- 2 days ago
Documentary, BBC - The Birth of Empire: The East India Company Part: 2
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00just over 400 years ago a group of London merchants arrived here on the Indian coast
00:10hoping to do some peaceful trading those early pioneers dreamt of making huge profits from
00:18humble beginnings this ragtag band of adventurers secured land from Indian rulers formed alliances
00:25with local craftsmen and built from scratch a commercial enterprise to export goods to Britain
00:31the East India Company was part of this tremendous globalization of the world which really started in
00:39the 17th century and speeded up in the 18th and 19th centuries over 200 years the company grew into a
00:45commercial Titan its wealth rival that of the British state it had its own army and eventually
00:54ruled over 400 million people its trade was vital to Britain's commercial success and its shares were
01:03the center point of London's financial markets it revolutionized the British lifestyle the East India
01:10Company changed the way we dress it changed the way we eat it changed the way we socialize and by
01:17accident created one of the most powerful empires in history they were instrumental in making Britain
01:25the maritime superpower they helped lay the foundations for our own global trading system today and they
01:32also helped to make English the world's language every step of the company's rise is recorded in a
01:40unique archive what a lucky fellow you are Charlie going to India you lead such a luxurious life why you
01:47dog when you come home you'll be a rich man but the letters and diaries also chart its fall into
01:53profiteering nepotism and corruption every ancient friend of the family hoped I should live to be a major
01:59general and eventually a chilling story of drug running and famine numbers of famishing wretches followed our
02:07army for the sole purpose of existing on the awful of the camp this is the story of the greatest company
02:14the world has ever known
02:37by 1800 the East India Company had grown from a tiny band of merchants with a small foothold in India
02:48into a colossal trading empire pouring wealth into the pockets of its shareholders back in Britain
02:57they had conquered the wealthy region of Bengal and bled it dry amplifying the effects of a deadly famine
03:16leading to the deaths of millions of people in a human tragedy of unprecedented scale the British were
03:25horrified and the government was forced to step in from that point on the state's grip grew ever
03:30tighter as it attempted to control this voracious monster a new chapter in its history began from now
03:41on its affairs in India would be run by a board of control appointed by the British government and
03:47and Parliament would gradually transform the way that the company functioned in India
03:51this new role as ruler of India would herald a new attitude towards its subjects over time the British
04:09would grow more distant and aloof they increasingly see a need to separate themselves from the people that
04:20they're ruling and to create a sense of British prestige around themselves as the ruling race and and the
04:26people who are in charge neglecting its relationship with the people of India carefully cultivated over the
04:37in the previous centuries would prove a terrible mistake and threaten the company's very existence
04:47in the 19th century the biggest risk to the company would be the emerging struggle between trade and empire
04:54this conflict was intensified by one man when in 1798 he was given the top job in India
05:00governor-governor-general of the bengal presidency lord richard wellesley
05:17wellesley was from a grand aristocratic family back home and he took one look at government house in
05:22calcutta and decided that something a little more ostentatious was required to reflect the power of the
05:28british and india not to mention his own exalted status and so he built this the new government
05:34house it's not much but it's home
05:45the cost of the project rang alarm bells back at company headquarters in leadenhall street
05:50but of more concern were wellesley's outright imperial ambitions which clashed with the company's
05:55stated objectives to minimize military expenditure
06:02in london the directors were keen to avoid wars their costs were certain
06:06their outcomes less so but wellesley dismissed the concerns of the people he described as the
06:11cheesemongers of leadenhall street he was here with a personal agenda one supported by the british
06:16government and it had little to do with the rag trade he wanted to smash the vestiges of french
06:22power in india wipe out local opposition and extend british rule across the subcontinent and from
06:2814 000 miles away there was little directors could do to stop him wellesley had set his sights on a
06:38formidable muslim adversary tippoo sultan the tiger of my soul
06:51the rich battle-hardened muslim leader of my soul was the east india company's most intractable enemy
06:59three times in three decades his family had fought the company they were known as the terrors of leadenhall
07:06street and now wellesley discovered that on top of it all they were in league with the french
07:14i think he identified quite early on that if he could play the french and british off against each
07:20other he could expand at their expense the french were at the time britain's main global rival for the
07:29status of global superpower and that was being played out in india as it was in north america and other arenas
07:41a striking force of around 4 000 east india company troops many of them native soldiers or sepoys
07:48attacked tippoo's fort in syringapatam inside with his men the tiger was ready to do battle
07:59a ruler who prided himself on military prowess had to have an extensive extravagant ornate collection
08:06of weapons in his personal arsenal and here are some of them now the sword was the emblem of manhood in
08:13this period the emblem of a great ruler and judging by these swords tippoo sultan was a deeply religious
08:18man and a deeply aggressive one look at this fabulous sword here the hilt is entirely covered
08:26in gold gold tiger clasping a steel blade in its mouth this man was absolutely obsessed with the tiger
08:34motif he lived his life as a tiger in fact his favorite expression was it's better to live one day as a
