India Between Empires (Radio Edit)

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1:01History Corner. He's Associate Professor of the History of Early Modern and Colonial India at UCL. He's a historian of economic and material life in early modern India with a special interest in trade. You might have read one of his wonderful books, India and the Silk Roads, or India and the Early Modern World. It's Dr Jagjit Lali. Welcome, Jagjit. Hi, Greg. Delighted to have you here and in Comedy Corner. He's a comedian, presenter and podcaster. You'll have seen him all over the TV on The Mash Report, QI, Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo, the best ever series for Taskmaster, no arguments. He's also the co-host of Pod Save the UK and a frequent guest on the Bugle podcast and Radio Force and News Quiz.

1:35He's very busy. And you might have seen one of his award-winning stand-up shows, including his most recent Nish Don't Kill My Vibe. It's Nish Kumar. Welcome, Nish. Genuinely, I'm so excited. I will say I put myself in a bit of a difficult position here because I did study history to an undergraduate level. So, like, there's a lot of pressure on me to at least loosely sound like I know what I'm talking about. and I am feeling the genuine hot flush of panic just for the benefit of listeners. There's a circular seating arrangement and it is genuinely giving me flashbacks to feeling underprepared in history seminars.

2:13How are you on 18th century India? Basically, I've got some awareness of 1857, the uprisings and how they... How's that the 18th century? Oh my God, I've got it wrong immediately. Get out, Nish. this is going to be fun this is going to be an absolute disaster I've got almost no knowledge of the 18th century in India I know the white man turned up and was up to his usual malarkey guilty the only bit of it that this specific Indian history I studied we did a bit of mogul stuff warmer, you're getting warmer in the British state education curriculum we liked to do stuff before the British turned up just to set the scene that it was bad and we didn't make things that much worse in the grand scheme of things.

2:58And then I did a lot of stuff about the partition of India. OK, yeah. So, what do you know?

3:09This brings us to the first segment of the podcast. It's called the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, will know about today's subject. This one might be a bit of an unfamiliar topic. 18th century India usually only comes up for British audiences through TV dramas about the East India Company specifically, like the Tom Hardy show Taboo or the recent one Nautilus. If you're a fan of Indian cinema, maybe you've seen the films Panipat about the 1761 battle between the Maratha and the Afghan army. Or there's Bajiral Mastani, a tragic love story set at the Maratha court.

3:39Or there's Kerala Vama Pasashi Raja featuring the king of Katayam and his fight against the East India Company. I don't know if I'm murdering these lovely words, but I'm trying my best. But what was really going on in India in this period? How big a role did the British actually play, as Nish has alluded to? Let's find out. Right, Jagjit, can we start with some basics? When exactly are we talking about and why is this such an exciting moment in Indian history? Well, I love the 18th century so much that I like to think of a really long 18th century. So longer than just 1700 to 1790. I really want everyone to get their value for money.

4:14So for me, the long 18th century probably started around the 1680s when the Mughals are expanding their empire into the south, into the Indian peninsula. We can say it probably ended around about the 1820s, maybe even the 1840s, when the last of those great post-Mughal kingdoms were conquered by the East India Company. And in between that, there's a whole lot of stuff going on. It's a really exciting time of economic and cultural change and political change. I suppose another reason why I'm interested in a long 18th century is because we think of that kind of time period when we think about British history.

4:50So Britain from the Glorious Revolution through to the Industrial Revolution or Queen Victoria's reign. And I think that's quite a useful framing for comparison to what's going on in India. And one final reason why I like this long 18th century is because we associate that period with the Enlightenment, with coffee houses, all kinds of new material culture. And a lot of that stuff is going on in India too. It helps to think about all of that, I think. OK, so we've got our sort of frame of reference. We've done a Mughals episode before, and if you want to listen to that, you can. It's a good one.

