William Dalrymple has a great podcast called Empire. I think its the 2nd or 3rd episode where they cover this including the Warren Hastings trial...etc. Well worth a listen to.

Britain’s history in India is very interesting and complex to say the least. I was always fascinated at how the subcontinent was utilized and ruled by the British. Without Indian manpower much of the Empire’s expansion in Asia probably wouldn’t have happened. To this day I’m still amazed that the British amassed an army of Indians to fight for the EIC and Empire. Truly, truly fascinating. It all started with the EIC.

What's fascinating is that it was one of the first mega corporation and till now the most powerful one to exist as well. At its peak it had one of the largest armies under its command and ruled vast stretches of land.

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There’s a very cool board game that just came out called John Company 2nd edition that allows you to play as one of the families (Hastings, Larkins, etc) while running the company together and competing for the most power and wealth for your family to win the game. You can either follow what historically happened or veer off and recreate history based on how you choose to run the company and which laws parliament passes. Super fun and interesting negotiation game.

He also has a very good book on the same:
The Anarchy tells one of history’s most remarkable stories: how the Mughal Empire―which dominated world trade and manufacturing and possessed almost unlimited resources―fell apart and was replaced by a multinational corporation based thousands of miles overseas, and answerable to shareholders, most of whom had never even seen India and no idea about the country whose wealth was providing their dividends. Using previously untapped sources, Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before and provides a portrait of the devastating results from the abuse of corporate power.

https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Relentless-Rise-India-Company/dp/1635573955

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Indian manpower captured India for Britain. The number of British soldiers who served in India was always small compared to the native contingent.

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Empire is pretty good! If we're talking history podcasts on the British empire, I have to recommend Pax Britannica as well.

A similar, sibling company, the Hudson Bay Company, ruled much of Canada, though with nothing like the military side of things, and still exists today as a chain of department stores.

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I first became acquainted with the EIC through the book "Indian Ocean Rovers" [see, e.g., https://www.ebay.com/itm/265792871787], belonging first to my grandfather and then my mother. As a rather precocious and curious autistic child, I spent hours reading through the exploits of the EIC ships and the pirates who pursued, and sometimes took, the EIC merchant ships. Days of cat and mouse, the long rakish hulls with sleek lateen sails getting daily closer. Trying to dodge them at night. The fearsome battles when the combatants finally closed.

It was only later that I started to understand that the Company was evil in design, evil in ends, evil in execution. That British India was effectively a slave state. The adventures and misadventures of the merchant ships were driven by astute and cunning manipulation of the people of an entire subcontinent with the goals of power and riches.

I plunged into other books. Stories of Cawnpore Well and the Black Hole of Calcutta - always written from the British perspective. Seemed to me, even as a child, that the violence and treachery began with the invaders.

Years later, the Smithsonian had an exhibit of early photography of India, with the British figuring extensively in the images, especially those in the military. The complete, absolute, insufferable arrogance and entitlement was clear, lording over all the heathens around them.

Yet somehow people from this subcontinent still get along with the British, possibly better than the other way around.

The EIC / British story of India deeply influenced me as a child, a child of almost pure Celtic origins, Welsh, English, and Irish, but not of the landed privileged class, rather of the oppressed working class. The vision presented in books and by my experience of the primary class divide showed me inequality, exploitation, and evil very early in my life, an older version of the world gone crazy in pursuit of power, while the soft green world of my summers was punctuated by the scars of Hilter's pursuit of land, power, and domination.

So much additional context and detail in the simple article referenced. Brought back so many memories of early reading, and put them in a broader context. Enjoyed very much.

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Started reading the book, but it wasn't a pleasing experience knowing the brilliant business ruthlessness was at our receiving end. i mean who does lol

>Yet somehow people from this subcontinent still get along with the British

anecdote but as a 20 something Indian,

nation view has been of increasing wealth. This wasn't the case pre 90s before borders were opened up for privatisation. So plunder of British times although witnessed directly through school trips to jallian wala bagh etc did feel horrifying, it's day to day effects "felt" mitigated & reversed already (far from the truth, no one knows where we'd be but hypotheticals). Besides, there's neighbours like Pak/China to actively hate in the present whom we have witnessed perform terror in our lifetime.

Parent's case is more pronounced, the deep rooted hatred is visible in conversation also with sadness & anger towards some of India's 1900s leaders who didn't optimize for country's well being over their short term pockets, agendas etc. They've gone through tougher times still reeling from aftereffects

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Thank you for your insights. Always the what might have been!

I gradually awakened as an elementary level student to wonderment that Britain assumed an absolute right to take over the world as almost vassals, to settle foreign lands with their own people, to plunder.

It started so long ago that I can't envision a path without that British imprint. Here I am, in the United States, a country settled through the pushing aside and extermination of peoples already here. What might they have become?

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Played it twice over the last week, first time was company failure in round 4 events in India, game two we lasted all 5 rounds. Lots of fun!