08:39tiger than a thousand days as a sheep what i love about this particular base on the hilt it's written
08:46an expression in persian this blade is the lightning that flashes through the lives of infidels probably
08:53quite near the end of their lives i expect and on here it's the name of tippoo sultan himself and
08:59Allah and muhammad his prophet this was a man who believed that he was engaged in holy war he was god's
09:06instrument on earth and the task was to destroy infidels driving them out from the indian subcontinent
09:17but this time it wasn't to be after a month-long siege tippoo's stronghold fell
09:23and the tiger was slaughtered
09:27the significance of the defeat of tippoo sultan in 1799 is that it's the beginning of the end of the
09:32independence of the of the great southern principalities um in india it it meant of
09:38course that british paramountcy was beginning to be established in that region of india and that
09:43the madras presidency the most southern of the east india company presidencies was increasing
09:49territorially hugely in size in this very short five or uh six years of of richard welsey's uh time
09:57as governor general almost immediately after tippoo's death his palace of treasures was looted
10:07the company's troops could hardly contain themselves when they came across tippoo's showpiece
10:17this comes from tippoo sultan's unbelievably flamboyant throne he had built these little
10:23tiger heads would have sat atop the edge of the throne and like this one here they're all covered
10:27in gold set with diamonds rubies and emeralds this would have been so striking that really
10:33it sealed its own fate because as soon as the east india company's prize committee the people
10:37responsible for giving out rewards to its troops set their beaded lies on this they hacked it up and
10:44gave it away or sold it off some of those pieces arrived back here in britain it's a tiny glimpse
10:52into what must have been one of the most spectacular objects these people had ever seen
11:09when news of the tiger's death reached britain there was jubilation it turns out the british people
11:13didn't share tippoo sultan's opinion of himself as a noble servant of god they thought he was an
11:19extremist a tyrant there were parties and balls across the country decorations and medals were
11:24struck artists good on the act and painted depictions of the final battle this wasn't
11:29being celebrated as a a private commercial triumph of the east india company but as a moment of
11:35national public achievement there was now nothing else standing in the way of total british domination in
11:42the subcontinent with the vast rich kingdom of my soul now under their dominion the company's power in india
11:57was growing but territorial growth meant bigger and more expensive armies to hold it the cost of this
12:04could ruin the company but from their offices in london the directors were powerless to contain lord
12:10wellesley wellesley saw himself as a ruler not a merchant and like countless other empire builders
12:17he developed an insatiable desire for ever wider expansion he spent a vast amount of money that
12:23should have been for commercial purposes on conquest he wrote a bragging letter home to britain saying that
12:29he was satisfying the voracious appetite for lands and fortresses he went on to say sarangapatam ought i
12:36think to stay your stomach for a while not to mention tanjore on the polyga countries perhaps i may be able
12:42to give you a supper of oud and the carnatic if you should still be hungry against the company's wishes
12:52wellesley annexed more and more indian territory vast swathes of southern western and northern india
12:59fell to the british one quote contemporaneous at the time is that he's increased the uh population of
13:06british india by 40 million so this is a massive expansion and it's really the time when the when the
13:12east india company moves from paramount c from being the the the major influential power to being
13:17the major territorial power it's the start in effect of the british empire wellesley had completely
13:24transformed the company's position in india even whilst the directors back in britain were complaining
13:29that his actions were taking them into debt by the time he was finished britain controlled an area that
13:35was 10 times the size of the british isles with a population of 180 million people that's one-sixth
13:43of the entire global population at the time
14:06an important part of wellesley's plans was bringing a little bit of britishness to india
14:13the
14:21when calcutta all got a bit too much for wellesley and the great and good of british society they
14:26would head 16 miles north to barrackport
14:29but they traveled in slightly more refined style
14:44and the great and the great and beautiful english villa on the banks of the thames so green and fresh
14:59the governor general has a country residence with a fine park there during the races the calcutta world assembles
15:12there lady amherst rendered government house gay with quadrilles and displays of fireworks
15:18british officers british officers once lived here in single-story buildings known as bungalows
15:27one of the many indian words that has permanently entered the english language
15:31their decaying remains are still visible today
15:33these crumbling ruins now all that remains of the magnificent british homes you can see how well laid
15:46out they were nice big gardens they're not planted with beautiful beds of flowers
15:50big airy windows and doors to the breeze or what breeze there was could just flow through the
15:55house lots of shade of course big trees planted it's funny you look at these houses and they're so
16:00confident built in the imperial style the people who lived in them would have been certain that their
16:05grasp on india in fact the world was unshakable and yet here only a couple of hundred years later
16:09they're shelters for wild dogs
16:24in the company's day it was british officers who sheltered here from the blistering heat of the sun
16:29thank you very much good morning it was generally far too hot to do any actual work
16:34my disgraceful laziness is appalling i have hardly opened a book or written a line for the last 10
16:42days in fact i've done absolutely nothing but lounge and saunter about
