Introduction
As Governor of Bengal in 1757-60 and 1765-66, Robert Clive strove to reform the East India Company’s wasteful, mercenary and supercilious bureaucracy. The Company responded in 1773 with a Parliamentary smear campaign so masterly that to this day, many regard Clive as a microcosm of all that was wrong with British colonialism, but it is hard to see that Clive in Sir John Malcolm’s account of him.
THE higher classes of English, those concerned in the government, and at the head of departments, he [Clive] wished to restrain from trade altogether, and to pay them ample allowances; if their large salaries did not make them honest, they at least left no pretence for dishonesty, and turned more strongly against them the moral feelings of their judges: the Company’s civil servants he did not wish to employ in the lower details of the financial or judicial establishments: he was earnestly bent on changing as little of the native institutions as possible; to do at least no harm; to govern India by Indians;* to leave things as they were till we saw our way, reserving for the English only the reins of government, the general superintendence, a controlling and directing power, and the command of the military force. The system which he found, and under which, as all Europeans then on the spot agreed, the country had reached a degree of prosperity hardly to be equalled elsewhere in the East, he wished to retain.
See also John Bright MP on A Dream of Independence.
Précis
During his tenure as Governor of Bengal in the 1760s, Robert Clive urged wide-reaching reforms of the East India Company. Among these were that senior officials should be compensated with generous salaries for relinquishing any profits from trade, and that the Company should content herself with a very light touch on government, leaving as much as possible to Indians. (59 / 60 words)
During his tenure as Governor of Bengal in the 1760s, Robert Clive urged wide-reaching reforms of the East India Company. Among these were that senior officials should be compensated with generous salaries for relinquishing any profits from trade, and that the Company should content herself with a very light touch on government, leaving as much as possible to Indians.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, despite, may, or, since, until, whereas, who.
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