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Just over 400 years ago, a group of London merchants arrived here | 0:00:06 | 0:00:10 | |
on the Indian coast, hoping to do some peaceful trading. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:13 | |
Those early pioneers dreamt of making huge profits. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:18 | |
From humble beginnings, this ragtag band of adventurers secured land | 0:00:18 | 0:00:23 | |
from Indian rulers, formed alliances with local craftsmen and built | 0:00:23 | 0:00:28 | |
from scratch a commercial enterprise to export goods to Britain. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
The East India Company was part of this tremendous globalisation | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
of the world which really started in the 17th century | 0:00:37 | 0:00:40 | |
and speeded up in the 18th and 19th centuries. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
Over 200 years the Company grew into a commercial titan. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
Its wealth rivalled that of the British State. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
It had its own army and eventually ruled over 400 million people. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:58 | |
Its trade was vital to Britain's commercial success | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
and its shares were the centre point of London's financial markets. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
It revolutionised the British lifestyle. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
The East India Company changed the way we dress, | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
it changed the way we eat, it changed the way we socialise. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:16 | |
And, by accident, created one of the most powerful empires in history. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:22 | |
They were instrumental in making Britain the maritime superpower, | 0:01:23 | 0:01:28 | |
they helped lay the foundations for our own global trading system | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
today and they also helped to make English the world's language. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:36 | |
Every step of the Company's rise is recorded in a unique archive. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
"What a lucky fellow you are, Charley, going to India. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
"You lead such a luxurious life. Why, you dog! | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
"When you come home you will be a rich man." | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
But the letters and diaries also chart its fall | 0:01:50 | 0:01:53 | |
into profiteering, nepotism and corruption... | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
"Every ancient friend of the family | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
"hoped I should live to be a major general..." | 0:01:58 | 0:02:01 | |
..and eventually a chilling story of drug-running and famine. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
"Numbers of famishing wretches followed our army | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
"for the sole purpose of existing on the offal of the camp." | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
This is the story of the greatest company the world has ever known. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:16 | |
By 1880 the East India Company had grown from a tiny band of merchants | 0:02:42 | 0:02:47 | |
with a small foothold in India into a colossal trading empire, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:53 | |
pouring wealth into the pockets of its shareholders back in Britain. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:58 | |
They had conquered the wealthy region of Bengal and bled it dry... | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
..amplifying the effects of a deadly famine, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
leading to the deaths of millions of people | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
in a human tragedy of unprecedented scale. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
The British were horrified and the government was forced to step in. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
From that point on the state's grip grew ever tighter | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
as it attempted to control this voracious monster. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
A new chapter in its history began. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:41 | |
From now on its affairs in India would be run | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
by a Board of Control appointed by the British government. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
And Parliament would gradually transform | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
the way that the Company functioned in India. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
This new role as ruler of India would herald a new attitude | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
towards its subjects. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
Over time, the British would grow more distant and aloof. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
They increasingly see a need to separate themselves from the people | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
that they're ruling and to create a sense of British prestige around | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
themselves as the ruling race and the people who are in charge. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
Neglecting its relationship with the people of India | 0:04:32 | 0:04:36 | |
- carefully cultivated over the previous centuries - | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
would prove a terrible mistake | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
and threaten the Company's very existence. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
In the 19th century the biggest risk to the Company | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
would be the emerging struggle between trade and Empire. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
This conflict was intensified by one man when, in 1798, | 0:04:54 | 0:04:59 | |
he was given the top job in India. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:01 | |
Governor-General of the Bengal Presidency, Lord Richard Wellesley. | 0:05:01 | 0:05:05 | |
Wellesley was from a grand, aristocratic family back home | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
and he took one look at Government House in Calcutta | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
and decided that something a little more ostentatious was required | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
to reflect the power of the British in India, | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
not to mention his own exalted status. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
And so he built this, the new Government House. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
It's not much, but it's home. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
The cost of the project rang alarm bells | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
back at Company headquarters in Leadenhall Street. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:51 | |
But of more concern were Wellesley's outright imperial ambitions, | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
which clashed with the Company's stated objectives | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
to minimise military expenditure. | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
In London the directors were keen to avoid wars. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
Their costs were certain, their outcomes less so. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
But Wellesley dismissed the concerns of the people | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
he described as the cheesemongers of Leadenhall Street. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
He was here with a personal agenda, | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
one supported by the British government, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
and it had little to do with the rag trade. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
He wanted to smash the vestiges of French power in India, | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
wipe out local opposition | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
and extend British rule across the subcontinent. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
And from 14,000 miles away, | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
there was little the directors could do to stop him. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
Wellesley had set his sights on a formidable Muslim adversary - | 0:06:37 | 0:06:41 | |
Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
The rich, battle-hardened Muslim leader of Mysore | 0:06:52 | 0:06:55 | |
was the East India's Company's most intractable enemy. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
Three times in three decades his family had fought the Company. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:04 | |
They were known as the Terrors of Leadenhall Street. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
And now Wellesley discovered that on top of it all, | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
they were in league with the French. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
I think he identified quite early on that if he could play the French | 0:07:15 | 0:07:19 | |
and British off against each other he could expand at their expense. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:25 | |
The French were at the time Britain's main global rival | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
for the status of global superpower and that was being played out | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
in India as it was in North America and other arenas. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
A striking force of around 4,000 East India Company troops | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
- many of them native soldiers or sepoys - | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
attacked Tipu's fort in Seringapatam. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
Inside with his men, the Tiger was ready to do battle. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
A ruler who prided himself on military prowess | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
had to have an extensive, extravagant, | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
ornate collection of weapons in his personal arsenal. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
