The British East India Company and the Mughals
The relationship between the British East India Company and the Mughal empire was political relationships of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Company had been established in 1600 as a trading corporation, and for the first century and a half of its existence it had operated through a small number of coastal factories and a treaty relationship with the Mughal authorities. The transformation of the Company from a trading corporation to a territorial power occurred in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the Company’s forces under Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal and effectively placed Bengal under British control. The conquest of Bengal provided the Company with the fiscal and military resources to expand across India, and the Company’s subsequent expansion, the subsidiary alliance system, and the doctrine of lapse progressively reduced the Indian states, including the Mughal dynasty, to a position of political dependence. The eventual extinction of the dynasty in 1857, in the context of the great rebellion, marked the end of a long process of political and symbolic marginalisation.
The Early Trading Posts
The English East India Company was established by royal charter in 1600, and the Company established its first factory at Surat in 1612. The Company’s early operations were limited to a small number of coastal factories at Surat, Madras, and Hughli, and the Company’s relationship with the Mughal authorities was governed by firmans, or royal decrees, issued by the Mughal emperor. The most important of these early firmans was the farman of 1616, issued by Emperor Jahangir, which gave the Company the right to establish factories at Surat and other locations. The Company also received farmans from the later Mughal emperors, including Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, and these firmans provided the legal basis for the Company’s early operations.
The Company’s early operations were principally concerned with the export of Indian textiles, particularly the fine muslins of Bengal and the calicoes of Gujarat, and the import of precious metals, particularly silver from the New World. The Company’s Indian operations were also closely connected to the broader European trade with the East, which had been dominated by the Portuguese since the late fifteenth century. The arrival of the English and the Dutch in the Indian Ocean in the early seventeenth century disrupted the Portuguese monopoly and contributed to the development of a substantial European commercial presence in the region.
The Company’s early operations in India were also closely connected to the broader European rivalry for commercial advantage in Asia. The Anglo-Dutch rivalry of the seventeenth century, the Anglo-French rivalry of the eighteenth century, and the various European wars all had consequences for the Company’s operations in India. The most important of these European conflicts was the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), which culminated in the Battle of Plassey and the British conquest of Bengal.
Warren Hastings and the Conquest of Bengal
The transformation of the Company from a trading corporation to a territorial power occurred in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The battle was fought between the Company’s forces under Robert Clive and the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, and the Company’s victory effectively placed Bengal under British control. The subsequent Treaty of Allahabad (1765), in which the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II granted the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the Company, gave the Company the right to collect the land revenue of the three provinces, providing it with the fiscal resources to expand its territorial control.
Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal (1772–1773, 1774–1785), was the principal architect of the Company’s transformation from a trading corporation to a territorial power. Hastings reorganised the Company’s administration, established a system of revenue collection, and conducted a series of military campaigns that expanded the Company’s territorial control. The most important of these campaigns was the war against the Maratha Confederacy (1775–1782), the war against Mysore (1767–1769, 1780–1784), and the war against the Nawab of Awadh. The Hastings administration also witnessed the Company’s substantial engagement in the politics of the Mughal court, including the British protection of the emperor Shah Alam II at Allahabad.
The grant of the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the Company in 1765 was a turning point in the economic history of India. The diwani gave the Company the right to collect the land revenue of the three provinces, providing it with the fiscal resources to expand its territorial control and to fund the industrial development of Britain. The diwani was a major event in the political history of the late Mughal period, and it marked the beginning of the substantial British intervention in the political affairs of the Mughal court.
The Subsidiary Alliance System
The subsidiary alliance system, developed by Lord Wellesley (Governor-General 1798–1805), was the principal instrument through which the Company expanded its territorial control in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Under a subsidiary alliance, an Indian state agreed to disband its own military, to accept a British resident at its court, and to pay for the upkeep of a British force that would defend it against external attack and internal rebellion. The system was applied successively to Hyderabad (1798), Awadh (1801), the Maratha Confederacy (after 1803–1805), and a number of other Indian states.
