![]() ![]() Meanwhile, in the expanding coastal trading posts, the initial presence of armed guards to protect the company's staff and premises had evolved into a fully fledged army that by 1757 under Robert "Clive of India" had toppled the independent nawab of India's richest province, Bengal. ![]() In 1739, the capital at Delhi was sacked by the Persians. By the end of the century, however, they were tired, divided, and overextended. Its aim was to compete with colonial rivals such as the French and Dutch for lucrative trade opportunities with India, an industrial and cultural superpower that under its Mughal emperors would account for 27 per cent of the world economy.Īwash with gems, natural resources, shipyards and a sophisticated cultural life, the Mughals were happy to trade. ![]() In 1600, the British East India Company was formed under royal charter. It all began as a harmless commercial enterprise, Tharoor reminds us. In the process, Tharoor accuses a number of historians, most prominent among them, Niall Ferguson, of being apologists for the racial discrimination, violence, economic sabotage and denial of liberty embodied by centuries of British rule in India. As empires go, he says, Britain's was uncommonly ruthless, devious and rapacious in its quest to enslave a people whose leaders failed to see how free trade, unwisely managed, can undermine a country's long-term sovereignty and prosperity. ![]() In doing so, he seeks to remind misty-eyed Raj romantics that colonialism was no joke. ![]()
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