And here are some of them. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
The sword was the emblem of manhood in this period, | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
the emblem of a great ruler. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:15 | |
and judging by these swords, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
Tipu Sultan was a deeply religious man and a deeply aggressive one. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
Look at this fabulous sword here. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
The hilt is entirely covered in gold. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
Gold tiger clasping a steel blade in its mouth. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
This man was absolutely obsessed with the tiger motif. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:35 | |
He lived his life as a tiger. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
In fact, his favourite expression was, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:39 | |
"It's better to live one day as a tiger | 0:08:39 | 0:08:41 | |
"than a thousand days as a sheep." | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
What I love about this particular blade is on the hilt | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
is written an expression in Persian. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
"This blade is the lightning | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
"that flashes though the lives of infidels." | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
Probably quite near the end of their lives, I expect. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
And on here is the name of Tipu Sultan himself | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
and Allah and Muhammad his prophet. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
This was a man who believed that he was engaged in holy war. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
He was God's instrument on Earth and his task was to destroy infidels, | 0:09:06 | 0:09:12 | |
driving them out from the Indian subcontinent. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
But this time it wasn't to be. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
After a month-long siege, Tipu's stronghold fell | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
and the tiger was slaughtered. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
The significance of the defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799 | 0:09:27 | 0:09:30 | |
is that it's the beginning of the end of the independence | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
of the great southern principalities in India. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
It meant of course that British paramountcy was beginning | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
to be established in that region of India | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
and that the Madras Presidency, | 0:09:43 | 0:09:45 | |
the most southern of the East India Company presidencies, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
was increasing, territorially, hugely in size | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
in this very short five or six years | 0:09:51 | 0:09:55 | |
of Richard Wellesley's time as Governor-General. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
Almost immediately after Tipu's death, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
his palace of treasures was looted. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:07 | |
The Company's troops could hardly contain themselves | 0:10:07 | 0:10:10 | |
when they came across Tipu's showpiece. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
This comes from Tipu Sultan's unbelievably flamboyant throne he had built. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:23 | |
These little tiger heads would have sat atop the edge of the throne, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
and like this one here they're all covered in gold, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
This would have been so striking that really it sealed its own fate | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
because as soon as the East India Company's Prize Committee | 0:10:35 | 0:10:37 | |
- the people responsible for giving out rewards to its troops - | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
set their beady little eyes on this, | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
they hacked it up and gave it away or sold it off. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
Some of those pieces arrived back here in Britain. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
It's a tiny glimpse into what must have been one of the most | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
spectacular objects these people had ever seen. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
When news of the Tiger's death reached Britain, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
there was jubilation. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
It turns out the British people didn't share Tipu Sultan's | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
opinion of himself as a noble servant of God. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
They thought he was an extremist tyrant. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
There were parties and balls cross the country, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
decorations and medals were struck. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
Artists got in on the act and painted depictions of the final battle. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:29 | |
This wasn't being celebrated as a private, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
commercial triumph for the East India Company, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
but as a moment of national, public achievement. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
There was now nothing else standing in the way | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
of total British domination in the subcontinent. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
With the vast, rich kingdom of Mysore now under their dominion, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
the Company's power in India was growing. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:59 | |
But territorial growth meant bigger | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
and more expensive armies to hold it. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:03 | |
The cost of this could ruin the Company but from their offices in London, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:08 | |
the directors were powerless to contain Lord Wellesley. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
Wellesley saw himself as a ruler, not a merchant and, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
like countless other empire builders, | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
he developed an insatiable desire for ever-wider expansion. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:22 | |
He spent a vast amount of money that should have been | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
for commercial purposes on conquest. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
He wrote a bragging letter home to Britain, saying that | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
he was satisfying, "the voracious appetite for lands and fortresses." | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
He went on to say, "Seringapatam ought, I think, to stay your | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
"stomach for a while, not to mention Tanjore and the Poliga countries. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:42 | |
"Perhaps I may be able to give you a supper of Oudh | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
"and the Carnatic, if you should still be hungry." | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
Against the Company's wishes, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:53 | |
Wellesley annexed more and more Indian territory. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
Vast swathes of southern, | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
western and northern India fell to the British. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
One quoted contemporaneous at the time is that he's increased | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
the population of British India by 40 million. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
So this is a massive expansion and it's really the time when the | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
East India Company moves from paramountcy, | 0:13:12 | 0:13:14 | |
from being the major influential power, | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
to being the major territorial power. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
It's the start, in effect, of the British Empire. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
Wellesley had completely transformed the Company's position in India, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:27 | |
even whilst the directors back in Britain were complaining | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
that his actions were taking them into debt. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:32 | |
By the time he was finished, | 0:13:32 | 0:13:34 | |
Britain controlled an area that was ten times the size of the British Isles, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:39 | |
with a population of 180 million people. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
That's one sixth of the entire global population at the time. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:46 | |
An important part of Wellesley's plans | 0:14:06 | 0:14:08 | |
was bringing a little bit of Britishness to India. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
When Calcutta all got a bit too much for Wellesley and the greater good | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
of British society, they would head 16 miles north to Barrackpore. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
But they travelled in slightly more refined style. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
"Barrackpore is a charming place, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:55 | |
"like a beautiful English villa on the banks of the Thames. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
"So green and fresh." | 0:14:58 | 0:15:00 | |
"The Governor General has a country residence with a fine park there. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
"During the races the Calcutta world assembles there. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:14 | |
"Lady Amherst rendered Government House gay with quadrilles | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