The subsidiary alliance system was a major innovation in the political history of India. The system allowed the Company to expand its territorial control without having to administer the territories it acquired, and it provided a substantial source of revenue to the Company through the subsidies paid by the allied states. The system also had a substantial effect on the political and military development of the Indian states, as the allied states were required to disband their own military establishments and to rely on the British for their defence. The system was widely resented by the Indian political class, and the resentment contributed to the grievances that erupted in the rebellion of 1857.
The most important application of the subsidiary alliance system was the Treaty of 1801 with Awadh, in which the Nawab of Awadh ceded substantial territories to the Company and accepted a subsidiary alliance. The treaty was a major step in the consolidation of British control over the Ganges plain, and it deprived the Mughal emperor of sources of revenue and political support. The application of the system to the Maratha Confederacy, after the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803–1805, was a further major step in the consolidation of British control, and the system was applied to a number of other Indian states, including Hyderabad, Mysore, and Travancore.
The Doctrine of Lapse
The doctrine of lapse, associated principally with Lord Dalhousie (Governor-General 1848–1856), was a related instrument of British expansion. Under the doctrine, an Indian state whose ruler died without a natural heir was subject to British annexation. The doctrine was based on the principle that the Company had the right to decide on the succession of Indian states, and that states whose rulers died without a natural heir were to be annexed rather than to have a successor adopted.
The doctrine of lapse was applied to a number of Indian states, including Satara (1848), Jaitpur and Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853), and Awadh (1856). The application of the doctrine to Awadh, of the Indian successor states, was a particularly significant event, as it deprived the Mughal emperor of sources of political support and contributed substantially to the grievances that erupted in 1857. The application of the doctrine to Jhansi was also significant, as the dispossession of the Rani of Jhansi was a major event in the history of the rebellion of 1857.
The doctrine of lapse was widely resented by the Indian political class, and it contributed substantially to the grievances that erupted in 1857. The doctrine was particularly resented because it was seen as a violation of the customary practices of Indian succession, and it was widely interpreted as a sign of British determination to extinguish the Indian states. The doctrine was eventually abandoned after the rebellion, and the British government adopted a new policy of non-annexation, although the policy was not always observed in practice.
The Symbolic Use of the Mughal Emperor
The British, in the years after the grant of the diwani in 1765, made substantial symbolic use of the Mughal emperor. The emperor, although he had been progressively stripped of political authority, retained a substantial symbolic importance, and the British were careful to extract from him formal recognitions of their position. The grant of the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the Company in 1765 was obtained from the emperor Shah Alam II, and the British subsequently obtained a series of other formal recognitions from the emperor.
The British also made substantial use of the emperor as a constitutional ornament. The emperor was treated as the formal sovereign of India, and the British presented themselves as the servants of the emperor. The emperor, in turn, was supported by a pension paid by the British and was treated as a constitutional ornament whose authority was purely formal. The arrangement was a substantial change from the earlier Mughal political tradition, in which the emperor had been the principal source of political authority, and it reflected the substantial change in the actual distribution of political power.
The symbolic use of the Mughal emperor was a major feature of British Indian political culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The emperor was treated with substantial ceremonial respect, and the court of Delhi retained considerable cultural prestige. The British were careful to maintain the ceremonial traditions of the Mughal court, including the bestowal of titles and robes of honour, and the emperor’s name continued to be used in official documents and coinage. The arrangement, however, was widely resented by the Indian political class, and the resentment contributed to the grievances that erupted in 1857.
The Puppet Emperors of Delhi
The reigns of the later Mughal emperors, from Muhammad Shah (1719–1748) to Bahadur Shah Zafar (1837–1857), are often referred to as the period of the puppet emperors of Delhi. The designation is a substantial oversimplification, but it captures the substantial change in the actual distribution of political power that had occurred by the mid-eighteenth century. The emperor Muhammad Shah presided over a kingdom that had been substantially reduced by the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739, and his reign saw the effective end of Mughal power in north India.
The later reigns of Ahmad Shah Bahadur (1748–1754), Alamgir II (1754–1759), and Shah Alam II (1759–1806) saw a progressive contraction of effective Mughal authority to a small region around Delhi. Ahmad Shah Bahadur’s reign was disrupted by the political ambitions of his vizier, Safdar Jung, and by the threat of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s Afghan invasions. Alamgir II was assassinated in 1759 by a conspiracy of Maratha and Rohilla chiefs, and Shah Alam II, installed with Maratha support, was blinded by the Rohilla chief Ghulam Qadir in 1788, a graphic illustration of the depth to which the dynasty had fallen. Shah Alam II eventually took refuge under British protection at Allahabad, and the substantial symbolic importance of the Mughal emperor was progressively undermined.
