The East India Company

24:07With India in a crisis of authority, the company sees a chance to send more of its men, and not just to trade, but to profit from the land itself. One of its young clerks, named Robert Clive, arrives in India in 1744, aged just 18. He is an anonymous cog in the commercial machine, but he's restless, ambitious, and quick to grasp the power games unfolding around him. By 1756, what is often termed Seven Years War erupts between the British and the French. That's fought across a number of different theaters across the globe. When that war spills onto Indian shores, the East India Company finds itself drawn into the fighting, forced to defend its interests against French rivals and their allies.

24:57Clive sees his chance. He signs up for military service in the company's growing private army and begins his transformation from clerk to commander. Bold, lucky, and willing to bluff when outgunned, Clive moves through the ranks quickly, not just of its army, but of the whole East India Company.

25:20By the early 1750s, one of the wealthiest provinces in India, Bengal, is sliding into chaos. The authority of its Nawab, Sirajid Dalla, is being jostled by rival factions, with the French backing one side and the English another. What then materializes is something like a localized conspiracy against him to try and oust him from power. The nobility are part of this. Perhaps the most important part of it is a family called the Jagat Seth banking family, a family of extraordinarily wealthy merchants. They helped to determine the rise and fall of emperors in the way that the Medici did in Italy. And a coup starts to take form.

26:00The East India Company sees an opening. If it can help to install a more compliant ruler in Bengal, it will consolidate its power in the region. What Clive and others see is the sense of if we back the right horse here, we will have a favorable result. We will be able to wield more influence. We will be able to secure our power, our profits in South Asia. Clive is by now a lieutenant colonel and is sent in with a small force. He makes secret deals with defectors inside the Nawab's court, most importantly with Mir Jafar, Siraj's commander-in-chief. Clive offers him the throne of Bengal if he will turn against his master.

26:42In return, the company expects loyalty, trade concessions, and access to Bengal's immense revenues. But the night before the planned confrontation, despite much secret negotiation, Clive is still awaiting confirmation that Mir Jafar will stick to their plan.

27:13It's June the 22nd, 1757. The monsoon presses close, the air swollen with thunder and distant rain. A small huddle of canvas tents squat in the damp heat of the Bengal night on the edge of a mango grove. Inside one of them, a lantern swings on a hook, casting shadows over a low wooden table. Here, Robert Clive inspects a map, ink smudged, creased, and marked with charcoal. At 32, he's a soldier of fortune, shaped more by instinct than training. He scans the map of the battlefield, the mangrove grove, the riverbank, the open plain. Every inch matters. His army of just over 3 ,000 men is camped outside.

28:05Opposite them, ready to fight, are 50 ,000 troops loyal to the Nawab. The Englishman knows only too well that if Mir Jafar fails to act, or worse, betrays him, His own small force will be crushed by morning.

28:24Outside the tent, soldiers clean their muskets and prepare their kits and horses. Somewhere in the dark, elephants trumpet restlessly in the Nawab's camp. Lightning tears across the sky. The thunder that follows sounds like distant cannon fire. There is little more Clive can do now but wait.

28:48Dawn comes in, sodden and steamy, and his men drag their guns into position under the cover of trees and tarpaulins. His meager force of company men and Indian sepoys line up in thin rows, facing an army more than ten times their size. The Nawab's cavalry begins to advance, but Meir Jafar's troops, positioned on the left flank, do nothing. In the center column, confusion spreads. Orders are shouted. Elephants turn. The Nawab's men hesitate. Jafar has stayed his hand. Clive's plan is working. And just as the British open fire, the heavens open. A monsoon downpour drenches the battlefield. The Nawab's troops scramble to cover their supplies.

29:42But it's too late. Their gunpowder is soaked, their cannons silenced before they can be fired. But Clive's sheltered troops stay dry and deadly. What follows is not so much a battle as a collapse. By the end of the day, the Nawab is in flight, and the East India Company, with just 3 ,000 men, is triumphant.