5:23But by the 1700s, they were in trouble, Chakji. Yeah, it's definitely a bit of a turning point compared to what came before. So a bit of a recap, since you need to fill in some of the blanks. The founder of the Mughal Empire, he's born in Central Asia, and he's a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Timur, or Tamerlane, as some people might know him. These two great world conquerors. His name is Babur and he defeats the sultans of Delhi to establish what we call the Mughal Empire in North India in 1526. The empire basically grows in fits and starts through to about the end of the 17th, early 18th century to the death of the sixth emperor Aurangzeb.

6:05We used to talk about decline quite a lot. And what historians have really tried to emphasise is that there's a process of change and transformation that occurs after the empire starts to retreat territorially. The emperor Aurangzeb, he dies, and there's a period of factionalism at court. There's a lack of clear leadership. And that's when I think the imperial centre starts to lose a grip over some of the outlying provinces. So we've got various independent states throughout India, because as the Mughals sort of retrench, not necessarily decline, but as their territories reduce, perhaps. So we've got independent states in Bengal.

6:43We've got Awad. We've got Hiderabad. We've got Sikhs in Punjab. Let's talk about one of the rising powers then. This would be the Maratha in the Deccan Peninsula. That's in the sort of centre of the Indian subcontinent. They've got a leader by the name of Shivaji. Shivaji, like many people of many different faiths in this period, serves masters of other faiths. These kinds of distinctions between different religious groups are being made in this period, but they're maybe not as hard and rigid as they've become today. So we kind of look back and we can sort of over-determine these kinds of religious conflicts.

7:22That's not to say that there aren't religious conflicts, but these religious boundaries are becoming ossified in this period. When the Mughals start moving into the south, into the Deccan, they start trying to expand their empire into the peninsula. Shivaji thinks this might be a good moment for him, so he tries to sort of broker an agreement with the Mughals, but I don't think the Mughals take him perhaps as seriously as they should have taken him, and I think that's where one of the falling outs happens. It wouldn't be the first time that the Mughals think of outsiders in this manner. I mean, they write about Afghans in this way.

7:56They write about various groups who over the 18th century are coming to power in and around Delhi. They see them as sort of people who are outside of the Mughal order, who people are uncivilized or a bit rough around the edges. In the end, it doesn't really matter because what Shivaji does is he has himself coronated as a king. And in 1674, he assembles a group of Brahmin priests who perform all the necessary rituals in order to have him crowned as a Chhatrapati, a lord of the umbrella, which is kind of like a kind of lordly title. The empire is expanding and I think the Marathas really seize the moment after Aurangzeb's death and the political instability in the imperial court, as well as the lack of clear leadership to expand in the south.

8:40Let's talk about the Rajput empire as well, because this is another power rising and suddenly having a good time. Where is this in the geography of India? Are we in the north? the Rajputs that most people think about when they think about the Rajputs. I'm sure lots of people are thinking about the Rajputs a lot of the time. It's like the Roman Empire for brown people. I just thought about them again. Oh my goodness. How many times today? Oh, five times at least. That's a slow day today. So the grandest of all the Rajput royal houses are the ones that are in what's today Rajasthan. One of the preeminent Rajput kingdoms is Mewar or Uthepur, which was ruled by the Susodio dynasty.

9:20Incidentally, Uthepur is where the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed. If you go there, you can pretty much see it on loop every single night. One of the boldest casting choices in human history. They needed to cast an Indian. Who did they go to? One of the actors from the second biggest film industry in the world, I think, at the time? No. Tennis player. The main Indian guy in Octopussy is Vijay Amritraj. He's a tennis player. As well as the Udaipur Rajput call, at Marwar, there are the Rathors with their capital at Jodhpur, and then the Kachwajas in neighbouring Jepur. The Udaipur and Jaipur and Jodhpur, these are the places that lots of people go to on holiday.

10:01They're on countless documentaries. They give us that image of royal India as sort of castles and palaces and elephants. So they are the Rajput sort of dynasties that we think of. Let's add another empire into our catalogue of empires, the Sikh Empire, which I guess is almost into Afghanistan as well. We're in northwest India now. The Sikh Empire does abut Ahmed Shah's and his descendants' kingdom. At its height, the Sikh Empire reaches towards what is now called the northwest frontier. But the Sikh Empire is one that's formed quite late in the 18th century. In fact, right at the end of the century, which is why I like the idea of a long 18th century.