16:55barrack paul was given the stamp of approval when wellesley chose it as his summer retreat
17:00this is how wellesley would have got to barrack paul the river acting like a private highway taking
17:07from his palace in calcutta up to the front steps of his palatial residence here minimizing the time
17:14yet to spend in the public space i mean god forbid he would actually have to travel through the
17:17country and look out on the plight of the indians over whom he ruled
17:21wellesley spent 50 000 pounds of company money building himself a palatial residence the heart of this
17:33british haven
17:34but his burgeoning empire was in direct conflict with the company's objectives
17:56which were still trade and profit
17:58attempting to gain the upper hand the court of directors came up with a plan
18:14they would train a new breed of employee to act on the company's behalf in india the civil servant
18:21civil service is a term coined by the east india company at this time it describes a group who
18:30had previously just been administrators known as writers but the use of the term marks an important
18:35shift because in the past these writers hadn't been terribly high quality as long as they could read
18:40and write and do a mass they were given the job but now there were whole swathes of india to rule over
18:46they had to know the people and they had to know how to govern them it was time for an upgrade
18:54in 1806 the company opened a new school to train its future governors and administrators
19:00east india college in hertfordshire known today as halebury college
19:05to educate this new class of servant the training was progressive and exacting
19:19the curriculum was pretty demanding just how demanding became clear when i had a go at an exam
19:27in my own favorite subject here we go here's a history one okay here we go okay 1851. describe
19:35the foundations and progress of ecclesiastical wealth and power distinguish between the depositories
19:41of that power in the 9th century and the 12th in what manner did the curia regis of the conqueror
19:51create and extend an original jurisdiction okay i think we'll just leave those actually i think we've
19:56looked at those enough once every term the directors would come down these were known as die days
20:03the end of the term and distribute prizes and medals to hayley burians or east indiamen that had done
20:11well and these medals are beautiful aren't they that is a medal for um sanskrit do you know sanskrit on it
20:21and the inscription says that the pursuit of knowledge is better than the pursuit of gold which is very apt
20:32self-enrichment would no longer be the sole ambition of young men bound for india this new college was
20:38educating them with new goals and instilling them with new values and would it matter how well they've
20:46done at this college would that affect their careers once they got to india if you made it
20:51through the rigors of the four terms it was indeed a job for life guaranteed guaranteed
20:57the same patronage that helped the pupils through their studies here at the school would also smooth
21:09their path once they got to india and although there were no longer the opportunities to make
21:14vast amounts of money now that private trading had been outlawed they were still the highest paid civil
21:19servants in the world and they had generous living allowances and they even got a commission on tax
21:25revenue this was still an extremely attractive career for britain's most influential classes
21:33it is with feelings of both pleasure and pride that we can record the fact of you
21:38passing through the college at hayleyberry and that the prize in hindustani has been awarded to you
21:45you have passed through the fiery ordeal of college unscathed without being contaminated by its vices
21:55so they would have to resist the vices of india where earlier company men had embraced local and
22:11religious customs now people were becoming alarmed by them especially britain's growing number of
22:17christian missionaries who'd been arriving in india in small numbers against the company's wishes
22:22and in the british library's archives are some persuasive letters warning of the consequences of
22:34allowing them free reign one of the loudest voices was general charles stewart known as hindu stewart
22:44because of his profound love of hindu culture now this culture was under threat so he published his
22:50feelings in an effort to protect it so stewart lays it down on the line uh is it wise is it politic
23:02is it even safe to institute a war of sentiment against the only friends of any importance that
23:08we seem to have left in india are faithful subjects of the ganges by which means the hindus
23:13and the muslims hindu stewart wasn't the only man to regard missionaries with suspicion
23:20stark warnings were issued by the famous tea merchant thomas twining
23:27he's saying that uh they're facing a danger no less than the threatened extermination of our eastern
23:33sovereignty and and that danger commands them to step forth and arrest the progress of such
23:39ration and multiple proceedings stop the missionaries now before it's too late when men like twining and
23:49stewart made their feelings public the missionaries fought back here is another letter to the poor
23:56long-suffering chairman of the east india company a call of directors from a member of the british uh bible
24:02society and he says that mr twining's letter uh is an extraordinary publication and the plain object is
24:10to frighten the company from imparting the blessings of christianity to 50 million people in india to
24:17represent the circulation of the scriptures amongst them as a crime of the deepest die and most dangerous
24:23tendency broadly what was the company's sort of point of view during this period the company um believed
24:31that uh publicly declared a policy that they weren't adverse to christian uh missionaries but what
24:37they were against is anything which would disturb the status quo anything which would make the hindus
24:43particularly feel that their religious beliefs were being threatened the company believed that the people
24:53of india should be left to practice their own religions otherwise they could grow hostile and that would
24:59jeopardize britain's position on the subcontinent but it wasn't up to the company anymore with ultimate
