Book Review: The Anarchy
26th February 2023 is going to be an interesting date in my journey as a litterateur — as an author, reader, and history enthusiast.
a) In my story-in-the-making, ‘My Rainbow Bridge’, the protagonist Vanchi yearns to be in cities like Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay so that he could peel the layers of modern ‘ugliness’ and see ‘Victorian India’. This is his interest and that plays out in his choice of cities.
b) The history enthusiast in me awakened recently, and I lined two books in my TBR list ahead of others. One was ‘The Anarchy’ by William Dalrymple and another ‘Mountbatten’ by Philip Ziegler.
c) As a reader, I am pressed for time. I have two more books on my read-and-reviews. More on that later.
I jumped into ‘The Anarchy’ ahead of another book because it was in my line of sight on my bookshelf, which is behind my writing desk. This is the right place, the right time. I now know how to get my TBR list done.
But don’t mistake me. My fresh TBR is piling while I have at least 100 books to go from my old pile. I am a ravenous bibliophile.
History is one of my favorite subjects. My take on history is that it is researched fiction. There is always fact and fiction mixed. History is retrospective storytelling built on artifacts. It is a well-researched and narrated point of view. The first thing that one has to do while reading history books is to unlearn the textbooks we have read.
History as a subject is a ‘social conditioning’ tool structured around ‘controlled narratives’ taught to young impressionable minds. History is the most important subject, and in many cases, the most hated subject. While today’s generation wants to ‘live in the moment’, history has become the one-percenter subject — for the elite and enthusiasts.
This is where William Dalrymple’s series — the Company Quartet comes into play. In the traditional narrative filled with nationalistic sauce, the last 350 years (1600 to 1947) bring two standard narratives to question — the British perspective and the Indian perspective. The early Indian perspective in textbooks relies on the Nehruvian narrative, still nationalistic albeit filtered. With India riding on a nationalistic wave, this narrative will be diluted further, to make the narrative of the entire period more chauvinistic than ever.
I jettisoned this ‘conditioned narratives’ long ago when I read through a set of books from the German and Japanese perspectives of World War. Historic narratives are complex, unlike standard fiction. There is no standard Points-of-View ( POVs) and the author becomes the narrator more often.
‘The Anarchy’ brings a strong message to readers across the world. If we filter the ‘nationalistic flavor’, the reality is something different. India’s occupation and plunder by the British were, in fact, a set of greedy individuals who wanted to make money. The citadel of the Mughal regime was breached by a set of ‘greedy Indian financiers’ who co-opted to engage an ‘International trading corporation’ to dislodge a regime that did not allow them to do their bidding. It was money — trade and finance at the center of it. One human quality that dominated was greed.
With no oversight and leash, the privateers of East India Company, the world’s first joint-stock-corporation, set out to bring profits through trade for its shareholders, raised a private army, funded through Indian financiers, and finally through promises, war, rape, plunder, and deceit, took over the place of the sprawling but dysfunctional Mughal empire. The period between 1700–1800 is called the ‘Great Anarchy’ in which the squabbling regional Indian powers fell prey to the machinations of a private company run by 35 clerks in a nondescript building in London.
There are a few perspectives that the book brings out.
From Plenty to Penury:
Bengal, with its textiles, rice, and manufacturing made up 80% of the GDP of India’s subcontinent, which in turn held more than 40% of the world’s GDP in 1600, the year of formation of the East India Company ( The Company or EIC henceforth). The Company was making more than $300 million on an annual basis from 1750, just about the time Siraj Ud-Daula became the power-that-be in Bengal.
In a matter of two decades, exacerbated by a couple of failed monsoons, Bengal was brought down to its knees. With more than ten million dead or dying, the richest province in the world was brought down like a set of jackals bringing down a mighty elephant. Still, the Company’s Directors declared an increase in dividend from 10 to 12.5%, given that the Company had overachieved its tax collections ( $300+ million).
In a matter of two decades, the EIC sucked every paisa and rupee out of the rich province and brought in abject penury and suffering for its citizens.
The Anarchy:
The regional Indian overlords were always in succession wars and schemes that they did not realize the growing appetite of the EIC in establishing its hegemony over India. While the concept of a unified nation was not there yet, the attempts around keeping the ‘Moghul Empire’ on their side continued even till 1803. From Mir Qasim of Bengal to Shuja Ud Daula of Avadh, from Scindia of the Marathas to EIC’s Wellesley, the Moghul insignia played an important acceptance. The symbolic change of control happens when the throne of Delhi was ‘guarded’ by Wellesley, while keeping Shah Alam, the long-living Moghul empire of his times as his puppet, thereby establishing the control of EIC’s overall territory to the South of the Himalayas.
