of Muslims—Bengal, the Punjab, Kashmir, and
Malabar—were those that were most distant from
the political centers of the Mughal empire.
Europeans became interested in India during
the 15th century because of the thriving spice
trade that involved Asia, India, the Middle East,
and Africa in a global system of maritime com-
merce. Columbus’s first voyage of discovery to the
New World in 1492 was to find an alternate route
to the “Indies” for the Spanish monarchs. Shortly
thereafter, in 1498, Vasco de Gama sailed to India
via the Cape of Good Hope, opening an era of
European colonial expansion in Asia that would
last for four and a half centuries. The Dutch, the
French, and the English followed the Portuguese,
competing for market access and lucrative trade
agreements with Indian merchants and creditors.
Europeans found that in addition to spice, India
also had other sorts of goods that would bring a
profit in European markets, especially cotton and
silk textiles. The English East India Company,
created in 1600, opened trading “factories” (ware-
houses) at several Indian ports during the 17th
century to purchase and transport such goods to
market, but they found that the most lucrative
profits were to be made in Bengal, where the Gan-
ges River provided good access to production cen-
ters inland. This was also an area that was thriving
as a result of the Mughal policy of promoting
agricultural production on newly reclaimed lands
on the eastern side of the Ganges delta.
The Mughals gave the British free trade rights
so that by 1750 Bengal was providing 75 per-
cent of the company’s goods. Meanwhile, the
company had created its own fortifications and
standing militia to protect warehouses and agents
from attacks by the French or local opponents
and thieves. The company also formed alliances
with local Mughal governors, providing them
with military assistance when it promised to be
advantageous. Before long, these governors, called
nawabs, found that by allying themselves with the
British they could win greater independence from
Mughal overlords in distant Delhi. This was an
era when there was a mingling of cultures as Brit-
ish agents became Indianized, some converting
to Islam and living like Mughal royalty. The situ-
ation changed significantly after company troops
defeated the forces of the nawab of Bengal at the
Battle of Plessey near Calcutta in 1757. With
this victory, the British began to select the local
Muslim governors themselves, and they were able
to levy taxes on the local population to pay for
goods that they shipped to England, rather than
use funds from British investors. They formed a
regular army with Indian recruits, mainly upper-
caste Hindus, called sepoys (from the Persian
sipahi, “infantryman”). This evolved into one of
the largest armies in the world by the end of the
18th century, replacing the forces of the Mughals
and local rulers. Bolstered by victories on the bat-
tlefield, the British developed an air of superiority
over the native populations. Company officials
and employees became more and more corrupt
and greedy in their dealings, and in 1765, their tax
collecting privileges in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa
were legalized by a dispensation from the Mughal
emperor. British control in India increased in the
ensuing decades as they operated from headquar-
ters in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. Mughal
rulers became British minions, with very little
independence beyond the walls of their imperial
palace at the Red Fort in Delhi.
In 1773, the British Crown appointed a gov-
ernor general to oversee company operations and
combat corruption among company officials. One
of the first governor generals was Lord Charles
Cornwallis (d. 1805), who had come to India in
1786 after the defeat of his army by American and
French forces in America. The governor gener-
als inaugurated a series of land and tax reforms
and created an administrative organization that
became what is now known as the Indian Civil
Service. Although civil servants initially had to
learn Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, and other native
languages to conduct business, English eventually
was made the official language of administration.
English-language schools were established to trainK (^354) India