30:15With Sirajad Dala defeated and killed, Jafar is installed as Nawab of Bengal, and Clive and the East India Company are rewarded handsomely. It's easy to see Mir Jafar as sort of a puppet of the company. I think that's probably unfair. There's a financial sentiment, a massive sort of gift, given to not just the company, but to Clive specifically as well. Clive tellingly is made a member of the nobility in Bengal, so he becomes part of that social hierarchy there. The company now controls the wealth and political direction of Bengal, the richest province in India. And while Mir Jafar now relies on them for military support, he is also expected to fund their operations.

31:06In the years that follow, the company's control deepens, until, in 1765, the Mughal Emperor finally grants the company the Devani of Bengal. It's a deed that allows them to administer civil governance in the region, and more importantly, to extract wealth from its people. They start to gain access to the right to tax, to generate revenue from the lands in Bengal and later on through the Mughal Empire. And again, Clive is part of this process. He becomes the governor of Bengal in the 1760s up to 1767. Clive returns to Britain a hero, hailed as the man who brought India under British influence. But his success is overshadowed by suspicion around the vast sums of money he has amassed, both personally and on the company's behalf.

31:58The gift that he receives to it amounts about 22 million pounds in today's money. So he is extremely rich, and that gets all kinds of reputational damage towards him back in Britain. But he actually, when he meets with Mir Jafar in the wake of it, says that the company's concern is to attend solely to commerce at this point in time. So at least his broad stance is one of, we are not going to interfere further, we're just here to make a profit. that we're simply merchants. And this is a line that emerges many times across the company's history, which is that they will engage in this sort of activity, sometimes be aggressively expansionist, but then wheel it back and say, but we're really just merchants.

32:40At this point, the company has exclusive rights to trade in tea, textiles, and opium. In Britain, every cup of tea legally imported comes via the company's ships. At its peak, the East India Company accounts for around half of all global trades. Its reach extends from Canton to Calcutta, and from the tea rooms of London to the plantations of Assam.

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34:34Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new Fave footwear? Step into a local croc store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest croc store today. By now, the East India Company governs large swathes of India. The wealth of these regions, especially Bengal, is vast. generated by centuries of agriculture, artisan labor and trade. With company-backed rulers in place and control over taxation and revenue collection, the enterprise redirects India's wealth back to London and becomes one of the richest organizations in the world.

35:31But this extractive model proves devastating. Traditional industries are undermined. Land taxes are set at unsustainable levels and grain is hoarded or exported while local populations starve. The most horrifying result is the Bengal famine of 1770, which follows a series of poor monsoons and widespread crop collapse. Drought devastates the region, but it's not the weather alone that kills. There is a famine which emerges from a choice that the company makes in many respects, which is that the collection of tax is prioritized over the distribution of grain, the purchase of food, and a willingness to let the price of rice in that area to spike.

36:16People simply cannot afford it. Where at once Nawab's managed food supply during times of scarcity, stabilizing prices and releasing grain reserves to prevent starvation, the East India Company simply hoards the grain for its own soldiers. It's worth remembering that through the latter half of the 18th century the company is at war quite frequently and so there's that old cliche of an army marching on its belly but the sense there again is to prioritize the continuing operation of the company continued securing of its power, of its revenue instead of any sense of responsibility to the population.

36:56So the food goes to the company first, and famine again results. By the time the crisis subsides, at least 10 million people are dead, nearly a third of Bengal's population. In Mashidabad, once the capital, the population reportedly falls from 200 ,000 to barely 20 ,000. In some villages, there are no survivors left to bury the dead. Fields lie fallow, trade collapses, and whole sections of society, from farmers to weavers to laborers, are wiped out. And still the grain stores remain guarded, and the company continues to collect taxes. In fact, its directors even increase revenue demands the following year, to make up for lost income.

37:50At the same time, the company expands its reach across the Indian Ocean and into East Africa. Here, from the 17th to early 19th century, the East India Company actively participates in the slave trade, transporting thousands of people, mostly from East Africa, to work in India and Southeast Asia. Though it doesn't operate plantations in the Atlantic style, it buys, sells, and uses enslaved labor freely across its territories. And still, the drive for growth continues. Between 1760 and 1830, the East India Company expands across India. And it begins to to anglicize Indian society with new legal codes, infrastructure, English language education, and the promotion of British values, often under the guise of a civilizing mission.