"and displays of fireworks." | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
British officers once lived here | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
in single-storey buildings known as bungalows | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
- one of the many Indian words that has permanently entered the English language. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:32 | |
Their decaying remains are still visible today. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
These crumbling ruins are now all that remains | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
of the magnificent British homes. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:44 | |
You can see how well laid out they were. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
Nice big gardens, no doubt planted with beautiful beds of flowers, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
big airy windows and doors so the breeze, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
or what breeze there was, could just flow through the house. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
Lots of shade, of course, big trees planted. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
It's funny, you look at these houses and they're so confident. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
Built in the imperial style. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
The people who lived in them would have been certain | 0:16:03 | 0:16:05 | |
that their grasp on India and, in fact, the world, was unshakable. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
And yet here, only a couple of hundred years later, | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
they're shelters for wild dogs. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:13 | |
'In the Company's day, it was British officers | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
'who sheltered here from the blistering heat of the sun.' | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
Thank you very much. Good morning. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
'It was generally far too hot to do any actual work.' | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
"My disgraceful laziness is appalling. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
"I have hardly opened a book or written a line for the last ten days. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
"In fact, I have done absolutely nothing but lounge and saunter about." | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
Barrackpore was given the stamp of approval | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
when Wellesley chose it as his summer retreat. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
This is how Wellesley would have got to Barrackpore | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
- the river acting like a private highway, | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
taking him from his palace in Calcutta | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
up to the front steps of his palatial residence here, | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
minimising the time he had to spend in the public space. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
I mean, God forbid he would actually have to travel through the country | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
and look out on the plight of the Indians over whom he ruled. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
Wellesley spent £50,000 of Company money | 0:17:27 | 0:17:31 | |
building himself a palatial residence | 0:17:31 | 0:17:32 | |
at the heart of this British haven. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
But his burgeoning empire was in direct conflict | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
with the Company's objectives... | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
..which were still trade and profit. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
Attempting to gain the upper hand, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
the Court of Directors came up with a plan. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
They would train a new breed of employee | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
to act on the Company's behalf in India. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
The civil servant. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
Civil service is a term coined by the East India Company at this time. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
It describes a group who had previously been administrators, | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
known as writers. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
But the use of the term marks an important shift | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
because in the past these writers hadn't been terribly high quality. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
As long as they could read and write and do a bit of maths, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
they were given the job. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:43 | |
But now there were whole swathes of India to rule over, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
they had to know the people. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
And they had to know how to govern them. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
It was time for an upgrade. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
In 1806 the Company opened a new school to train its future | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
governors and administrators - East India College in Hertfordshire, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
known today as Haileybury College. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
To educate this new class of servant, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
the training was progressive and exacting. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
The curriculum was pretty demanding. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
Just how demanding became clear | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
when I had a go at an exam in my own favourite subject. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
-Here's a history one. -OK, here we go. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
OK, for 1851. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:34 | |
"Describe the foundations | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
"and progress of ecclesiastical wealth and power. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
"Distinguish between the depositories of that power | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
"in the ninth century and the 12th..." | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
Mm-hmm. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
"In what manner did the Curia regis of the Conqueror | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
"create and extend the original jurisdiction?" | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
OK. I think we'll just leave those actually. | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
I think we've looked at those enough. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
Once every term, the directors would come down. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
These were known as dye days, at the end of the term, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
and distribute prizes and medals to Haileyburians | 0:20:05 | 0:20:11 | |
or East India men that had done well. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
And these are the medals here. Beautiful, aren't they? | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
-That is a medal for Sanskrit, there. -It's even got Sanskrit on it. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:21 | |
And the inscription says that the pursuit of knowledge | 0:20:21 | 0:20:26 | |
is better than the pursuit of gold, which is very apt. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
Self-enrichment would no longer be the sole ambition | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
of young men bound for India. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
This new college was educating them with new goals | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
and instilling them with new values. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:42 | |
And would it matter how well they'd done at this college? | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
Would that affect their careers once they got to India? | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
If you made it through the rigours of the four terms, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
it was indeed a job for life. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:56 | |
-Guaranteed? -Guaranteed. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
The same patronage that helped the pupils through their studies here | 0:21:04 | 0:21:09 | |
at the school would also smooth their paths once they got to India. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
And although there were no longer the opportunities to make | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
vast amounts of money now that private trading had been outlawed, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
they were still the highest paid civil servants in the world | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
and they had generous living allowances | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
and they even got a commission on tax revenue. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
This was still an extremely attractive career | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
for Britain's most influential classes. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
"It is with feelings of both pleasure and pride that we can record | 0:21:33 | 0:21:38 | |
"the fact of you passing through the college at Haileybury | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
"and that the prize in Hindoostanee has been awarded to you. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:46 | |
"You have passed through the fiery ordeal of college unscathed, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
"without being contaminated by its vices." | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
Soon they would have to resist the vices of India. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:09 | |
Where earlier Company men had embraced local and religious customs, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
now people were becoming alarmed by them. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
Especially Britain's growing number of Christian missionaries, | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
who had been arriving in India in small numbers, | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
