"An administrative culture of memos, notings and reports emerged as an integral part of British régime in India”- Explain why did this idea of maintaining records develop under the British
Answers
Answer:
the British East India Company evolved from a company chartered by the British Crown to trade with the East Indies into de facto British administrator of India, which set off the era of British colonization of the Indian Subcontinent.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Describe the East India Trading Company
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Key Points
After 1588, London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean. Permission was granted to several ships, but in 1600 a group of merchants known as the Adventurers succeeded at gaining a Royal Charter under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies. For 15 years, the charter awarded the newly formed company a monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.
English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The Company decided to gain a territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction from both Britain and the Mughal Empire. The requested diplomatic mission launched by James I in 1612 arranged for a commercial treaty that would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other areas. While Portuguese and Spanish influences in the region were soon eliminated, competition against the Dutch resulted in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the EIC (in a series of five acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a trading company into de facto an administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government.
In 1698, a new “parallel” EIC was established. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time but it quickly became evident that in practice, the original company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the EIC became the single largest player on the British global market. With the backing of its own private army, it was able to assert its interests in new regions in India without further obstacles from other colonial powers.
In the hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC began to function more as an administrator and less as a trading concern. The proliferation of the Company’s power chiefly took two forms: the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, or asserting powe through treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy.