrymple also talks bout massive
destruction of Hindu temples, rape and carnage that Tipu visited on vanquished
territories. Tipu was the first Indian king to take on British rulers. He realised
early the expansionist creed of Company and tried to forge and alliance with
Marathas and Hyderabad’s Nizam to counter English. He fought against British
till his death, never entering into any alliance with them. Dalrymple also
writes in details about the valour and political acumen of many Maratha kings,
Mahadji Schindia foremost amongst them.
Book reads like a thriller. In the process it also enriches mind. I recommend
it strongly to every history buff and to every Indian who reads.
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