against the Company's wishes. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
And in the British Library's archives are some persuasive letters | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
warning of the consequences of allowing them free rein. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
One of the loudest voices was General Charles Stuart, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
known as Hindoo Stuart because of his profound love of Hindu culture. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
Now this culture was under threat | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
so he published his feelings in an effort to protect it. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
So Stuart lays it down on the line. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
"Is it wise, is it politic, | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
"is it even safe to institute a war of sentiment | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
"against the only friends of any importance that we seem to have left | 0:23:06 | 0:23:09 | |
"in India - our faithful subjects of the Ganges." | 0:23:09 | 0:23:12 | |
By which he means the Hindus and the Muslims. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
Hindoo Stuart wasn't the only man to regard missionaries with suspicion. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
Stark warnings were issued by the famous tea merchant Thomas Twining. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:24 | |
He's saying that they're facing a danger no less | 0:23:27 | 0:23:31 | |
than the threatened extermination of our Eastern sovereignty | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
and that danger commands them to step forth | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
and arrest the progress of such rash and unwarrantable proceedings. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
Stop the missionaries now before it's too late. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
When men like Twining and Stuart made their feelings public, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
the missionaries fought back. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
Here is another letter to the poor, long-suffering chairman | 0:23:53 | 0:23:57 | |
of the East India Company, a Court of Directors, | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
from a member of the British Bible Society. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
And he says that Mr Twining's letter is an extraordinary publication | 0:24:04 | 0:24:09 | |
and the plain object is to frighten the Company from imparting | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
the blessings of Christianity to 50 million people in India, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:18 | |
to represent the circulation of the scriptures amongst them | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
as a crime of the deepest dye and most dangerous tendency. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
Broadly, what was the Company's sort of point of view during this period? | 0:24:24 | 0:24:29 | |
The Company believed that...publicly declared a policy | 0:24:29 | 0:24:34 | |
that they weren't adverse to Christian missionaries | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
but what they were against | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
is anything which would disturb the status quo. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
Anything which would make the Hindus, particularly, | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
feel that their religious beliefs were being threatened. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
The Company believed that the people of India should be left | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
to practise their own religions, otherwise they could grow hostile. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
And that would jeopardise Britain's position on the subcontinent. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
But it wasn't up to the Company any more. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
With ultimate control over its activities in India, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
the British Government found itself lobbied by some powerful | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
Christian representatives. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
The most forceful part of this group were a number | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
of evangelical Christians who lived around Clapham Common, here. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:30 | |
They were known as the Clapham Sect | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
and they worshipped here at the Holy Trinity Church. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
They were led in Parliament by the veteran humanitarian | 0:25:35 | 0:25:39 | |
campaigner William Wilberforce. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
Wilberforce is perhaps best known for his successful campaign | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
for the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:55 | |
After that, he turned his attention to India, declaring it... | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
"The greatest of all causes, for I really place it before Abolition." | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
Wilberforce, in common with other Clapham Sect members, | 0:26:05 | 0:26:08 | |
saw the propagation of Christianity in India as sort of British duty. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:13 | |
They had a world view that saw everything | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
that happened as being part of God's plan. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
And they saw British imperial expansion in India as being | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
indicative of God's plan for them to use that platform | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
to spread the message of Christianity. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:28 | |
These windows are modern but they clearly reflect the great | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
passions that drove Wilberforce through his life. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
On the right you can see the work he did getting the slave trade abolished, | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
freeing the slaves of the West Indies from their bondage, their servitude. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
On the left his other great passion, spreading the Christian message, | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
evangelizing all over the word. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
And you can see the distinctive national dresses | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
of all the people in the bottom left, | 0:27:05 | 0:27:07 | |
from the native Americans to the Indian there as well. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
He believed that everyone was created equal in the eyes of God | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
and there were many aspects of religion in India | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
which he heartily disapproved of. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
For example the caste system, which seemed to enshrine inequality. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
He, and the other influential Christians who worshipped here, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:26 | |
wanted Britain to use its rising power | 0:27:26 | 0:27:28 | |
to civilize and Christianise India. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
The British found Hinduism in particular | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
very difficult to understand. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
There were a number of Hindu practices that the | 0:27:46 | 0:27:48 | |
East India Company were concerned about, | 0:27:48 | 0:27:51 | |
in particularly suttee or widow-burning. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
Suttee was the Hindu practice of burning widows alive | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
on the funeral pyres of their husbands. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
Because of its sort of sensational and emotive appeal, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:11 | |
it was something that became very prominent | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
in the way in which Britons imagined India. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
"Their Divinities are absolute monsters | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
"of lust, injustice, wickedness and cruelty. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:30 | |
"In short, their religious system is one of grand abomination." | 0:28:30 | 0:28:35 | |
In 1813 the British government gave way and forced the Company | 0:28:37 | 0:28:41 | |
to give missionaries full access to India, | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
sending a dangerous message to its people that the British | 0:28:44 | 0:28:47 | |
planned to convert them to Christianity. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:49 | |
Missionaries were just one of the Parliamentary impositions | 0:28:57 | 0:29:01 | |
the Company was forced to accept in order to stay in India. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
Just 20 years since Parliament extended its prized Royal Charter, | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
it was up for renewal again. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:11 | |
Other British merchants took advantage of the deadline. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
They wanted a slice of the tea trade | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
and pressured the British Government to act. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
Every time the East India Company's Royal Charter | 0:29:21 | 0:29:24 | |
had come up for renewal there were calls to end | 0:29:24 | 0:29:27 | |
its commercial monopoly on trade with India. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
But it had survived intact for more than 200 years. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
But this was now the era of free trade | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
and Parliament decided to end that privileged position. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
That meant that the East India Company's servants were no | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
longer here to trade, to make money through buying and selling, | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
but as colonial administrators, | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
