Q. Discuss methods of British used to establish their rule In India?- Bill Lalmalsawma

When the industrial revolution started in Europe small states did not have sufficient raw materials for their industries, or markets for their finished goods. These countries now started looking for markets in Asia and Africa. England succeeded in controlling trade with India and established the East India Company in 1600. This company was supported by the British government. With its help England was able to extend her territorial frontiers to the Indian subcontinent. The first factory was established at Surat in 1613.Their most important settlement on the southern coast was Madras where they built a fortified factory called Fort St. George. This was the first proprietary holding acquired by the company on Indian soil. Gradually the company expanded its trading network. By that time the company was well established in India. It had also succeeded in eliminating the other rival European powers from India. They also started interfering in the political affairs of the Indian rulers.

The Company officials utilized different methods to establish control over the Indian states before annexing territory from them. Further, the Company did not simply march its armies in a pure military conquest followed by annexation.

Instead, the Company’s relationships with each Indian state were painstakingly developed politically and economically, prior to any military confrontation. The company posted commercial or political agents (generally called ‘Residents’) in each of the major Indian states with which it dealt. As the Company power grew during the 1757-1857, it used a variety of methods to reduce the autonomy of each state it encountered.

The Company’s rights of intervention in each state were occasionally specified in treaties with that state. But frequently, the Company’s agents simply exercised them without, or even in violation of, any formal treaty provision. The Company squeezed vast amounts of capital from each state, either through tribute or subsidy payments by the ruler or else through the manipulation of trade.

The Company cut down the size and effectiveness of the armies under the control of the Indian rulers, preventing these armies from deployment outside of the state and additionally, limiting their use by the ruler for internal purposes such as revenue collection.

By shifting military power from the armies of the states to ‘subsidiary forces’ (paid for by the state but under control of the Company), the Company made many of the rulers powerless to oppose it openly. Through intervention in the internal affairs of the state, the Company finally established indirect rule over all the Indian states which it did not immediately annex.

Thus, early annexations took place mostly through military conquest over weakened Indian states, but later annexations came in instances where the Company deposed a ruler or dynasty already under its indirect rule. In quite a few cases, like that of Bengal, the Company established varying degrees of de facto power long before the official assumption of de jure authority took place.