25:12control over its activities in india the british government found itself lobbied by some powerful
25:18christian representatives
25:19the most forceful part of this group were a number of evangelical christians who lived around
25:29clapham common here they were known as the clapham sect and they worshipped here at the holy trinity
25:34church they were led in parliament by the veteran humanitarian campaigner william wilberforce
25:45is perhaps best known for his successful campaign for the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th
25:53century after that he turned his attention to india declaring it the greatest of all causes for
26:00i really place it before abolition
26:05wilberforce in common with other clapham sect members saw the propagation of christianity in india
26:11as sort of british duty um they had a world view um that saw everything that happened as being part of god's
26:18plan and they saw british imperial expansion in india as being indicative of god's plan for them to use
26:24that platform to spread the message of christianity
26:42these windows are modern but they clearly reflect the great passions that drove wilberforce through his
26:48life on the right you can see the work he did getting the slave trade abolished freeing the slaves of the
26:53west indies from their bondage their servitude on the left his other great passion spreading the christian
27:00message evangelizing all over the world and you can see the distinctive national dresses of all the
27:05people in the bottom left from the native americans to the indian there as well he believed that everyone
27:11was created equal in the eyes of god there were many aspects of religion in india which he heartily
27:17disapproved of for example the caste system which seemed to enshrine inequality he and the other
27:23influential christians who worshipped here wanted britain to use its rising power to civilize and
27:29christianize india
27:40the british found hinduism in particular very difficult to understand
27:45there were a number of hindu practices that the east india company were concerned about
27:50um in particular sati or widow burning
27:59sati was the hindu practice of burning widows alive on the funeral paths of their husbands
28:07because of its sort of sensational and emotive appeal it was something that became very prominent in the
28:13way in which britain's imagined india
28:24their divinities are absolute monsters of lust injustice wickedness and cruelty
28:30in short their religious system is one of grand abomination
28:34in 1813 the british government gave way and forced the company to give missionaries full access to india
28:43sending a dangerous message to its people that the british planned to convert them to christianity
28:49missionaries were just one of the parliamentary impositions the company was forced to accept
29:02in order to stay in india just 20 years since parliament extended its prized royal charter
29:09it was up for renewal again other british merchants took advantage of the deadline
29:14they wanted a slice of the tea trade and pressured the british government to act
29:21every time the east india company's royal charter had come up for renewal there were calls to end
29:26its commercial monopoly on trade with india but it survived intact for more than 200 years but this was
29:33now the era of free trade and parliament decided to end that privileged position that meant that the east
29:40india company's servants were no longer here to trade to make money through buying and selling but as
29:45colonial administrators running its vast territories on behalf of the british crown
29:58the 1813 charter act marked a complete shift in the company's role after some 200 years in india
30:06they were no longer here as merchants but as rulers and this new position would have a tangible effect
30:12on the behavior of the british in india britain was going through a massive industrial revolution it
30:18was becoming one of the richest and then perhaps the richest country in the world and the british in
30:22india i think reflected that change they no longer saw themselves as people who chosen to live in india
30:27and had to muddle along and just get on with the locals they now saw themselves as part of a superior
30:32advanced progressive civilization and they saw themselves increasingly as detached from india
30:42the respect for indian culture that had characterized previous generations
30:45had completely vanished it was no longer acceptable for a east india company servant to speak like or
30:51dress like an indian they had to now wear european dress and the army soon followed suit european
30:57customs and manners were emphasized a huge gulf was opening up between the british governing elite
31:04and the indian subjects
31:07by the 19th century you have the british increasingly talking in terms of a british race which is
31:11somehow different from other races and which embodies different values and this wasn't just the
31:15british who were doing it i mean this was very much what was happening in the 19th century and so
31:19when it comes to india you have a lot of the british saying you know really the indians are an
31:23inferior race they wouldn't be ruled by us if they weren't inferior we should always preserve the
31:30european for to adopt their manners is a departure from the very principle in which every impression of
31:36our superiority is grounded as the british entered the new self-assured victorian age their attitude
31:43towards the indians hardened they were convinced of their own cultural superiority and they believed
31:48that india needed all the help it could get india was a barbaric place and its civilization was stagnant
32:04from now on company servants and officers who came to india were influenced by this conviction of
32:09moral and racial superiority and so were the growing numbers of british women
32:18and to our ears their views seem shockingly racist
32:27there is something in the idea of gentlemen who never wear any clothes picking the fruit you eat
32:31which is not at all appetizing i take all the naked black creatures squatting at the doors of their
32:38huts in such aversion and what with the climate and the strange trees and shrubs i feel like robinson
32:44In Crusoe, I cannot abide India, and that is the truth.