running its vast territories on behalf of the British Crown. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
The 1813 Charter Act marked a complete shift | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
in the Company's role. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:03 | |
After some 200 years in India, | 0:30:03 | 0:30:06 | |
they were no longer here as merchants but as rulers. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:10 | |
And this new position would have a tangible | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
effect on the behaviour of the British in India. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:16 | |
Britain was going through a massive Industrial Revolution. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
It was becoming one of the richest, perhaps the richest country in the world, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
and the British in India, I think, reflected that change. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
They no longer saw themselves as people who'd chosen to live | 0:30:25 | 0:30:27 | |
in India and had to muddle along and just get on with the locals. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:30 | |
They now saw themselves as part of a superior, advanced, progressive civilisation, | 0:30:30 | 0:30:35 | |
and they saw themselves increasingly as detached from India. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
The respect for Indian culture that had characterized previous | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
generations had completely vanished. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:47 | |
It was no longer acceptable for an East India Company servant | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
to speak like or dress like an Indian. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
They had to now wear European dress and the army soon followed suit. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:57 | |
European customs and manners were emphasised. | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
A huge gulf was opening up between the British governing elite | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
and the Indian subjects. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
By the 19th century you have the British increasingly talking | 0:31:08 | 0:31:10 | |
in terms of a British race, which is somehow different from other races, and embodies different values. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:15 | |
And it wasn't just the British doing it, | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
this was what was happening in the 19th century. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:19 | |
And so when it comes to India you have a lot of the British saying, | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
"Really, the Indians are an inferior race, | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
"they wouldn't be ruled by us if they weren't inferior." | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
"We should always preserve the European, | 0:31:29 | 0:31:31 | |
"for to adopt their manners is a departure from the very principle | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
"on which every impression of our superiority is grounded." | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
As the British entered the new self-assured Victorian age, | 0:31:39 | 0:31:43 | |
their attitude towards the Indians hardened. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
They were convinced of their own cultural superiority | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
and they believed that India needed all the help it could get. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:51 | |
India was a barbaric place and its civilisation was stagnant. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
From now on, Company servants and officers who came to India | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
were influenced by this conviction of moral and racial superiority. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
And so were the growing numbers of British women. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
To our ears, their views seem shockingly racist. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:25 | |
"There is something in the idea of gentlemen who never wear any clothes | 0:32:27 | 0:32:30 | |
"picking the fruit you eat which is not at all appetizing." | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
"I take all the naked black creatures | 0:32:35 | 0:32:37 | |
"squatting at the doors of their huts in such aversion, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
"and what with the climate and the strange trees and shrubs, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
"I feel like Robinson Crusoe. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
"I cannot abide India and that is the truth." | 0:32:45 | 0:32:48 | |
The refusal to learn local languages, | 0:32:50 | 0:32:52 | |
dismissing Indians as savage barbarians | 0:32:52 | 0:32:54 | |
incapable of elevated thought. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
These were ignorant views, and ones which ironically confined | 0:32:56 | 0:33:00 | |
the British into a narrow life that many of them found so boring. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:04 | |
But perhaps even more than being stupid and racist, | 0:33:04 | 0:33:08 | |
these views were dangerous because if that chasm opens up | 0:33:08 | 0:33:11 | |
between the rulers and the ruled, | 0:33:11 | 0:33:13 | |
then there's fertile ground for conflict. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
The blame for this increasingly racist attitude | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
has often been entirely levelled at Victorian women. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
I think to blame the British women in India for the gulf | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
that grew between the races is really unfair | 0:33:28 | 0:33:31 | |
and I've always felt it to be unfair. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:33 | |
The British women were very much part of their own community | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
and they were part of a community that didn't want a closer involvement with India. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:39 | |
In fact, the British establishment in India, which was male, of course, | 0:33:39 | 0:33:43 | |
discouraged women from getting too closely involved in India. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:47 | |
I mean there was a real bias now, among the British men in India, | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
that they wanted their women kept separately. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
Few of these Brits had the urge or the need to look outside | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
the confines of this artificial little bubble. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:03 | |
Often the only natives they did meet were their own servants. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
Thy tried to recreate their old British lives, eating British food | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
three times a day, planting British seeds in their gardens and wearing | 0:34:09 | 0:34:14 | |
ridiculous British clothing as they went out in the hot Indian sun. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
It was an obstinate, desperate attempt to keep a little | 0:34:18 | 0:34:21 | |
piece of Britishness alive, here in the heart of India. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:25 | |
"I keep up as much as possible all English customs, | 0:34:28 | 0:34:32 | |
"so that when I come to see you all again I hope you will find me | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
"just as much of an Englishman as I was before I left." | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
This determination to Anglicise India was about to gain momentum | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
with a final shift in the Company's operations and purpose. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:03 | |
The British government closed in on their one remaining, | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
jealously-guarded trading monopoly. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:08 | |
In the early 1830s the East India Company's charter | 0:35:10 | 0:35:12 | |
came up for renewal once again. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
This time its monopoly on trade with China was stripped away | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
and all commercial operations came to a halt. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
The transition from merchant trading house | 0:35:21 | 0:35:23 | |
to imperial administrator was complete. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:27 | |
As administrator of India, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
the East India Company was allocated a pot of money by the | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
British government for "intellectual improvement" of the people. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
But no-one could decide how best to use it. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
No-one, that is, until the arrival of one man, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
Thomas Babington Macaulay, | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
lawmaker on the newly-created Supreme Council of India. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
And his legacy has left a profound mark on the subcontinent. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
Macaulay when he arrived in India, | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
saw it as his role to establish a very Westernising, | 0:36:09 | 0:36:15 | |
Anglicist approach to education and government in India. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:20 | |
He decisively defeated the Orientalist lobby, which had | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
been in favour of encouraging native Indian classical languages. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:30 | |
Macaulay's approach was that India had to be introduced to modern, | 0:36:30 | 0:36:36 | |
scientific knowledge via the English language. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
It couldn't be done through Indian classical languages. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
These poor young men have got exam week on at that moment. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
It's bringing back all sorts of horrible memories | 0:36:53 | 0:36:55 | |
of my own time at school. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:57 | |
Macaulay, like many other prominent Victorians, assumed that British | 0:36:57 | 0:37:01 | |
