32
Economist Adam Smith warned that when Western commercial interests get involved in policy-making abroad, war and want are sure to follow.
… In 1757, a Government-backed trade agency called the British East India Company achieved such commercial and military superiority in India that its board members appointed princes … Twenty controversial years later, Scottish economist Adam Smith warned that a company set up to make profits for European clients should not and could not run India for the Indians … It is the interest of the East India Company … But if the genius of such a government, even as to what concerns its direction in Europe, is in this manner essentially and perhaps incurably faulty, that of its administration in India is still more so …
33
Robert Clive turned seven hundred frightened recruits into crack troops by sheer force of personality.
… By the Spring of 1752, the power of the French in India was waning, thanks to young Robert Clive of the East India Company’s militia … He took measures to prevent the enemy from learning that they were too late, laid an ambuscade for them on the road, killed a hundred of them with one fire, took three hundred prisoners, pursued the fugitives to the gates of Chingleput, laid siege instantly to that fastness, reputed one of the strongest in India …
36
The Indian Mutiny began with a revolt among disgruntled soldiers, and ended with the making of the British Raj.
… By 1857, the East India Company, a British government agency, had been running India for a hundred years … The revolt, however, spread all over the United Provinces and Delhi and partly in Central India and Bihar … For many months British rule in North and Central India hung almost by a thread … This barbarous behaviour naturally set up the backs of the British people in India … The Revolt of 1857-58 was the last flicker of feudal India … The Revolt also put an end to the rule of the East India Company in India … the old title of the Caesars and of the Byzantine Empire, adapted to India …