The history of India during the Mughal and the British Rule had been the history of loot, plunder, rape, rapine, murder, mass killings, brutality and bestiality. It was more horrible during the British rule which, came with East India Company. Millions of people were allowed to die during the Bengal famine because there were no tangible efforts by the Britishers to save the lives of the people dying in droves at every passing minute. The loot and plunder of India can be known from the historical speech of Edmund Burke in the house of commons at the time of impeachment of Warren Hastings, who told that 'the Constitution of the Company(East India Company) began in commerce and ended in empire rather as one of its directors admitted, ‘An Empire within an Empire’. He said that the business of the company was ‘more like robbery than trade’. Such was the brutality of the Company officials that the tax collectors used to drag out ‘Bengali virgins naked and exposed them to the public view and scourged.’
According
to Lord Macaulay,’ the ladies in the gallery were unaccustomed to such
display of eloquence that they plunged into a state of uncontrollable
emotions and handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed
around, hysterical sobs and screams were heard and Mrs Sheridan was
carried out in a fit. In what is considered as one the greatest feats of oratory
Burke said that ‘Warren Hastings subverted all laws, rights and liberties of
people of India, whose property he had destroyed and whose country he had laid
waste.’
It
is expected that loot was mind-boggling. It may not be out of place to mention
here that one the very first Indian word to enter in the English language was
‘loot’. The four hundred pages book, ‘The Anarchy” of the historian William
Dalrymple provides a vivid description of the pitiable condition of India of
nearly two hundred years of British rule in India. It does not mean that native
rulers were any good to the people This period saw the most unparalleled
barbarities extortion and monopolies in The timidity, pusillanimity and
cowardice of highly divided princely states and decaying and effete Mughal rule
provided the good ground to the Britishers to rule over India. They adopted the
policy of divide and rule and got remarkable success in their goal., There were
certainly some sparks of bravery among the native rulers, but they were very negligible.
Maratha confederacy and Tipu Sultan put up brave fights, but they proved highly
inadequate to meet the ascending British power. It is a known fact that
Aurangzeb, who died in 17071707 in Khuldabad in the middle of the Deccan
platau., was unloved by his father because of his bigoted Islamic puritanism
and intolerance towards others. He imposed notorious Jizya tax on Hindus and
executed Teg Bahadur, the ninth Guru of the Sikhs. He dismissed brave and most
ethical ruler Shiva ji as a ‘desert rat’. Shivaji, however, proved to be his
nemesis. The biggest calamity was, however, brought on India by Nader Shah of
Afshar, who was born in Persian Khorasan. He was the son of a humble shepherd
and furrier. He rose to a great height in the Persian Army due to his
remarkable military talent. In 1732 he seized the Persian Throne in the
Military coup. He invaded the Mughal Delhi to loot and devastate with 80
thousand fighting men. The tyranny and the havoc that was brought upon the
people by Nadir Shah is unprecedented and unheard of in the history anywhere in
the world. Thus, the arrival of the East India Company in India and ultimately
turning into the ruler is a classic example of ‘how the business was exploited
by the company officials to rule the country’.
There are
certain facts which can serve as the eye-openers for the posterity. Murshid
Quli Khan’s brutality, who was a Hindu convert to Islam, knew no bounds.
According to a historian Dalrymple, he was the harshest tax collectors. He set
up a capital which was named after him and is known as modern Murshidabad. He
would order the zamindars to be stripped necked and doused with the cold waters
and beat them with sticks. So much so, that he would make them drink their
urine for defaulting in the payment of taxes. The description of the war of
Plassey makes one filled with the hatred for the person like Mir Zafar, who
later became the metaphor for the treachery. But this also shows the apathy and
aloofness of the general public towards the native rulers because of their
arrogance and exploitation.
The foundation of
the British rule in India was laid by Robert Clive, who started his career as a
clerk in the Company but rose to become the Commander of the Army by sheer dint
of his alacrity and astuteness. He was able to establish his authority firstly
in south India and then expanded it to the north. The British rule was further
consolidated in the times of Warren Hastings, Charles Cornwallis and Richard
Wellesley. It was Lord Wellesley, who had defeated Tipu Sultan in 1799.
Although Tipu Sultan was an efficient and able ruler, he was intolerant towards
Hindus. while he used his sword to defend his kingdom of Mysore on the one side
but on the other side, he had killed lakhs of Hindus in south western Karnataka
and Kerala. He was a megalomaniac There are, of course, some instances when he
is said to have donated some money for the restoration of a temple at
Srirangapatnam and also for running of the Gaushalas.
The Maratha rulers
like Chhatrapati Shivaji had setup the examples of bravery, valour and
benevolent rulers who could pounce on the enemies like, but he was very
kind-hearted and ethical towards his subjects particularly towards women.
Mahadji Scindia was also a remarkably a brave and good ruler but his enmity with
Holkar rulers proved to be fatal for the Maratha rulers.
‘The Anarchy
of ‘William Dalrymple is, without doubt, a gripping and fascinating book, which
he has written after exhaustive research. A storyteller, that he is, has
beautifully described the foils and foibles of the rulers, their debauchery and
hunger for wealth and power. This shows the insensitivity of the rulers towards
the public over which they ruled. Their internecine quarrels with other rulers
and gross disrespects to the subjects were the main cause of the fall of the
native rulers and the rise of the British rule in India. Although the
Britishers sucked the wealth of India yet they can also be credited to have
brought the semblance of law and order in the country, which absolutely did not
exist before they established their rule in India.