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I was busy with an answer to the other deleted post. But have the game also, as a person of Indian descent. It is, for me personally, not about glorifying colonial past and its dark pages. Rather I try to use this game to teach and learn about history and the (very abstract) mechanics, be it economic, social or militarily. Thats why I like most Pax games, as it gives IMO a honest view of history.There are games that perhaps downgrade colonial past Puerto Rico, Colonialism , but I always give a honest view of the history concerned when playing with my kids, family or friends.

Hey I’m reading this right now. Quite good indeed. Very detailed but not over bearing like a text book style. Would highly recommend.

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Thank you for the mention

Fascinating. Having both Indian and British parentage I’ve often felt conflicted about Britain’s history in India. On trips to India I’ve been struck by the fact that despite hundreds of years of British rule, India is still India. By that I mean Indian cultures, languages and religion seem on the face of it to have survived largely intact from British rule. Based on your reading do you think was this because the British were unable to change them or simply uninterested?

Yeah the ratio under Company rule was crazy. It ranged between 3:1 to 7:1 (Indians:Europeans) throughout the Company period.

Oh the HBC financed and took part in plenty of wars and fighting in Canada didn’t they?

Isn’t the common thought that India changed the British more than the British changed India?

Duration of the audio ?

Yup, another person of Indian descent but never played the game. I did play a lot of Total War and one of the titles had Europe, India and North America in the 18th century. It was morbidly fun invading my country as the Brits and in a layer gameplay invading the Brit Isles as the Maratha Confederacy.

India looked more like a continental empire than a nation. The "nation" description was glued on in an "if all you have is a hammer" fashion. Given that, no wonder it had such momentum. How the Mughals came to such a power vacuum has to be a fascinating story.

I'd also modify the Maslow to "if all you have is logistics...." for India.

There's a quote from John Robert Seely - "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind". I always took that as "we really didn't know what we were doing."

cool thanks will check it out

Certainly didn't help (the British) that diseases like Malaria, Yellow fever, etc. thrived in tropical climates such as in Southern India. European men used to drop dead like flies from these diseases.

There's also the Dutch VOC who operated in Indonesia, and whose market value actually exceeded the British EIC.

> Yet somehow people from this subcontinent still get along with the British, possibly better than the other way around.

What do you mean by "get along" in this context? Because obviously on an individual person to person basis, getting along is very easy and (sane) individuals won't let nationality get in the same way of cordial socialization.

There's also the fact that the British Empire is slowly fading into the past with every year that goes by, and the problems of the future are coming up. People won't dedicate too much energy towards hating a past foe when they literally have nuclear warheads pointed at the present one. It didn't take long for Poland's hate for Germany to be replaced with a hostility to Russia, because the Russians were/are much more recent.

> the British were unable to change them or simply uninterested?

Can be both. At the height of the empire, Britain's population was only 47 million, while India stood at 400 million. It's hard to really change people when they outnumber you 10 times over.

Besides the logistical barrier, the British Empire didn't need to change India, ruling India without changing up its cultures too radically was working out just fine. Why tear down already functioning structures of power when you don't need to? Many parts of India were ruled through local Indian rulers, who aligned themselves with the British Empire (be it for personal enrichment or simply accepting that they had no other alternative). Playing off pre-exisiting animosity also worked out great, it was much easier to rule over diverse people's who had a past history of fighting each other, than it is to rule over a newly unified homogenised culture.

>There's a quote from John Robert Seely - "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind". I always took that as "we really didn't know what we were doing."

That is a good way of looking at it. It's pretty much Capital Market expansion seeping into whatever cracks it found across the world. British merchants would find a neat port, and the navy and army would soon follow behind them (either to deny that area to European competitors, or to enforce the economic interests of the merchants through violence).

There was never any grand central plan or vision to it. No council of rulers sitting together in a room saying "we are going to forge a big empire!" Just the ruthless pursuit of financial interests leading them there over the years.

It’s also worth mentioning that the British didn’t really “capture” india through conquest or war. Nor did they directly rule the entire subcontinent.

All of the India wasn’t ruled by Britain but they controlled two thirds by area and more by population.

Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t the yellow areas in this map not even 2/3 of the subcontinent?

To my understanding the British Raj was much poorer and less productive per capita than the relatively autonomous princely states

Wikipedia says that princely states occupied 40% of the area and 23% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_state

British India was on average better than an average princely state. But there were few states like Travancore which performed better than British India. Tirthankar Roy has a really good book on it.

Can you elaborate?

I’m pretty sure the princely states outside of the nizams had higher GDP per capita than the Raj. Mysore (or maybe it was travancore) for example had electricity while the rest of the Raj was basically in poverty

Not to mention that nearly all industry in india collapsed when the British took over and there was a huge efflux of people from cities into rural areas. So rural poverty became a huge problem

General rule of thumb: Around 85-90% of the Indian Army were Hindus.

At 1858, EIC Army was at about 360.000-400.000 strength, of which about 40.000 were Europeans.

Well getting local troops was the only way possible. Europeans werent familar enough with this tropic climate, shipping troops over took months and - more importantly:

The British army wouldnt allow the EIC to regularly recruit British people, for obvious reasons.

When young students learn about modern corporate malfeasance, a historian can only chuckle; they don't have anything on the old corporations like the EIC or VOC.