38:44One of the real shifts that occurs in the Enlightenment period is that you get what's often termed in the emergence of scientific racism. You get a world hierarchy that is still informed by that sense of sort of religious belief and the superiority of particular faiths over others, but also a belief that there is an empirical reality to the existence of race, that science reinforces the idea that there are inferior and superior races. And that's something that really starts to gain momentum in the 18th and especially in the 19th century. It's a worldview that wasn't really available to the company prior to that.

39:17Against this philosophical backdrop, the company continues to consolidate power. But back home, reports circulate that the company's spectacular profits mask a deeper rot. Whispers abound of misrule, corruption, and the near collapse of its finances. What happens in the course of the 1770s, 1780s, is that the British Parliament starts to introduce acts to kind of regulate and control the company. And this is partly fed by this rumor mill of exactly how neglectful the company often is. The company actually nearly goes bankrupt in 1772, so the state intervenes and bails them out. But that bailout comes with caveats.

39:58In 1773, Parliament passes the Regulating Act, which forces greater transparency and political oversight, and installs a Governor-General of Bengal to oversee company operations in India. The man chosen for that job is Warren Hastings, an ambitious, long-serving company official with a reputation for discipline. Tasked with reforming a chaotic and scandal-ridden administration, he rationalizes tax collection, codifies laws, and creates a centralized bureaucracy. But while he speaks the language of order and good governance, his methods are often brutal. Taxes are raised sharply. Land is seized.

40:42Local officials are replaced with company agents and traditional protections for farmers and weavers are stripped away. In cities, artisans are driven to ruin as British traders undercut their prices or monopolize supply chains. Under Hastings Watch, the company's reputation as a self-interested force becomes impossible to ignore. Hastings becomes more or less the embodiment of all that is seen to be going wrong with the company. It's a slightly unfair allegation to levy Adam, to be honest with you. He had been doing more or less what a lot of company officials had been doing for the entirety of the company's existence.

41:20He had been undertaking what was the term private trade. Now, private trade, in retrospect, seems like sort of skimming off the top. That you're not putting the money back into the company to benefit its shareholders, but everybody did it.

41:37In 1787, Hastings becomes the subject of a sensational impeachment trial led by Edmund Burke. a prominent member of parliament who accuses him of presiding over a regime of oppression, injustice and wrong. What Burke levies against Hastings is this charge of corruption, of overextending that power, of making the company into an unchecked body of government. And his great position of advocacy, and again, this is in the backdrop of the American Revolution, which Burke supported, and increasing the French Revolution, which Burke does not. And he says, well, where does this lead us? Do we want the company to become an agent of tyranny in this other part of the world?

42:18The trial drags on for seven years. And though Hastings is eventually acquitted, the damage is done. The public, once dazzled by tales of wealth and conquest, is now disturbed by reports of corruption and violence. The company is no longer a distant trading concern to be controlled at arm's length. Its imperial ambitions need to be reined in. Over the next few decades, the British state continues to assert its power over the company. 1784, you get the India Act, which gives the state control over who sits in the board of directors. It has direct control over the governors general who are appointed as well.

43:01The charter of the company itself is renewed in 1794, in 1813, 1833. But at each stage, powers are stripped away. And this is because information is starting to come back to Britain that suggests that the company is not only inefficient, but often immoral, and not governing in the way, as they would see it, that a British government ought to govern.

43:23By the early 19th century, the East India Company controls more territory than ancient Rome at its height. Its private army is one of the largest in the world. And yet, on paper, it is still just a commercial enterprise. The company continues to push deeper into the subcontinent, absorbing entire regions through legal technicalities. British officials begin heavily promoting Christian missionary work, interfering with centuries-old traditions. One of the most symbolic flashpoints is the outlawing of sati, the ritual practice in which a Hindu widow is expected, in some regions and communities to throw herself onto her husband's funeral pyre.

44:08The company bans the practice in 1829, but many Indians decry what they see as cultural intrusion, one more sign that the British intend not just to rule India but to remake her in their own image. Discontent is rising, and by the early 19th century, the company's monopoly on global trade is slipping too. Finally, the thing that really puts the nail in the coffin, I think really, is that by 1833, the company loses its tea monopoly. And this has been an ongoing debate going back towards the end of the 18th century. For a long period of time, any tea that came into Britain was essentially company tea.

44:48The tea that's tossed over the harbour in Boston at the advent of the American Revolution is East Indy Company Tea. And the merchants in London especially are starting to say, well, if the company is increasingly inefficient, if it's more concerned with territorial power, why not open that up? Why not allow others to trade for tea in these territories, bring it in through other means? At the same time, in 1833, Britain officially abolishes slavery across its empire. But while the Atlantic trade ends, the company simply shifts its methods. It replaces outright bondage with punitive labor contracts imposed on Indian workers across British colonies, from Mauritius to the Caribbean.

45:31Conditions are harsh, mobility is restricted, and punishments are severe. In many cases, it is slavery in all but name. Not coincidentally, shortly after that, the company starts blasting into China. The opium wars really start in earnest. It had been relying for some time on the production of opium to leverage that trade as well. But it becomes desperate on these points to try and, again, consolidate that power in light of both a challenging position in South Asia, but also opposition back in Britain. While Britain wins the first opium war militarily, the long-term costs for the East India Company is steep.

46:09In an act of economic desperation to offset its declining fortunes elsewhere, it helped fuel the conflict by flooding China with opium grown in India. But while trade is forcibly expanded, the company's own profits are undercut by scandal, scrutiny, and spiraling military expense. And in India, the consequence of its greed and misrule are beginning to erupt. In company barracks, Indian sepoys grow restless at being asked to fight for a ruler that offers them little in return. With few rights, they are poorly paid, harshly treated, and increasingly expected to fight their own people. Finally, in 1857, the tensions reach boiling point.

46:59A rumor spreads that the new rifle cartridges are greased with pig and cow fat, an unthinkable violation of both Hindu and Muslim religious laws, especially since, to load the rifle, a soldier must bite the cartridge open.

47:19Though historians dispute the use of these cartridges at all, the rumor is enough to spark mutiny.

47:32It is the 10th of May, 1857, in the Meerut cantonment, a company military base northeast of Delhi. The sun is nearly gone, melting into a haze of dust, while crickets chirp in the scrub near the barracks. A young soldier, a Havildar, or junior officer, crouches behind a crumbling wall near the edge of the barracks. His company tunic is open at the throat, sweat soaking through the cotton, and in his hands he grips a stolen musket. Behind him, other sepoys from the regiment crouch too, their faces set. Holding muskets, blades, or stones, they wait for the moment to strike. The air tastes of iron and sweat, with a tang of smoke.

48:24Somewhere beyond the wall, a horse whinnies. The Havildar peers around the bricks, across the open yard, to where the prison block squats in shadow. Inside are 85 men, sepoys like him, but who, a few days ago, refused to bite the new cartridges. Despite protesting and pleading, they were stripped of their uniforms, beaten and humiliated, and shackled like thieves. Watching it all, something shifted in this group of young men, now crouching in the dust. If they can't make the company treat them better, they'll bring them to their knees. Either way, they're going to free their brothers tonight.

49:14Slowly, the Havildar rises with a nod and sets off, and the others follow close behind. But they don't get far before they're seen. A shot cracks through the silence, sharp and close. The company men are firing at them. Another shot, farther off, is followed by a scream. Now, one of the sepoys, carrying a lit torch, breaks away from the group, rushing over to toss it at the roof of an officer's bungalow. The flames curl up into the thatch. Other torches are lit with shaking hands, and the Havildar breaks into a run, his musket clutched in both hands. He passes the chapel, and the horses bucking in panic as the flames approach.

