Company Bahadur Part 6 Warren Hastings Section III: A Star Ascendent

Canberra, 11 April 2024 The trial and execution of Raja Nand Kumar turned Hastings’ official fortunes. Although the Council continued to oppose and criticise his actions, their obstructiveness was ineffective. They had lost their ability to control or even repudiate the GG’s actions. Francis tried to re-introduce Clive’s dual-government system, purely because Hastings had abolished […]

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Company Bahadur Part 6 Warren Hastings Section I: The Beginning of a Career

Canberra, 15th March 2024 There is no doubt that an understanding of the past can be a catalyst for a greater understanding of the present and at times even provide a pointer to the future. History, in its broadest sweep goes beyond the actions of individuals. However, a view through the prism of human activities […]

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Company Bahadur Part 5 English Administration Up To 1774

Canberra, 08 March 2024 The evolution of the territorial administrative mechanisms of the English East India Company can be divided into several parts, with the first part being from their inception to 1774, when Lord North’s Regulating Act of 1773 came into force in the sub-continent. Till that time the Company traded and acquired territory […]

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Company Bahadur Part 4 Early Company Leadership Section II: … And Some of the Good Ones

Canberra, 04 March 2024 As the Company evolved as a territorial ruling entity, several young Englishmen were either sent by their parents or guardians or volunteered and were selected through the application of influence to become ‘officials’ of the Company in India. Most were from the upper middle-class strata of English society, which subsequently went […]

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Company Bahadur Part 4 Early Company Leadership Section I: Some of the Worst

Canberra, 24 February 2024 Clive’s departure left a void in the Company leadership in Bengal. Despite all his personal faults, however vain and ambitious he may have been, Clive was a realist. Acknowledging the pitfalls of headlong interference with local politico-economic developments he had managed to keep the Company servants within some bounds of decent […]

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Company Bahadur Part 2 Clive’s Last Hurrah

Canberra, 16th February 2024 The Directors of the English East India Company in London had been assured that Mir Jafar would compensate the Company with a gift amounting to roughly one million pounds sterling. However, this payment was not forthcoming while the bills for the military campaigns were increasing, a situation that led the Directors […]

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Indian History Volume XI Part I Immediate Post-Plassey Period

Goa, 27 January 2024 The exact date for the start of the English period in Indian history is difficult to determine. The period could be considered to have started with the eruption of the Anglo-French rivalry in the sub-continent, which was in itself an extension of the War of Austian Succession in Europe that started […]

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Whispering Thoughts No 32 Where To, Bengal…?

Kolkata, 30 December 2023                                                                                              Calcutta—now Kolkata—a strange city, an eclectic mix of the old and the new, a city that I have visited off and on for the past 50 odd years. I am back, after almost six years, for a slightly extended stay than times before. Calcutta, I still cannot get used to […]

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Europeans in India Part 13 India and the English Company : Late-17th to Mid-18th Centuries

Canberra, 22 September 2023 From the perspective of Indian history, the most conspicuous event spanning the late 17th and early 18th centuries was the decline and insipient collapse of the Mughal empire and dynasty. On hindsight, although this development had been considered inevitable and was already visible in the late 1600s to any analytical onlooker, […]

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Europeans in India Part 12 Early Centuries: A Retrospective

Canberra, 20 September 2023 As already mentioned in the early chapters of this volume, the European connection to India goes back to the time of early Greek civilisation. After 400 A.D., direct contact became intermittent with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the subsequent rise of Islam in the 7th century. However, the spice […]

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