32:49The refusal to learn local languages, dismissing Indians as savage, barbarians incapable of elevated thought.
32:56These were ignorant views, and ones which ironically confined the British into a narrow life that many of them found so boring.
33:04But perhaps even more than being stupid and racist, these views were dangerous.
33:09Because if that chasm opens up between the rulers and the rules, then there's fertile ground for conflict.
33:18To blame for this increasingly racist attitude has often been entirely levelled at Victorian women.
33:26I think to blame the British women in India for the gulf that grew between the races is really unfair, and I've always felt it to be unfair.
33:32The British women were very much part of their own community, and they were part of a community that didn't want a closer involvement with India.
33:40In fact, the British establishment in India, which was male, of course, discouraged women from getting too closely involved in India.
33:46I mean, there was a real bias now among the British men in India that they wanted their women somehow kept separately.
33:51Few of these Brits had the urge or the need to look outside the confines of this artificial little bubble.
34:03Often the only natives they did meet were their own servants.
34:05They tried to recreate their old British lives, eating British food three times a day, planting British seeds in their gardens,
34:12and wearing ridiculous British clothing as they went out in the hot Indian sun.
34:17It was an obstinate, desperate attempt to keep a little piece of Britishness alive here in the heart of India.
34:28I keep up as much as possible all English customs, so that when I come to see you all again,
34:33I hope you will find me just as much of an Englishman as I was before I left.
34:41Love the area, love the area.
34:44Love the area.
34:44Love the area.
34:44Love the area.
34:45Love the area.
34:45Love the area.
34:47How are you doing?
34:50Love the area, please.
34:55This determination to anglicise India was about to gain momentum with a final shift in the company's operations and purpose.
35:03The British government closed in on their one remaining jealously guarded trading monopoly.
35:09In the early 1830s, the East India Company's charter came up for renewal once again.
35:13This time, its monopoly on trade with China was stripped away, and all commercial operations came to a halt.
35:20The transition from merchant trading house to imperial administrator was complete.
35:26As administrator of India, the East India Company was allocated a pot of money by the British government for the intellectual improvement of the people.
35:48But no one could best decide how to use it.
35:50No one, that is, until the arrival of one man, Thomas Babington Macaulay, lawmaker on the newly created Supreme Council of India, and his legacy has left a profound mark on the subcontinent.
36:04Macaulay, when he arrived in India, saw it as his role to establish a very westernising, anglicist approach to education and government in India.
36:20He decisively defeated the Orientalist lobby, which had been in favour of encouraging native Indian classical languages.
36:30Macaulay's approach was that India had to be introduced to modern scientific knowledge via the English language.
36:39It couldn't be done through Indian classical languages.
36:42These poor young men have got an exam week on at the moment, bringing back all sorts of horrible memories of my own time at school.
36:55Macaulay, like many other prominent Victorians, assumed that British culture was basically the highest form of human civilisation.
37:03And he was desperate to try and bestow some of that on an Indian subject.
37:08He envisaged an education system that would create, as he said, Indians in blood and colour, but English in tastes, opinions, morals and intellect.
37:19We have traced from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and we had explained to you what Renaissance meant.
37:33Now tell me one thing, why was this reawakening required?
37:38Macaulay's act, the minute on education, was passed in February 1835, and almost immediately the children of India's elite began learning English as their main language.
38:01Macaulay did not intend to educate all the masses. He talked about educating the cream of society, and from there, his downward filtration theory, that is, it is going to percolate down to the masses.
38:14In some time, it's going to be like education for all, but it'll take some years to happen.
38:19So is the fact that this kind of English modern education system is introduced, is that seen as a good thing?
38:24We definitely appreciate the coming of the English and the English language and everything, as our, you know, the doors opening to enlighten, the touch of light.
38:35The enlightenment, of course, definitely, doors opening out to the Western world.
38:40And it's still carrying on the reminiscence of the Raj is still there, you and I are speaking the language of the Raj.
38:47Macaulay's educational revolution had far-reaching consequences for the children of India.
38:54Do you speak English at home as well?
38:56Yes, all the time. It's the only language I speak pretty much at home.
38:59So do you speak any other languages?
39:01Yeah, I speak Hindi and Bengali, but at home it's only as in school.
39:05In fact, we're only allowed to speak English in school.
39:07Really? In the playground here?
39:08Yeah, it's everywhere except the Hindi and Bengali classes, where we have to speak Hindi and Bengali.
39:14It feels like a faintly controversial thing to say, but when you come here and you look at these young men in their uniforms, their ties,
39:29they're speaking their impeccable English in a lesson about the Renaissance, discussing which football club they like best, Chelsea or Man United,
39:36it does seem like, in some ways, Macaulay's dream of creating Englishmen out here in India is being realised.