10:41What's happening beforehand is also, I suppose, really important. So if you don't know, the Sikhs are followers of the teachings of Guru Nanak and his descendants. Guru Nanak was actually alive at the time that the first Mughal emperor came to march down to North India and conquered India from the Delhi Sultans in 5026. And after his death, the Sikhs are led by a succession of other gurus, and some of them choose to militarise the Sikhs. The Sikhs are in conflict with the Mughals, but also other powers and sometimes amongst themselves in the early 18th century. These Sikh rulers form a number of different kingdoms of their own based around their military units or missiles.

11:23And then it's in 1799 that these missiles are united by Ranjit Singh into the Sikh empire. So it's 12 missiles that combine into an empire. So Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore in 1799. That's your big year that you wanted to sneak into the long 18th century, right? Yes, and he is alive until... Wait, what year have we snuck in? 1799, which, you know, is right at the tail end. No, come on, that's in the century. It's like when a movie comes out in 1989, you're like, it's an 80s movie. It's an 80s movie. Sure, but he keeps ruling for ages, right? Yeah, he dies in 1839 and his descendants are also on the throne for a couple more years, but that's when the East India Company sort of swoops in.

12:06We'll get to that bit later, Jack. But yeah, he sort of rules for almost four decades. He's kind of parallel to, I guess, almost the beginning of Queen Victoria, isn't he? He really sees a huge amount of history there. And now it's time to introduce the cameo that we've all been waiting for into the story. Who am I talking about, Nish? The East India Company. Yes. The whites are here! It wasn't just actually the British. It was the Dutch as well, right? Oh, good knowledge. Yeah. Yeah, there was a Dutch East India Company as well, right? It was, yeah. Yeah. Why didn't none of these people have their own names?

12:40There's actually several European nations who are elbowing their way in. They're not invited in, right? So, I mean, can you sort of run us through some of them? It all began, of course, with Vasco da Gama's famous voyage to Asia. He gets to India in 1498, and a year later, he's already back in Portugal. And in the decades that follow for much of the 16th century, the Portuguese are exploiting this new knowledge of how to get to Asia. They're creating a trading enterprise that runs between Portugal and Asia. Not just India, other places too. And other Europeans want to get in on the act. So that's when a group of English merchants get together and form the East India Company in 1600.

13:22And then in the Netherlands, the Dutch East India Company is created in 1602. And then there's a whole bunch of others as well. Some of them are private enterprises. Some of them are state-run enterprises. And sometimes they're things in between. One country we haven't mentioned, actually. Nish, do you want to guess another European power? Whenever you talk about European colonisers, the Belgians are always acting up. Oh, good, good, good. The Belgians are always acting up. They're always gifting countries to their stupid kings. But I don't think there's any Belgian... I don't believe there's any Belgians that turn up in India, but obviously I could be...

13:56Well, it's not Belgium and isn't the Netherlands. The French? There we go. Yeah, it's the French. are in India too, which is not well known here in the UK. Oh, that's why they're Pondicherry. Yeah, right, right, right. I've been to Pondicherry and you're like, why is this stuff in French? And you're like, why? Let's not start asking those questions because, you know, I've got a British passport, I'm in trouble if we start pulling at the thread of why are there a European influence in different parts of India. There's also another European country that pops up, quite a surprising one. My God, these people.

14:26No offence. You've already guessed Belgium, which I thought was a pretty slightly outlandish guess, but do you want to go even more unexpected? The Spanish? I mean, that's too sensible, I guess, arguably. Right, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's weirder than that. I think so. What, does Luxembourg turn up for us? Dust up. Charmingly. No, Denmark.