culture was basically the highest form of human civilisation. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
And he was desperate to try | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
and bestow some of that on the Indian subjects. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
He envisaged an education system that would create, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:11 | |
as he said "Indians in blood and colour but English in tastes, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:16 | |
"Opinions, morals and intellect." | 0:37:16 | 0:37:20 | |
And the first thing to do was teach them all English. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
We have traced from the fall of Constantinople, | 0:37:23 | 0:37:27 | |
in 1453 and we had explained to you what Renaissance meant. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:34 | |
Now, tell me one thing, why was this reawakening required? | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
The spirit of enquiry grows amongst the people | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
and then they wanted to learn new things and explore new worlds. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:46 | |
Macaulay's Act, The Minute on Education, | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
was passed in February, 1835. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
And almost immediately the children of India's elite began | 0:37:55 | 0:37:58 | |
learning English as their main language. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:01 | |
Macaulay did not intend to educate all the masses. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
He talked about educating the cream of society. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
And from there his downward filtration | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
theory, that is going to percolate down to the masses. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
In some time, it's going to be like education for all | 0:38:14 | 0:38:18 | |
but it'll take some years to happen. | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
So, is the fact that this kind of | 0:38:20 | 0:38:21 | |
English, modern education system was introduced, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
is that seen as a good thing? | 0:38:24 | 0:38:25 | |
We definitely appreciate the coming of the English | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
and the English language and everything as our, you know, | 0:38:28 | 0:38:31 | |
the doors opening to enlightenment, | 0:38:31 | 0:38:33 | |
the touch of light, the enlightenment. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:37 | |
Of course, definitely. The doors opening onto the Western world. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
And it's still carrying on, the remnants of the Raj is still | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
there, you and I are speaking the language of the Raj. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:46 | |
Macaulay's educational revolution had far-reaching | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
consequences for the children of India. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
Do you speak English at home, as well? | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
Yes, all the time, it's the only language I speak, | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
pretty much, at home. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:00 | |
Do you speak any other languages? | 0:39:00 | 0:39:01 | |
Yeah, I speak Hindi and Bengali | 0:39:01 | 0:39:03 | |
but at home it's only English, as in school. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:05 | |
In fact, we're only allowed to speak English in school. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:07 | |
Really? In the playground here? | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
Yeah, everywhere except in the Hindi and Bengali classes, where we | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
have to speak Indian but otherwise it's only English. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:16 | |
It feels like a faintly controversial thing to say but | 0:39:23 | 0:39:25 | |
when you come here and you look at these young men and their uniforms, | 0:39:25 | 0:39:29 | |
their ties, they're speaking their impeccable English, in a lesson | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
about the Renaissance, discussing which football club they like | 0:39:32 | 0:39:35 | |
best, Chelsea or Man United. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:37 | |
It does seem like, in some ways, Macaulay's | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
dream of creating Englishmen out here in India, is being realised. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:46 | |
But while Macaulay claimed to be improving the young | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
minds of India, the Company he served was still prepared to | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
do anything to increase its wealth. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
Including pursuing an immoral, government-backed, trade in drugs. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:16 | |
The Company controlled the opium-growing areas of India. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
It operated a brutal monopoly, | 0:40:33 | 0:40:35 | |
it forced peasant farmers to grow opium but then they could | 0:40:35 | 0:40:38 | |
only sell it to the Company, it was then brought here to Calcutta. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
Now to get round accusations they were pushing drugs, | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
the opium was then sold in auction houses here for 1,000% profit, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:49 | |
to independent traders. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
They would then ship it off, down the Hooghly, | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
across the Indian Ocean and into China. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
But the Company was not the only guilty party in this illicit trade. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:05 | |
The story of the opium trade is really one of just mass collusion. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
It was collusion between the East India Company | 0:41:12 | 0:41:14 | |
and the British Government, | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
who both benefited immensely from this illegal trade. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
And it was collusion between the private traders and many officials | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
in the Chinese authorities, who with receipt of a bribe, would | 0:41:21 | 0:41:25 | |
quite happily turn their eyes away from this smuggling in of opium. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:30 | |
In 1838 over 35,000 opium chests were shipped from Calcutta to | 0:41:32 | 0:41:38 | |
China and the Chinese Emperor finally snapped. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:43 | |
All in the name of profit, opium was ruining | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
the lives of over 12 million Chinese people and draining | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
the country of prosperity. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:52 | |
The Chinese government seized 20,000 chests | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
of the finest East India Company opium and dumped in the ocean. | 0:41:55 | 0:41:59 | |
Then they banned traders from bringing any more | 0:41:59 | 0:42:02 | |
opium into the country. | 0:42:02 | 0:42:04 | |
But neither the Company nor the British Government was | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
prepared to let matters end there. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:10 | |
Opium was the Company's most profitable export from India | 0:42:10 | 0:42:14 | |
and funded the lucrative tea trade. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
I don't think there's sort of any other way really of viewing | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
what was going on with the China trade in this period other | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
than drug pushing. The East India Company and the private | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
agency houses who worked with them, the opium trade, were aggressively | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
marketing opium in the coastal towns of China against the wishes | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
of the Chinese government because it was the one commodity that they | 0:42:35 | 0:42:39 | |
could sell there and the one that allowed them to finance their | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
trade in tea, which obviously was hugely profitable back in Britain. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
This dubious business had to be protected, | 0:42:47 | 0:42:50 | |
whether China wanted it or not. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
An Asian state had the nerve to stop the Company trading | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
and stand in the way of its making money! | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
The East India Company had been here before, in India, | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
and its solution was the same...force! | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
The British Government sent the Royal Navy to batter | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
the Chinese into submission. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:08 | |
They backed down and even | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
had to hand over the island of Hong Kong to the British, | 0:43:10 | 0:43:13 | |
which then became the centre of the ongoing opium trade. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
But, back in India, a final reckoning was looming. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
And it would be sparked from an unexpected quarter. | 0:43:25 | 0:43:28 | |
THEY CHANT | 0:43:29 | 0:43:32 | |
The Company's own loyal, standing army. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
The Indian army had grown to become a bit of a source of worry | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
for many in the East India Company. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
What had begun as a few | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
security teams guarding the Company's forts around India, | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
had grown into one of the largest standing armies in the world. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 | |
More than 250,000 troops, | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