It brings us to the grandiose of the Mughal rule in the 1600s and what Aurangazeb mishandled and misplaced. From Arcot in the South to Bengal in the East, through Maratha land, and finally Delhi, the grand scale of the Mughal empire is indirectly visible through Dalrymple’s narrative. The sense of stability that a large empire gives and the crumbling of such stability into regional rule leads to petty squabbles that make the lives of ordinary people difficult — frequent wars, no trade, and business, lack of jobs and security. After all, is that not what we call ‘anarchy’?
Between the cracks of the crumbling Mughal control, till the EIC put the entire landmass together, the situation was anarchic. An apt title for the book, hence.
The Elephant and the Jackals
Apart from the principals of EIC — Clive, Hastings, Cornwallis, and Wellesley, the outstanding protagonist of this period was the one who outlasted them all. ‘Shah Alam’, the Moghul Emperor of the times, whose power was so depleted during his reign that it led to a saying in the Persian language, Sultanat-e-Shah Alam, Az Dilli ta Palam, meaning, ‘The empire of Shah Alam is from Delhi to Palam’, Palam being a suburb of Delhi.
Shah Alam was a poet at heart. He retained the royal dignity, grandeur, and position, and the power of his royal insignia survived for its utility — the legalization of the usurping and power struggles of the various powermongers of the period — Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuda Ud-Daula of Avadh, East India Company, and the Marathas. Whoever ruled Delhi, ruled India. Digest this — he was defeated by the Company thrice, and each time, the Governor General kowtowed before him, just to seek favors and legitimacy, despite being the victors.
He had his weaknesses — especially for Ghulam Qadir, the son of Zibita Khan, who on a rare streak of success was defeated by Shah Alam. Shah Alam had an almost obsessive and possessive interest in Ghulam Qadir, with rumors flying about their relationship. But when he left the gilded cage, Ghulam Qadir, originally a Rohilla returned to loot, plunder, and massacre the Mughal royalty. He also dug both the eyes of the Moghul emperor, thereafter rendering him blind for the rest of his life.
Despite this, Shah Alam maintained his decorum and dignity, ran the royal Moghul Court, Diwan-e-Aam ( there was no need for Diwan-e-Khas, as the Moghul nobility had dwindled) with full splendor even when he was a penniless puppet in the hands of Marathas first and finally, under the Company.
His life suffered in powerless penury, but with poetic purity. His life chronicled under the title ‘Shah Alam Nama’ is often referred to in Dalrymple’s book. He conducted himself as a royal elephant, while the jackals nibbled around him and at his heels, often for their purposes. Dalrymple is all praise for the benign yet benevolent emperor of the times.
Money and Greed:
Money is the center of most human minds. The Indian financiers, the turncoats who are one rung below the Indian overlords, and the leaders of the East India Company — all three parties, who are important characters in this period of chaotic history, fell for incitements and greed.
The Greed for Money was such a factor that EIC become a Frankenstein that the British Government started worrying about. More debates, more insinuations — yet no action. For more than 40% of the British Members of Parliament held stock in the EIC, which resulted in a spirited defense of vested interest. Money and greed governed the EIC’s India leadership, particularly Clive, who upon the conclusion of the Battle of Plassey ( Palasi) became the richest self-made man in all of Europe.
Financing the Plunder
The word ‘loot’ the word for organized plunder entered the English lexicon from India. The loot was orchestrated by lies, promises, deceit, threats, and war. The Company was financed by the plunder with the money that they raised and borrowed from Indian financiers. Indian financiers, starting from Jagat Seths, the Marwaris from Rajasthan who shifted to Bengal to fund the booming trade of the richest province under Moghuls, now faced issues with the local Nawab ( often referred as Nabob in extant literature), which started with Siraj Ud Daula. Their alignment of interests with EIC resulted in the fall of Siraj Ud Daula, which in turn gave the Company the toehold in controlling the ‘Diwani’ — the economy of the state.
From there, successive Governor General raised capital and borrowed from Indian financiers from Rajasthan, Banaras, and Surat, to fund their wars — the Anglo-Maratha, and Anglo-Mysore wars in particular. Since they were prompt in payment, the Indian financiers were also happy to finance these wars. So it was Indian money used for feeding the Indian Sepoys who fought against Indian overlords. The machinations were, of course, the Companies.