14:49How does Denmark even get there? I mean, I'd love to know. It's a long old commute, isn't it? Yeah. All the way around. Yeah, Denmark show up. And their plan, Nish, is quite a charming one in some ways. they took advantage of the Anglo-French wars and rivalry. And they offered merchants the ability to sail under the neutral flag of Denmark so they wouldn't be attacked by either side. They were basically a maritime VPN service. But the important thing to stress, and I think you want to stress, you're a historian of trade, aren't you? The Mughal Empire was already plugged into global trade networks.

15:24It's not that European powers showed up and said, oh, let's do trade. Yeah, it's happening before the 18th century, and it's happening before the Europeans show up. So India is really plugged into trade networks in every direction. So there's the caravan routes, which I've worked on a bit between India and Central Asia, Iran, parts of Russia, so towards the north. And then going towards the west, there are all the ports in our peninsula, the Red Sea region and East Africa. And then, of course, there's Siam and the Spice Islands to the east. And these are just some of the places where you either find Indian goods or you find Indian merchants.

16:00There's trade between England and India, direct trade, once the East India Company is formed. There's lots of really exciting new research, which has been not just about trade between Asia and Europe, but trade at a more global level. And the Spanish are moving goods between Asia and the New World. And what we're starting to kind of realise is that the reach of some of these goods are really global. So it's not just the rich in England who are decorating their country houses with fine Chinese wallpapers and Indian textiles and so on. It's also this, you know, it's the kinds of cloth that are used in the transatlantic slave trade between Africa and the Americas.

16:50and Indian cloth is a medium of exchange in the transatlantic slave trade. But there are also fairly ordinary Mexicans who are buying Indian and Chinese goods. Amazing. Indigo is a big one, isn't it? Is that going global, Indigo? Because that's... Oh, I've got a good story about Indigo. Oh, go on then. Yeah, give us your... But I don't know if it's a good story. No, you've got to deliver now. Oh, I know. So Indigo, it's called Indigo because it comes from India. You've got to go India to get it. There is an airline in India called Indigo. Yeah, there is Indigo. You want indigo, you've got to go, Indy.

17:28So the Europeans... For listeners, I'm considered to be an intelligent comedian, so that tells you what the intellectual capacity is for the rest of my profession. OK, so indigo, yes. Europeans are buying indigo from India in the 17th century. It's all going great. And then they decide to transplant indigo production to the Americas. so to the Carolinas to the Caribbean and there they quote-unquote improve how the dye is produced so you have to grow a plant and then you have to turn the plant into a dye and that combined with other factors puts lots of indigo production and indigo producers in India out of business there's also like a terrible famine in the 17th century and all kinds of other factors but that doesn't mean that people who are using indigo dye within Asia stop needing indigo dye and And one of the things that happens in this period is that new places start to produce indigo dye in this period.

18:26So in parts of Punjab near Afghanistan, there are relatively new, in fact, probably entirely new indigo fields, fields planted with indigo and dye that's being produced there for the caravan trade to Afghanistan and Iran and Central Asia. And the interesting thing that I mean, I'm going to have to use the dreaded C word now. Capitalism. Oh, right. Right. The 18th century is the era in which people would often say capitalism is invented. Some would say slightly earlier. What does capitalism mean and how is it arriving into India or has it been there all along? Well, we think of capitalism as this uniquely European invention, that it's something that emerges in Europe.

19:04You know, these Tuscan bankers are creating banks and that's the kind of master narrative. But one of the things we've known for quite a while now is that there are similar developments in banking and finance and trade and the market happening fairly simultaneously across Europe, but also the Middle East and parts of Asia, including India. And this is not a new development in the 18th century. This is something that has been unfurling for a long time, for at least two centuries by the 18th century. But I think it comes to a kind of crescendo in the 18th century. Two things stand out. One is that the market has really encroached people's lives much more by the 18th century.

19:49People's awareness of the value of real estate and their assets, for example, has intensified by this period. People are really fighting over them and they're getting bits of paper signed and notarised because they know what the market for property is like, for example. And that's just one example. The second thing that comes to mind is the growing power of merchants and bankers. And they don't form a bourgeoisie like they do in Europe, but they are becoming more important and their relationship to the state is becoming much closer. And that's partly because of what's happening in India in the 18th century.