larger than most European armies at the time. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:05 | |
And that was 96% composed of native | 0:44:05 | 0:44:08 | |
Indian troops, known as "sepoys". | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
Keeping these sepoy troops loyal was critical to the Company's survival. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:19 | |
So what would happen if this huge native army turned on them? | 0:44:21 | 0:44:25 | |
But, increasingly, the quality of those few Englishmen was debatable. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:41 | |
The problem with the Indian army at the time is that it's set up | 0:44:41 | 0:44:45 | |
that if you have any ambition, any get up and go, any drive, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
you will leave your regiment early on for probably civil employ | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
or staff employ and the reason you did that is because they were | 0:44:52 | 0:44:54 | |
better paid. So, the residue left in the regiments, the people | 0:44:54 | 0:44:58 | |
who had close daily contact with the Indian soldiers were the refuse, | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
were the worst of the lot. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:03 | |
And they didn't tend...these men were disgruntled, they were bored | 0:45:03 | 0:45:07 | |
and they didn't tend to treat their Indian soldiers very well. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
Just as throughout the rest of British India, | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
in the Company's three armies, a racial gulf had opened up, | 0:45:14 | 0:45:18 | |
between the officers and their Indian troops. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:21 | |
All of these accounts bear witness to a catastrophic breakdown in the | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
bond between the officers and men of the East India Company's army. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
Now any team, but particularly an army, needs that trust | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
and respect between those who are giving the orders | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
and those who are carrying them out. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:55 | |
If you were an East India Company sepoy, why would you follow | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
an officer into battle who's openly disdainful of you? | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
In fact, why would you do anything he said at all? | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
The sepoys no longer trusted their East India Company officers. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
They were appalled at their degrading treatment and | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
they were very suspicious about the future intentions of the Company. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
What was needed to turn this very tense situation into a full | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
blown crisis was a spark. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
Appropriately enough that spark was provided by the sepoys' rifles. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:38 | |
In the mid-19th century a sepoy | 0:46:38 | 0:46:40 | |
would have lots of cartridges in his cartridge pouch. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
He had to bite off the end, pour it down the barrel of the rifle, | 0:46:42 | 0:46:47 | |
then put the cartridge itself and the bullet into the barrel, | 0:46:47 | 0:46:52 | |
ram it down with a ramrod and then it would fire at the enemy. | 0:46:52 | 0:46:56 | |
The big problem came | 0:46:56 | 0:46:57 | |
when a rumour spread like wildfire throughout the sepoy forces, | 0:46:57 | 0:47:00 | |
that the British were greasing these cartridges with pig of beef fat. | 0:47:00 | 0:47:05 | |
For them it was completely intolerable to insert | 0:47:05 | 0:47:07 | |
anything that had ever been near a pig or a cow into their mouth. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:11 | |
At a stroke, the culturally ignorant, | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
distant British decision-makers, had managed to alienate not just | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
the Hindus, but also the Muslims of their vast Indian army. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:22 | |
In fact, realising their error, | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
the East India Company never issued these cartridges to the sepoys... | 0:47:26 | 0:47:31 | |
but it was too late. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:32 | |
Those soldiers within the army who were disgruntled did not want | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
to let the issue lie. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
In other words they kept it going. Why? | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
Because something to do with caste | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
and religion like this was a means of uniting both Muslims and | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
Hindus, who traditionally, frankly, had not been the closest of allies. | 0:47:44 | 0:47:48 | |
The scene was set for the East India Company's gravest | 0:47:50 | 0:47:52 | |
challenge yet. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:54 | |
An episode that's become known to the British as the Indian Mutiny | 0:47:54 | 0:47:58 | |
but to Indians it was the First War of Independence. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
The earliest signs of dissent | 0:48:06 | 0:48:08 | |
occurred in one of the Company's oldest military settlements, | 0:48:08 | 0:48:11 | |
the favourite summer hang-out of the British. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
In Barrackpore, on 29th of March, 1857, | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
the peace of an afternoon was shattered. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
Sergeant-Major James Hewson was in his bungalow one day when he heard | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
that one of his sepoys, a man called Mangal Pandey, armed himself with a | 0:48:26 | 0:48:30 | |
loaded musket and was behaving very erratically on the parade ground. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
Hewson warned an officer, got dressed picked up his sword | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
and went to work out what the hell was going on! | 0:48:37 | 0:48:40 | |
The inebriated Pandey was acting in protest against the new gun | 0:48:42 | 0:48:46 | |
cartridges but he failed to incite his fellow soldiers to join him. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:49 | |
The British adjutant arrived to see what all the fuss was about. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
Pandey shot at Hewson. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
He shot at a British officer who came to help him. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:58 | |
The three of them ended up in a huge sword fight, | 0:48:58 | 0:49:01 | |
the two Brits being wounded before Pandey was arrested. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
Then, a week later, having been court-marshalled, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
and in front of the assembled garrison of both Indian and | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
European troops in Barrackpore, | 0:49:09 | 0:49:11 | |
he was hanged. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:13 | |
Allegedly from this banyan tree behind me. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
Mangal Pandey's unit was disbanded but the uprising | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
began for real when troops at Meerut rose up and then headed for Delhi. | 0:49:22 | 0:49:27 | |
On May 11th, 1857, the city fell. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
The rebellion is really a mixture of dissatisfied groups in India. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
The biggest dissatisfied group are, of course the soldiers and because | 0:49:35 | 0:49:39 | |
they're professionals and they're armed, they are the most dangerous. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
You will see in any revolution you've got a problem | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
if you're army turns on you. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:46 | |
But also they were joined by a lot of disgruntled civilians. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:49 | |
People who, for various reasons, weren't happy with | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
East India Company rule and, of course, | 0:49:51 | 0:49:53 | |
that included a lot of people whose | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
principalities had been taken away from them, a lot of people who | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
felt that they had something to gain by seeing the back of the British. | 0:49:58 | 0:50:03 | |
The East India Company was about to pay a heavy | 0:50:03 | 0:50:06 | |
price for allowing its relationship with India to break down. | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
Right across northern India native troops rebelled against their | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
British officers, often killing them and their families. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
There were serious disturbances at the strategically placed | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
towns of Benares, Allahabad and Lucknow. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:25 | |
These were situated between Delhi | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
and the administrative capital, Calcutta. | 0:50:27 | 0:50:29 | |
If they fell, it would seriously imperil the entire British | 0:50:29 | 0:50:33 | |
position in Northern India. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:35 | |
Even the supposedly reliable garrison of Cawnpore, was in revolt. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
After a bloody three week siege, | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
the British garrison surrendered to save the women and children inside. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
They were offered safe conduct | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
but it became clear that this was a trick. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
As the survivors made their way down to boats on the Ganges, | 0:50:53 | 0:50:57 | |
the rebels opened fire. | 0:50:57 | 0:50:59 | |
Most of those who survived the bullets were then bludgeoned | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
or hacked to death. | 0:51:02 | 0:51:04 | |