39:49But while Macaulay claimed to be improving the young minds of India, the company he served was still prepared to do anything to increase its wealth,
40:10including pursuing an immoral government-backed trade in drugs.
40:29The company controlled the opium-growing areas of India.
40:33It operated a brutal monopoly. It forced peasant farmers to grow opium, but then they could only sell it to the company.
40:39It was then brought here to Calcutta.
40:42Now, to get round accusations, they were pushing drugs.
40:45The opium was then sold in auction houses here for a thousand percent profit to independent traders.
40:51They would then ship it off down the Hooghly, across the Indian Ocean and into China.
41:01But the company was not the only guilty party in this illicit trade.
41:07The story of the opium trade is really one of just mass collusion.
41:11I mean, it was collusion between the East India Company and the British government,
41:14who both benefited immensely from this illegal trade.
41:17And it was collusion between the private traders and many officials in the Chinese authorities,
41:22who, with receipt of a bribe, would quite happily turn their eyes away from this smuggling in of opium.
41:32In 1838, over 35,000 opium chests were shipped from Calcutta to China,
41:38and the Chinese emperor finally snapped.
41:41All in the name of profit, opium was ruining the lives of over 12 million Chinese people,
41:48and draining the country of prosperity.
41:51The Chinese government seized 20,000 chests of the finest East India Company opium,
41:56and dumped it in the ocean.
41:58Then they banned traders from bringing any more opium into the country.
42:02But neither the company nor the British government was prepared to let matters end there.
42:09Opium was the company's most profitable export from India,
42:13and funded the lucrative tea trade.
42:15I don't think there's sort of any other way, really, of viewing what was going on with the China trade in this period,
42:24other than drug pushing.
42:25The East India Company and the private agency houses who sort of worked with them in the opium trade
42:30were aggressively marketing opium in the coastal terms of China
42:34against the wishes of the Chinese government,
42:37because it was the one commodity that they could sell there,
42:40and the one that allowed them to finance their trade in tea,
42:43which obviously was hugely profitable back in Britain.
42:46This dubious business had to be protected whether China wanted it or not.
42:52An Asian state had the nerve to stop the company trading and stand in the way of its making money.
42:57The East India Company had been here before, in India, and its solution was the same.
43:02Force.
43:03The British government sent the Royal Navy to batter the Chinese into submission.
43:08They backed down and even had to hand over the island of Hong Kong to the British,
43:12which then became the centre of the ongoing opium trade.
43:16But back in India, a final reckoning was looming,
43:24and it would be sparked from an unexpected quarter.
43:33The company's own loyal standing army.
43:37The Indian army had grown to become a bit of a source of worry for many in the East India Company.
43:50What had begun as a few security teams guarding the company's force around India
43:56had grown into one of the largest standing armies in the world.
43:59More than 250,000 troops, larger than most European armies at the time.
44:04And that was 96% composed of native Indian troops, known as sepoys.
44:15Keeping these sepoys troops loyal was critical to the company's survival.
44:20So what would happen if this huge native army turned on them?
44:27The whole machinery of government and discipline of that army
44:31are in the hands, literally, of a mere handful of Englishmen.
44:36But increasingly, the quality of those few Englishmen was debatable.
44:41The problem with the Indian army at that time is that it's set up
44:44that if you have any ambition, any get-up-and-go, any drive,
44:48you will leave your regiment early on for probably civil employ or staff employ.
44:52And the reason you did that is because they were better paid.
44:54And so the residue left in the regiments, the people who had close daily contact
44:58with the Indian soldiers, were the refuse, were the worst of the lot.
45:02And they didn't tend.
45:04These men were disgruntled, they were bored,
45:06and they didn't tend to treat their Indian soldiers very well.
45:12Just as throughout the rest of British India,
45:14in the company's three armies, a racial gulf had opened up
45:17between the officers and their Indian troops.
45:20The sepoy is esteemed an inferior creature.
45:23He is sworn at. He is treated roughly.
45:26He is addressed as a swa, or pig,
45:28an epithet most appropriate to a respectable native.
45:37All of these accounts bear witness to a catastrophic breakdown
45:41in the bond between the officers and men of the East India Company's army.
45:45Now, any team, but particularly an army, needs that trust and respect
45:50between those who are giving the orders
45:52and those who are carrying them out.
45:54If you were an East India Company's sepoy,
45:57why would you follow an officer into battle
45:59who is openly disdainful of you?
46:01In fact, why would you do anything he said at all?
46:04The sepoys no longer trusted their East India Company officers.
46:15They were pulled at their degrading treatments,
46:17and they were very suspicious about the future intentions of the company.
46:20What was needed to turn this very tense situation
46:23into a full-blown crisis was a spark.
46:25Appropriately enough, that spark was provided by the sepoys' rifles.
46:37In the mid-19th century, a sepoy would have lots of cartridges in his cartridge pouch.
