An excellent and nuanced quick-survey of the EIC and the go to books on the 'Honourable Company.' I fully agree that even after more than 30 years since it first came out, nothing quite touches John Keay's judicious, masterful and highly readable account (but then all of JK's works have been so from 'When Men and Mountains Meet' to 'The Tartan Turban') and all of Roy's books are important and essential reads, debunking the sweeping generalizations of the over-heated Twitter culture warriors. As with all his other books, Dalrymple's pacey account of the EIC is supremely readable and highly engaging. It is also a most handsomely produced book (with superb colour plates and endearing line-drawings by his wife Olivia Fraser). But apart from a number of factual errors in the book, I have strong reservations about the framing of the period detailed in question. I feel Dalrymple's choice of the period - 47 years, from 1756 to British takeover of Delhi in 1803 - is deeply problematic. While it nicely fits in with his central thesis - the EIC as a cold-hearted, monstrous corporation with scant accountability with analogies to modern corporations - it gravely distorts the history of sub-continent in the tumultuous 18th C. As Jadunath Sarkar said in the final volume of monumental 'Aurangzib' and the first volume of his masterwork - The Fall of the Mughal Empire (four vols.,1932-50) - the Great Anarchy had set in even before Aurangzeb's death in 1707. To understand the political fragmentation and the sheer lawlessness pervading India after 1707, its is essential to read Sarkar's magisterial 'Fall'. The viciousness of the Maratha raids in Bihar, Bengal and Orissa, and their depredations in Rajputana ought to be read to be believed (alas, few care to plough through the 1,200-odd pages of Fall of the Mughal Empire today). Well before Dupleix and Clive's proxy games in the Carnatic, Malharrao Holkar was doing the same in Rajasthan, extracting (extorting more like it) taxes at any cost. Today, with nationalistic sentiments and regional pride/chauvinism running high in 21st century India, the Marathas (to give an example of one regional group) can be seeing as doing no wrong in regional histories coming out of Maharashtra.
In all this, the EIC, especially in its early years post-Plassey, becomes a common bugbear and an exclusive target, while all other regions and their princes become 'oases of peace'. While the EIC's avarice, the tragedy of the 1770 Bengal Famine and the events leading to it must undoubtedly be censured, one has to look holistically at events across India after 1707 and till 1757 to get an idea what the regional powers were up to. Given that there was no love lost between the regional powers - The Marathas, the Nizam, Hyder Ali, the Jats in the north etc - one fails to see how either of them would have been able to weld India together as a political entity. British paramountcy made that phenomenon happen, even if by accident rather than design.
I don't know a great deal about the EIC and only a fraction more about imperial India. Full disclosure the charms of Dalrymple's podcast Empire are beginning to fade. I don't for a second question William Dalrymple's erudition. However freed from the strictures of public sector broadcasting Anita Anand makes little effort to conceal her bias. I was particularly irked that neither acknowledged that Dyer was roundly condemned in the House of Commons. I'm not a huge fan of breached at.
An excellent and nuanced quick-survey of the EIC and the go to books on the 'Honourable Company.' I fully agree that even after more than 30 years since it first came out, nothing quite touches John Keay's judicious, masterful and highly readable account (but then all of JK's works have been so from 'When Men and Mountains Meet' to 'The Tartan Turban') and all of Roy's books are important and essential reads, debunking the sweeping generalizations of the over-heated Twitter culture warriors. As with all his other books, Dalrymple's pacey account of the EIC is supremely readable and highly engaging. It is also a most handsomely produced book (with superb colour plates and endearing line-drawings by his wife Olivia Fraser). But apart from a number of factual errors in the book, I have strong reservations about the framing of the period detailed in question. I feel Dalrymple's choice of the period - 47 years, from 1756 to British takeover of Delhi in 1803 - is deeply problematic. While it nicely fits in with his central thesis - the EIC as a cold-hearted, monstrous corporation with scant accountability with analogies to modern corporations - it gravely distorts the history of sub-continent in the tumultuous 18th C. As Jadunath Sarkar said in the final volume of monumental 'Aurangzib' and the first volume of his masterwork - The Fall of the Mughal Empire (four vols.,1932-50) - the Great Anarchy had set in even before Aurangzeb's death in 1707. To understand the political fragmentation and the sheer lawlessness pervading India after 1707, its is essential to read Sarkar's magisterial 'Fall'. The viciousness of the Maratha raids in Bihar, Bengal and Orissa, and their depredations in Rajputana ought to be read to be believed (alas, few care to plough through the 1,200-odd pages of Fall of the Mughal Empire today). Well before Dupleix and Clive's proxy games in the Carnatic, Malharrao Holkar was doing the same in Rajasthan, extracting (extorting more like it) taxes at any cost. Today, with nationalistic sentiments and regional pride/chauvinism running high in 21st century India, the Marathas (to give an example of one regional group) can be seeing as doing no wrong in regional histories coming out of Maharashtra.
In all this, the EIC, especially in its early years post-Plassey, becomes a common bugbear and an exclusive target, while all other regions and their princes become 'oases of peace'. While the EIC's avarice, the tragedy of the 1770 Bengal Famine and the events leading to it must undoubtedly be censured, one has to look holistically at events across India after 1707 and till 1757 to get an idea what the regional powers were up to. Given that there was no love lost between the regional powers - The Marathas, the Nizam, Hyder Ali, the Jats in the north etc - one fails to see how either of them would have been able to weld India together as a political entity. British paramountcy made that phenomenon happen, even if by accident rather than design.
I don't know a great deal about the EIC and only a fraction more about imperial India. Full disclosure the charms of Dalrymple's podcast Empire are beginning to fade. I don't for a second question William Dalrymple's erudition. However freed from the strictures of public sector broadcasting Anita Anand makes little effort to conceal her bias. I was particularly irked that neither acknowledged that Dyer was roundly condemned in the House of Commons. I'm not a huge fan of breached at.