20:22So you have these new rulers and some old rulers, too, rulers of these states who are building up their kingdoms. And what do they need? They need money. And how are they going to get money? They're going to get money by having a bureaucracy that doesn't leak money and by increasing the amount of production and trade that's happening within their kingdom. So they bring land under cultivation. They try and attract new kinds of cultivation there that maybe didn't happen previously. Try and create new trade routes, maybe have new kinds of manufacturing. And merchants and bankers are financing that.

21:00and they're also sometimes their family members are part of that bureaucracy too. And as well as banking, as well as merchants, as well as insurance firms and so on, that sort of thing, we also get another profession beginning with M, an important profession, a beloved profession. Do you want to guess what that would be, Nish? Mirth makers. The first comedians emerged. There are lots of those actually in the 18th century. Really? Yeah. Fantastic. I don't know if there are more, but they're definitely more prominent. Wow. No, I said beloved.

21:33No, mercenaries. We get the mercenary class who show up. Nish, have you ever heard of Amir Khan? Amir Khan? Yeah. Well, you mean the incredibly famous actor? No, not that one from Lagan. And not the boxer either. Have I heard of Amir Khan? Of course I've heard of Amir Khan. No, this is the third most famous Amir Khan, after The Pugilist as well. Jagjit, who was Amir Khan, the Afghan mercenary? He's a big deal, right? Yeah, he began his rise by serving the Marathas, who gave him a royal title, and they gave him some land that he formed into a kind of principality. He then joined the Maharaja of Jodhpur's service, Jodhpur again, but his scheming got him into trouble, which is unsurprising given that he was implicated in poisoning one of the king's favourites.

22:23And so he's expelled from Jodhpur in 1815. But he wasn't unusual. I mean, there are lots of mercenaries. There's what I've called a whole market for violence, which already exists by the 18th century. But in the 18th century, when there is all this competition over land to fashion your own kingdom and make your own state, when so much is at stake, those kinds of actors are becoming more powerful, more important. And it's not uncommon for some of them to be given land in return for their loyal service and to form principalities of their own, making this even more complicated, this whole patchwork of different states.

22:57I mean, in the end, it doesn't work out for him, right? I think he sort of just, like, goes to Tonk, which is his principality, and he just retreats and has a nice retirement. Oh, really? OK. Does he really? I don't know, actually. Right, yeah. It's just you don't associate mercenaries with, like, winding down. He doesn't! When you hear mercenary, you don't think, gentle retirement, getting into gardening. And if you do, they're up to something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You sort of feel with mercenaries, it's probably going to end quite badly. The nuance window!

23:32Well, it's time now for the Nuance Window. This is the part of the show where Nish and I pull out our paintbrushes and poetry books for two minutes while Dr Jagjit takes centre stage to tell us something we need to know about India in the 18th century. My stopwatch is ready. So take it away, Dr Jagjit. Well, I think what has become clear by now is that the 18th century was a really exciting, really dynamic time. It's full of lots of opportunities, some hazards too. but this isn't how we've always seen the 18th century and to grasp just how much our understanding has changed I think it pays to go back to the period itself.

24:07Now from the point of view of Mughal writers anyone who rocked the boat was tarred as a rebel and often seen as being a ruffian from outside the Mughal order. Another important set of source materials we have on the 18th century are those histories that are written by men working for the East India Company after the colonial conquest had begun. And these writers had a vested interest in helping the company legitimate its new spoils. And so they portrayed it as, they portrayed the company as the font of order and peace and prosperity. That conquest would help Indians out of the chaos that supposedly reigned supreme.

24:42So these two very different groups of writers, some writing in Persian, in and around the Mughal court, those writing in English on behalf of the company, gave us a very similar and very negative picture of the century. And that picture more or less persisted until around about the late 1970s, when historians started to turn their attention to all these new regional courts that we've been talking about. Now, the first part of this work was really about state building, it's about revenue management, and so on. And it showed that these new rulers and their collaborators, like merchants and bankers, were creating a political order and islands of economic prosperity at a very regional level.