The reign of Akbar Shah II (1806–1837) marked a new phase in the symbolic history of the dynasty. Akbar Shah II presided over a court that retained considerable cultural prestige but no political authority. The emperor lived in the Red Fort in Delhi, supported by a pension paid by the British, and treated by the British as a constitutional ornament. The British were careful to extract from the emperor formal recognitions of their position, including the granting of the title of King of Delhi to the Mughal emperor. The emperor was also the focus of a developing Indian Muslim consciousness that was increasingly resentful of the British use of the emperor as a constitutional ornament while denying him real authority. These grievances, combined with those of the Hindu and Sikh communities, provided the background to the rebellion of 1857.
The Gradual Extinction of Mughal Authority
The substantial change in the actual distribution of political power that had occurred by the mid-eighteenth century was reflected in a series of formal measures that progressively extinguished the authority of the Mughal emperor. The grant of the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the Company in 1765 was a major step, as it deprived the emperor of sources of revenue and political support. The subsidiary alliance system, the doctrine of lapse, and the British annexation of the major Indian states progressively reduced the emperor to a position of formal sovereignty without any actual authority.
The symbolic use of the Mughal emperor was also progressively undermined. The British, in the years after 1857, were careful to distance themselves from the Mughal imperial heritage, and they demolished much of the old city of Delhi in the course of building the new British capital. The British also de-emphasised the Mughal associations of the Red Fort in their public presentations, and they made substantial use of the architectural heritage of the Mughals in their propaganda presentations. The substantial change in the actual distribution of political power was reflected in a substantial change in the symbolic and ceremonial apparatus of British Indian political culture.
Bahadur Shah Zafar and the End of the Dynasty
The reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1837–1857), the last Mughal emperor, is examined in detail in the rebellion of 1857 cluster. Zafar was an old man when he acceded to the throne, and he had little real authority. The substantial change in the actual distribution of political power was reflected in the substantial marginalisation of the emperor, and the emperor was widely regarded as a constitutional ornament whose authority was purely formal. The substantial marginalisation of the emperor was a major grievance of the Indian political class, and it contributed substantially to the grievances that erupted in 1857.
The rebellion of 1857 marked the end of the Mughal dynasty as a political institution. The British recapture of Delhi in September 1857, the trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar, and the exile of the emperor to Rangoon marked the formal end of the dynasty. The British Crown’s assumption of direct rule in India in 1858, in the form of the Government of India Act 1858, formalised the new situation: the Mughal emperor was no longer a useful constitutional ornament, and the British could now claim to rule India in their own right.
The Legacy of the British-Mughal Relationship
The British-Mughal relationship, which had begun as a treaty relationship between a trading corporation and a major Indian empire, ended in the formal extinction of the Mughal dynasty in 1857. The substantial change in the actual distribution of political power had occurred over more than a century, and it had been accompanied by a substantial change in the symbolic and ceremonial apparatus of British Indian political culture. The British, in the years after 1857, were careful to distance themselves from the Mughal imperial heritage, and they de-emphasised the substantial use that they had made of the Mughal emperor as a constitutional ornament.
The British-Mughal relationship is also important as a case study in the political dynamics of the late Mughal period. The British expansion, the rise of the Marathas, the rise of the Sikh power, and the eventual rebellion of 1857 are all part of a single connected history in which the political fragmentation of the late Mughal period created the conditions for the British conquest of India. The economic decline of the Mughal Empire and the religious policies of the late Mughal empire both contributed to the substantial change in the actual distribution of political power that made the British conquest possible. For the broader context, the Mughal decline overview, the reign of Aurangzeb, the history of the later Mughals, and the Mughal administration overview offer comprehensive treatments of the empire’s later centuries.
Sources
- P.J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead (NCHI II.2, 1987).
- C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (NCHI II.1, 1988), chs. 5–8.