Except for the Bankruptcy, the need for the British to pay for Indian cotton, spices, textiles, or goods never rose. Indian financiers funded and lend to the Company, who in turn paid them back through the heavy taxes levied on the suffering citizens of India.
The Power of Discipline:
Discipline in the EIC army set it apart from the armies of the Indian overlords. Most armies in India — Bengal, Avadh, Maratha, Mysore, and others, when victorious, looted, raped, and plundered cities. British kept their army on a leash. They inventoried and centralized the post-war spoils, which added to their strength. Soldiers were added to the army, cattle were added to the army supply chain and treasure was organized for possible finance for future events and bribes.
Second, the vanquished peoples were surprised while expecting the victors to plunder and pillage their homes, rape their women, and murder their children. But the EIC army’s discipline brought post-battle peace almost immediately. While this was not true with every battle, the pattern helped to take quick control of the territories.
The French Connection
Between 1775 to 1790, there was a reasonable chance for a French-backed setup in India. The most obvious one was the Tipu-Napolean nexus. The remnants of the French army were always present in the commander-and-trainer positions in India. The Marathas, Tipu, and the Nizam ( the Raymond Band) were all employing French in their service, who built their forts, trained their armies, and fought alongside them. The Franco-British wars globally affected India’s thought process.
The American Connection
Lord Charles Cornwallis, the third prominent Governor General after Robert Clive and Warren Hastings was the one who is associated with the final defeat of the British in the American war of Independence with the ‘judas’ of their time — Benedict Arnold. Often blamed for his surrender to George Washington, the appointment in India came as an opportunity for redemption for Cornwallis. His ‘Triple Alliance’ with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas, resulted in the first defeat of Tipu, as a result of which Tipu was forced to pay for repairments, and cede half his territory, mostly which went to the Marathas and Nizam.
The Boston tea that was dumped was that of the East India Company. Opium was grown in India and sold in China. Chinese tea was sold in India, Europe, and the Americas.
Bankruptcy and Bailout
The greed of the EIC leadership in India was such that they hid facts and lied to their bosses in London. Mostly the officers filled their coffers and pockets, thereby siphoning off money from the books of EIC — mostly led by Robert Clive himself. When prize money and taxes were not sufficient, the Company went down on its knees, briefly, accelerated by the decline of revenues since 1770 — the year of the Bengal Famine. The company’s stock crashed and it went to the Parliament claiming bankruptcy in 1772.
It was the first instance of a Corporate’s bankruptcy declaration. By this time, the Company was too big to fail, and vested political interests would not let the sailing ship sink. So, a bailout loan was given to the extent of GBP 1.3 million, a massive amount those days. The bailout came with conditions of oversight among others, resulting in the first formal corporate bailout and public-private partnership.
Impeachment
The squabble and personal animosity of the Company’s leadership also resulted in the first impeachment in history. Warren Hastings, described by Dalrymple as studious, ebullient, and conservative, with often respect for the Indian royalty and nobility and concern for the native population, was subjected to trial and impeachment by his betenoire, Philip Francis in cahoots with Edmund Burke.
After a long-drawn trial, Hastings was absolved of all charges. But it took the life and spirit of this gentleman. Politics in London affected the Company’s heroes, who were essentially greedy marauders and private profiteers.
Today:
I saw William Dalrymple’s Instagram post sharing his invite to the ‘Hindu Lit for Life’ fest in Chennai, where he presented a minilecture about his four-book series on the Company. Now called the ‘Company Quartet’ it captures and brings out the lives and times of a set of English businessmen and seafarers to achieve profit from trade, similar to the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch.
His admonitions about the lessons of limitless corporate greed combined with the power of the state stand true today. Ports and infrastructure are gifted to foreign powers and corporates, without checks and balances. Corporates fund elections and the elected reciprocate with gratitude with ‘facilitations’ and ‘arrangements’. The raise of joint-stock corporates whose sole aim is to create profits for its shareholders, with unlimited and unchecked power, and even more, in partnership with the power-hungry politicians stand as a repetition of the East India Company’s story, which Dalrymple warns about. He identifies some of the recent events in India and elsewhere as examples of how the lessons are yet to be learned.
I end this review with this quote from the book ‘The Anarchy’.
“Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they, therefore, do as they like. Edward, First Baron Thurlow”
― William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
A must-read for all Indians in love with their history.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
