As the French, British were also late to reach the shores of India. Facing tough competition from the Portuguese and the Dutch, it took them a few decades to figure out ways to outweigh the other empires. But by 1757, the British East India Company became the true force in colonial India.

In 1588, British traders asked for permission to conduct trade in East India

The British acquired a charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and arrived in India in 1608 at Surat

The British East India Company had competitors like the Portuguese and the Dutch who had reached India before

The British decided to rely on politics to do trade with India till 1661 when they set up their first factory in Hubli (they only had trade posts till then)

They used the internal conflicts among empires for their advantage

By 1696, they began building a fort around the settlement

In 1698, they bribed the Mughal officials to give them zamindari rights to three villages (one of the villages were Calcutta)

The British also persuaded Aurangzeb to issue a Farman (a Farman is a royal order providing permission to trade)

This Farman had a condition that the trade will be duty-free leading to a huge loss for Bengal

The British officials used to indulge in private trade, adding to the woes of Bengal

After the death of Aurangzeb, the empire struggled to survive with internal issues

Murshid Quli Khan (1717-1720), Alvardi Khan (1740-1756), and Siraj-Ud-Daulah (1756-1757) were the three most powerful nawabs of Bengal

Murshid Quli Khan, the 1st Nawab of Bengal, took the matter in his own hands and started fighting against the British

Alvardi Khan was also engaged in conflicts with the Marathas

The British didn’t pay taxes, they expanded their fortification, wrote disrespectful letters to the nawab, and caused huge revenue loss to Bengal

The company tried to justify their action by saying that the nawabs made unjust demands, they imposed extreme taxes and duties, and trade can expand only through increasing settlements

The Company wanted to remove Siraj-Ud-Daulah from the rule and place a puppet ruler

The nawab asked the company to stop interfering in the region’s politics, stop fortification, and start paying taxes

These conflict of interest led to the Battle of Plassey starting with the Nawab capturing Fort William

Nawab Siraj-Ud-Daulah ordered the French and British to stop fortification of Fort William

He captured 146 Britishers and locked them up in a room that can hold only 25 people for 3 days (Black Hole Incident)

123 people died and the British retaliated leading to the Battle of Plassey

Robert Clive with an army of 3000 defeated Nawab with the help of Mir Jaffer, Nawab’s Commander-in-Chief

After defeating the nawab, he fled in a camel, but was later captured and assassinated by Mir Jafar

Mir Jaffer becomes the puppet Nawab

The Battle of Plassey was the first major victory of the company in India and it instilled the confidence in them to start administering in the colony

Source:

Crash Course Modern History | British East India Company from 1600 - 1857

Economic Impact of Colonial Rule in India

How did British occupy India? | British India Timeline | British East India Company | Eclectic

East India Company Wikipedia

Trucial States Wikipedia

Princely States Wikipedia

Attribution:

This work includes the following sounds from http://freesound.org/

“EPIC GAME MUSIC BEST ONE DONE ON KEYBOARD BY KRIS KLAVENES.wav” by Freesound.org member klavo1985

“Epicmusic.wav” by Freesound.org member nuria1512

“Wooden_door_open.wav” by Freesound.org member joedeshon

“field recording wood stairs going running” by Freesound.org member Garuda1982

“Writing” by Freesound.org member Hornetan1

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.