46:41He had to bite off the end, pour it down the barrel of the rifle,
46:47then put the cartridge itself and the bullet into the barrel,
46:51ram it down with a ramrod, and then it would fire at the enemy.
46:55The big problem came when a rumour spread like wildfire throughout the sepoys forces
47:00that the British were greasing these cartridges with pig or beef fat.
47:04For them, it was completely intolerable to insert anything
47:07that had ever been near a pig or a cow into their mouth.
47:11Out of stroke, the culturally ignorant, distant British decision-makers
47:16had managed to alienate not just the Hindus,
47:18but also the Muslims of their vast Indian army.
47:24In fact, realising their error,
47:26the East India Company never issued these cartridges to the sepoys.
47:30But it was too late.
47:32Those soldiers within the army who were disgruntled did not want to let the issue lie.
47:36In other words, they kept it going.
47:38Why? Because something to do with caste and religion like this
47:41was a means of uniting both Muslims and Hindus,
47:44who traditionally, frankly, had not been the closest of our lives.
47:49The scene was set for the East India Company's gravest challenge yet,
47:53an episode that's become known to the British as the Indian Mutiny.
47:57But to the Indians, it was the first war of independence.
48:01The earliest signs of dissent occurred in one of the company's oldest military settlements,
48:10the favourite summer hangout of the British.
48:13In Barrackpore on the 29th of March 1857,
48:17the peace of an afternoon was shattered.
48:20Sergeant Major James Hewson was in his bungalow one day when he heard that one of his sepoys,
48:27a man called Mangal Pandey, had armed himself with a loaded musket
48:30and was behaving very erratically on the parade ground.
48:33Hewson warned an officer, got dressed, picked up his sword,
48:37and went to work out what the hell was going on.
48:39The inebriated Pandey was acting in protest against the new gun cartridges,
48:46but he failed to incite his fellow soldiers to join him.
48:49The British adjutant arrived to see what all the fuss was about.
48:52Pandey shot at Hewson.
48:55He shot at a British officer who came to help him.
48:58The three of them ended up in a huge sword fight,
49:00the two Brits being wounded before Pandey was arrested.
49:03Then, a week later, having been court-martialed,
49:06and in front of the assembled garrison of both Indian and European troops in Barrackpore,
49:11he was hanged, allegedly from this banyan tree behind me.
49:19Mangal Pandey's unit was disbanded,
49:21but the uprising began for real when troops at Meerut rose up
49:25and then headed for Delhi.
49:28On May 11, 1857, the city fell.
49:32The rebellion is really a mixture of dissatisfied groups in India.
49:36The biggest dissatisfied group are, of course, the soldiers,
49:39and because they're professionals and they're armed,
49:41they are the most dangerous.
49:42You will see in any revolution you've got a problem if your army turns on you.
49:46But also they were joined by a lot of disgruntled civilians,
49:48people who for various reasons weren't happy with East India Company rule,
49:52and, of course, that included a lot of people
49:54whose principalities had been taken away from them,
49:57a lot of people who felt that they had something to gain by seeing the back of the British.
50:01The East India Company was about to pay a heavy price for allowing its relationship with India to break down.
50:09Right across northern India, native troops rebelled against their British officers,
50:15often killing them and their families.
50:17There were serious disturbances at the strategically placed towns of Benares, Allahabad and Lucknow.
50:24These were situated between Delhi and the administrative capital, Calcutta.
50:29If they fell, it would seriously imperil the entire British position in northern India.
50:34Even the supposedly reliable garrison at Cornpool was in revolt.
50:39After a bloody three-week siege, the British garrison surrendered to save the women and children inside.
50:48They were offered safe conduct, but it became clear that this was a trick.
50:53As the survivors made their way down to boats on the Ganges, the rebels opened fire.
50:58Most of those who survived the bullets were then bludgeoned or hacked to death.
51:03180 women and children were taken prisoner and held for three weeks until news arrived of an approaching British relief column.
51:10At that point, the prisoners were massacred.
51:13Their bodies hacked to pieces and the dismembered parts thrown down a well.
51:18The first British troops on the scene had trouble dealing with the shock of seeing the dead bodies of women and children.
51:28Their accounts survive today in the British Library.
51:34No Englishman who saw the sight that beheld them can ever forget or forgive it.
51:39The floor was a mass of blood, clots of blood and women's hair,
51:43with pieces of women's apparel lying about in all directions, cut and torn.
51:47Outside in the compound, in a dry well, were seen the bodies, apparently not long thrown there.
51:52Could any human being conceive of such horrible slaughter?
51:56Clearly, there's going to be an enormous appetite for revenge.
51:59And it was fulfilled.
52:01The officer who commanded a Colonel Neill of the first Madras Fusiliers by way of retribution
52:08made every man who was taken under suspicion of having been implicated in the mutinier Congpore
52:13at first wash up with his hands portions of the bloodstains in that dreadful room.
