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.

Clive held that Europeans already meddled too much in Indian life. Regulating foreign trade and proving military security were responsibilities enough, and any attempt to transplant English law to India was doomed to fail. The most urgent task facing the Company was to rein in costs, which could be achieved by fighting corruption and cutting back on government overreach.

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