49:58Up ahead, a group of rebels are already at the prison gates, heaving and straining to tear it from its hinges. He lends his weight to the wave of bodies, and with a crash, the gate is torn down.

50:13Inside, the 85 prisoners cower and blink into the smoke and chaos. With their shackles still biting into raw skin, they start to run. But now, from the shadows, company officers emerge, guns levelled. Just then, a shout goes up among the sepoys, and a young officer turns to see some of his comrades on horses, blades drawn and eyes wild. They ride into the night like men with nothing left to lose, heading for Delhi to call the rest of the country to rebellion. But the Havildar is not going with them. He's going to save his comrades first. He fires now at will, reloads and fires again as he marches forwards into the prison, into the fire, into death, or a new future.

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52:08The British response is swift and brutal. Entire villages are burned. Civilians are executed without trial. Rebels are tied to cannons and blown apart as a warning to others. As the violence spirals, the East India Company, now fighting for its very survival, casts aside any pretense of restraint. Some estimates suggest that up to 800 ,000 Indians die as a result of the rebellion, including the famine and disease that it triggers. By the time the smoke has cleared, though the company has reasserted control, its reputation is in tatters. It can no longer be trusted to rule, not by the British public or its parliament, and certainly not by the people of India.

53:00In the aftermath of the rebellion, parliament steps in. The Government of India Act is the thing that really follows the 1857 rebellion that comes in 1858. that calls for the liquidation of the company. And it more or less puts the apparatus of state in control of the British crown. It is more or less the founding act of what we know as the British Raj. The act transfers control of the company's territories to the British crown, making Queen Victoria Empress of India. And while she promises her new subjects equal treatment under the law, an end to annexations, and assurances that British rule will not interfere in Indian religious life, For many, the words come too late.

53:40The skeleton of the company still remains in place, especially for things like tax extraction. So that's what it's good at. It's the one thing that the company was doing really well still into the mid-19th century. And the Raj that emerges is still kind of a bit of a chimera in that case. It blends some of what the company had still put into place while creating new institutions around that. And the British Raj is much more interested than the East India Company was in things like the sort of idea of the white man's burden that emerges out of it. That it is the duty of the British in India to bring quote unquote civilization to these populations.

54:13That's not for want of the fact that there were people in the East India Company who had deeply entrenched ideas of European superiority that emerges out of the Enlightenment period especially. But it becomes much more of a philosophy of state in the wake of the company's collapse.

54:31The company lingers legally until 1874, but when it is formally dissolved, its archives, infrastructure and troops are absorbed into the British government. The sun has set on the world's strangest empire, but its story is far from over.

54:53The East India Company pioneered global trade, shaped modern capitalism, and laid the foundation of the British Empire. It was one of the first truly multinational corporations, and for over two centuries, it blurred the line between business and state. But its legacy in the Indian subcontinent is not just one of ports and railways, legal codes or trade routes. It is also one of exploitation, violence and inequality. Generations of Indians were displaced, taxed into famine, or ruled without consent, all in the name of profit. Its activities were increasingly underpinned by new ideas of racial hierarchy.

55:37And though these beliefs outlived the company, what began as justification for conquest became part of the intellectual framework of empire. And its echoes remain, woven into the assumptions and inequalities of the modern world. Today, as statues fall and histories are re-examined, the East India Company stands as both a blueprint for empire and a cautionary tale of what can result when profit is placed above people. You look at those famines in the latter half of the 18th century are really harrowing. And there's a lot of minutiae to it as far as how it unfolds at a local level. But I think the general fairly safe interpretation is that the company bears quite a lot of responsibility for the response to it.

56:21But the fact of the matter is, that is the sort of neglect that can arise from saying profit matters first. The number of environmental disasters that have occurred globally on the back of corporate neglect, but they don't answer to anybody. And the problem is that the company got out of this in the end with quite a lot of money in pocket and very little accountability in terms of that sort of broader sense of responsibility, and a lot of people died for it.

56:52Next time on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Captain Cook.

57:21with a particular British imperial project. That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com forward slash subscriptions for more information. Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new Fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits. Handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today.

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