52:19If he was a man of any influence or high caste, he was made to go down on his knees and lick it up
52:24and was then hung at the door where a gallows had been erected.
52:28So, that fury for revenge is in the air already.
52:33And we see it in another letter from Lieutenant Kemp, who talks about a fearful vengeance.
52:40Colonel Havelock's men, 3,000 Europeans, have killed every man, woman and child in Congpore.
52:46The men could not be kept back after seeing their countrymen lying dead in all directions.
52:53You can really tell it's his emotion at that moment. It hasn't been edited or printed or anything like that.
52:58It's the emotions of a man straight out of combat.
53:06The East India Company was unable to restore order or prevent acts of savage retribution.
53:12The situation spiralled out of control.
53:16The amount of execution which is going on across the country is astonishing.
53:21I mean, we have some images here of what was called Pandy's Hornpipe, which is hanging mutineers.
53:29And then the East India Company adopted the practices of the old Mughal Empire
53:36and executed mutineers by blowing them from the mouths of cannon.
53:40They used to strap them in front of a cannon and then fire it, which was shatter,
53:45throw the remains of the mutineer a fair distance.
53:50The East India Company did a lot to provoke the rebellion,
53:53and yet it sounds like the handling of it was very messy as well.
53:56It was a terrible shock to the body politic of the East India Company.
54:01And they realised, really, the game was up.
54:05And I think, in a way, they must have smelt the end of the East India Company's reign in India.
54:12The company had fatally bungled its response to the uprising.
54:21Having been forced, bit by bit, to give up its privileges throughout the previous century,
54:26it was finally on its knees.
54:28The mutiny is the beginning of the end for the East India Company
54:33because it shows quite clearly to the British government
54:35that the East India Company is no longer capable of governing India.
54:39It's quite clearly made mistakes, probably chiefly in the way it runs its army,
54:43but also in its civil administration.
54:45And the amount of lives that have been lost, the amount of treasure that's been expended,
54:49can only mean one thing, and that is that the India has to be formalised,
54:54has to become a part of the British Empire.
54:58The government and the British people had had enough of the rapacious, profiteering East India Company.
55:08On the 1st of November 1858, British India was finally and inevitably handed over to the government of Queen Victoria.
55:17The court of directors issued a poignant farewell message to its thousands of servants in India.
55:23The company has the great privilege of transferring to the service of Her Majesty,
55:28such a body of civil and military offices as the world has never seen before.
55:34Let Her Majesty appreciate the gift.
55:37Let her take the vast country and the teeming millions of India under direct control.
55:43But let her not forget the great corporation from which she received them.
55:53Let her not forget it.
55:55Over the course of its dramatic rise and fall,
55:58the East India Company made some devastating mistakes that caused misery and ruin.
56:06But over more than 400 years in India, it left some enduring legacies.
56:16Cricket.
56:18I don't think so.
56:19Probably,
56:20it's probably most importantly, the legal system it puts in place.
56:22So that you get very much the basic infrastructure that is still being used in modern India today.
56:33The company was really the model for the multinational company of today,
56:41in terms of the management of long-distance value chains and so on,
56:45and the systems it's set up for that really are the platform for today's international business operations.
56:57One of India's advantages has been that we have a large population in numbers speaking English,
57:04of at least international standards as such.
57:07We are talking a population probably almost the size of Britain who could speak English well.
57:13So this certainly is a legacy and is an advantage in the international world.
57:21And all of this grew out of a small group of profit-seeking men
57:25and the adventurers and glory seekers who served them.
57:33It's so hard to generalise about the men of the East India Company.
57:36The system that brought them here was very often cruel, rapacious and venal.
57:41But those men who risked everything, endured appalling hardships and saw their friends and loved ones carried away by disease,
57:48they weren't inherently evil.
57:51They lived and worked in a world that was unrecognisable to us today.
57:55And in doing so, they reshaped it.
57:57Their epitaph flies all around us.
57:59Here in India, Britain and even further afield.
58:03We're all still living with the consequences of what they built and what they destroyed,
58:08whilst working for history's most influential company.
58:11Next tonight, BBC2 is the key to all things quite interesting.
58:29The interesting times of feel as if you'll find people who believed the emotions of the way and the rest of yourself.
58:33This really helped us further afield.
58:34But there are other testimonies of people who believed in the past.
58:35Even more companies because you know,
58:36what the means has been happening is also a week.
58:38It's a post-game, and it's just a week of a survey.
58:39This is a place where we ask people who believe the emotions of us.
58:40We're all still looking for things and looking for things...
58:41It's all things quite interesting.
Recommended
58:23
|
Up next
58:41
58:33
59:00
52:14
1:37
43:59
46:04
52:16
58:55
39:22
44:00
1:10:41
48:20
49:00