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In 1877, John Bright told a meeting of the Manchester India Association that he had wanted to put India on the path to independence nearly twenty years before.
… In 1858, government of India’s various Presidencies in Madras, Bombay, Bengal and other centres was taken out of the hands of the East India Company and vested in the Crown … I argued that it was necessary, and would some time become imperative, that the Government of India should be so changed that it should be divided into five or six separate and entirely independent presidencies … when the power of England, from some cause or other, is withdrawn from India … I Believe that it is our duty not only to govern India well now for our own sakes and to satisfy our own conscience, but so to arrange its government and so to administer it that we should look forward to the time when India will have to take up her own government … By doing this, I think we should be endeavouring to make amends for the original crime upon which much of our power in India is founded … If we seek thus to deal with those millions, and men in after ages condemn our fathers for the policy which for the time bound India to England …
In 1858, government of India’s various Presidencies in Madras, Bombay, Bengal and other centres was taken out of the hands of the East India Company and vested in the Crown — or as John Bright put it, ‘a Governor-General and half-a-dozen eminent civilians in the city of Calcutta.’ Nineteen years later, he told a meeting in Manchester that he had wanted it done very differently.
Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted April 24 2020
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Oldham’s firebrand MP William Cobbett rips into the the City of London for blocking economic and political progress in India.
… In 1813, the East India Company held a Government-sponsored monopoly over all trade between London and her colonies … Sir William Curtis, during this debate, expressed his fears that a free trade to India might cause the introduction of political freedom … If a free trade to India were once allowed …
In 1813, the East India Company held a Government-sponsored monopoly over all trade between London and her colonies, but a history of scandals and mismanagement led to calls for free trade. The City of London objected strongly in a Commons debate in January 1813, and William Cobbett MP could hardly believe his ears.
Picture: © Abdulquadir14, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted February 9 2018
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The Governor of Bengal accused the East India Company of turning a crisis into a humanitarian catastrophe.
… The terrible famine which struck Bengal from 1769 was partly a freak of nature, but Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal, blamed a culture of corruption and negligence in the East India Company for making the effects far worse than they needed to be … Governor John Cartier, who managed Bengal on behalf of the British East India Company … Hastings prosecuted corrupt officials, streamlined the system and employed more Indians in the service, but wider reforms foundered on fears that British notions of property rights should not be imposed on India …
The terrible famine which struck Bengal from 1769 was partly a freak of nature, but Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal, blamed a culture of corruption and negligence in the East India Company for making the effects far worse than they needed to be, and was not prepared to turn a blind eye.
Picture: © Abhijit Kar Gupta, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted December 29 2017
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The East India Company’s top agent in India was also the man who put Calcutta on the world map.
… Calcutta (Kolkata) in West Bengal was the capital of British India from the start of the Raj in 1857 to 1911 … The East India Company’s muslin … Job Charnock had been in India since 1659 … Job kept his respect for the people and customs of India …
Calcutta (Kolkata) in West Bengal was the capital of British India from the start of the Raj in 1857 to 1911, when King George V announced a move to Delhi. Calcutta was not the first choice location for British commercial activity in Bengal, but it proved to be the best, and that was to the credit of one man, Job Charnock.
Picture: © Martin Jernberg, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted February 22 2018
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The East India Company installed Mir Kasim as Nawab of Bengal, only to find that he had a mind of his own.
… Robert Clive’s victory against the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in 1757 made him and his employers, the East India Company … After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the East India Company rewarded Mir Jafar for his betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah by creating him Nawab of Bengal in Siraj’s place …
Robert Clive’s victory against the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in 1757 made him and his employers, the East India Company, quite literally kingmakers. But Clive now retired to London, leaving Bengal to the new Nawab, Mir Jafar, and Company policy to Henry Vansittart, Clive’s successor in Calcutta.
Picture: By William Hodges (1744-1797), via the British Library and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 27 2017
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A tribute to the postal workers of British India, and to the kind of empire they helped to build.
… ‘The Overland Mail’ is a tribute to the runners who carried letters across India during the Raj … ‘Overland Mail’ (1886) Foot Service to the Hills In the name of the Empress of India …
‘The Overland Mail’ is a tribute to the runners who carried letters across India during the Raj, and in particular the personal and business letters of the Indian Civil Service to which young Englishmen were posted. Among other things, Kipling’s poem is a welcome reminder that by Victoria’s day, the British Empire was increasingly united by trade, services and communications rather than by armies or centralised political will.
Picture: Anonymous, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 20 2017