180 women and children were taken prisoner and held for three weeks, | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
until news arrived of an approaching British relief column. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:10 | |
At that point the prisoners were massacred. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
Their bodies hacked to pieces | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
and the dismembered parts thrown down a well. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
The first British troops on the scene had trouble dealing | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
with the shock of seeing the dead bodies of women and children. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
Their accounts survive today in the British Library. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
No Englishman who saw the sight that beheld them, | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
can ever forget or forgive it. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:40 | |
The floor was a mass of blood, clots of blood and women's hair, | 0:51:40 | 0:51:43 | |
with pieces of women's apparel lying about in all directions, | 0:51:43 | 0:51:46 | |
cut and torn. Outside of the compound in a dry well was | 0:51:46 | 0:51:50 | |
seen the bodies, apparently not long thrown there. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
Could any human being conceive of such horrible slaughter? | 0:51:53 | 0:51:57 | |
Clearly there's going to be an enormous appetite for revenge. | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
And it was fulfilled. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
The officer who commanded, a Colonel Neal, of the First Madras Fusiliers, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:07 | |
by way of retribution, | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
made every man who was taken under suspicion of having been | 0:52:09 | 0:52:12 | |
implicated in the mutiny at Cawnpore, at first wash up | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
with his hands portions of the bloodstains in that dreadful room. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
"If he was a man of any influence or high caste | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
"He was made to go down on his knees and lick it up | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
"And was then hung at the door where a gallows had been erected." | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
So that fury for revenge, is in the air already. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:33 | |
And we see it in another letter from a Lieutenant Kemp, | 0:52:33 | 0:52:37 | |
who talks about a "fearful vengeance". | 0:52:37 | 0:52:41 | |
"Colonel Havelock's men, 3,000 Europeans, | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
"have killed every man, woman and child in Cawnpore. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
"The men could not be kept back after seeing their countrymen lying | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
"dead in all directions." | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
You can really tell it's his emotion at that moment. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
It hasn't been edited or printed or anything like that. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
It's the emotions of a man straight out of combat. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
The East India Company was unable to restore order or | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
prevent acts of savage retribution. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
The situation spiralled out of control. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:15 | |
The amount of execution which is going on across the country | 0:53:16 | 0:53:20 | |
is astonishing. I mean, we have some images here of what was called | 0:53:20 | 0:53:26 | |
"Pandey's Hornpipe", which is hanging mutineers. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
And then the East India Company | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
adopted the practices of the old Mughal Empire | 0:53:33 | 0:53:37 | |
and executed mutineers by blowing them from the mouths of canon. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:41 | |
They used to strap them in front of a canon and then fire it, which | 0:53:41 | 0:53:44 | |
would shatter, throw the remains of the mutineer a fair distance. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:51 | |
The East India Company did a lot to provoke the rebellion and yet | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
it sounds like their handling of it was very messy as well. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
It was a terrible shock to the body politic of the East India Company | 0:53:57 | 0:54:01 | |
and they realised, really, the game was up and I think in a way | 0:54:01 | 0:54:07 | |
they must have smelt the end of the East India Company's reign in India. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:12 | |
The Company had fatally bungled its response to the uprising. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:21 | |
Having been forced, bit-by-bit, to give up its privileges | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
throughout the previous century, it was finally on its knees. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
The mutiny is the beginning of the end for the East India Company | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
because it shows quite clearly to the British Government that the | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
East India Company is no longer capable of governing India. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
It's quite clearly made mistakes, probably chiefly in the way | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
it runs its army, but also in its civil administration. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
And the amount of lives that have been lost, the amount of treasure | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
that's been expended, can only mean one thing and that is that the | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
India has to be formalized, has to become a part of the British Empire. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:58 | |
The government and the British people had had | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
enough of the rapacious, profiteering East India Company. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:09 | |
On the first of November 1858, British India was finally | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
and inevitably handed over to the government of Queen Victoria. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:18 | |
The Court of Directors issued a poignant farewell message | 0:55:18 | 0:55:21 | |
to its thousands of servants in India. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:24 | |
The Company has the great privilege of transferring, to the | 0:55:24 | 0:55:27 | |
service of Her Majesty, such a body of civil | 0:55:27 | 0:55:30 | |
and military officers as the world has never seen before. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
Let Her Majesty appreciate the gift. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
Let her take the vast country | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
and the teeming millions of India under direct control. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
But let her not forget the great | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
corporation from which she received them. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:48 | |
Over the course of its dramatic rise and fall, | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
the East India Company made some devastating mistakes that | 0:55:59 | 0:56:03 | |
caused misery and ruin. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:05 | |
But over more than 400 years in India, | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
it left some enduring legacies. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
Cricket! | 0:56:17 | 0:56:19 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:56:19 | 0:56:20 | |
Probably most importantly, the legal system it puts in place, | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
so that you get very much the basic infrastructure that is still | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
being used in modern India today. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
The Company was really the model for the multinational | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
company of today, in terms of the management of long distance | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
value-chains and so on, and the systems it set out for that really | 0:56:44 | 0:56:48 | |
sort of are the platform for today's international business operations. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:52 | |
One of India's advantages has been that we have a large | 0:56:56 | 0:57:00 | |
population in numbers, | 0:57:00 | 0:57:03 | |
speaking English of at least international standards, as such. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
We are talking a population, probably, | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
almost the size of Britain who could speak English well. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:13 | |
So, this certainly is a legacy and | 0:57:13 | 0:57:15 | |
is an advantage in the international world. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:18 | |
And all of this grew out of a small group of profit-seeking | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
men and the adventurers and glory-seekers who served them. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:30 | |
It's so hard to generalise about the men of the East India Company. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
The system that brought them here was very often cruel, | 0:57:36 | 0:57:39 | |
rapacious and venal. | 0:57:39 | 0:57:42 | |
But those men who risked everything, endured appalling hardships and saw | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
their friends and loved ones carried away by disease, | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
they weren't inherently evil. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
They lived and worked in a world that was unrecognizable to us | 0:57:51 | 0:57:55 | |
today and in doing so they reshaped it. | 0:57:55 | 0:57:58 | |
Their epitaph lies all around us. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:00 | |
Here in India, Britain and even further afield. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:04 | |
We're all still living with the consequences of what they built | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
and what they destroyed, | 0:58:07 | 0:58:09 | |
whilst working for history's most influential company. | 0:58:09 | 0:58:12 |