A History of India, Third Edition

(Nandana) #1
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

armed ships and fortified factories were able to insulate themselves—very
well indeed. Moreover, they could easily shift the scene of their operations
to areas which appeared more attractive and profitable. Thus the British
trade with Bengal, which was rather marginal in the seventeenth century,
suddenly increased in the eighteenth.
The boom of British trade with Bengal began in the second decade of
the eighteenth century. In the first years of that decade the British sent
annually about £150,000 to Bengal; in the last years the total was about
£250,000. Altogether about £2m were transferred to Bengal in the 1710s
yet this great influx of silver did not lead to a price inflation. There were
several reasons for this. First, many of the Mughal officers as well as the
great merchants transferred funds from Bengal to northern India.
Furthermore, the increasing cash base of the land revenue tied down a
great deal of money in the countryside, where it circulated rather slowly.
Due to the decay of the central power of the Great Mughal at Delhi, it
became more and more difficult for him to get his share of the revenue
from Bengal. Later the British were to profit from this situation when, in
the second half of the eighteenth century, they extracted the silver from
Bengal which they had pumped in in the early 1700s.
The increasing trade with Bengal also led to the erection of British
factories in the interior of the country, where the agents of the company
established direct contact with the weavers and so influenced the process of
production. Even British artisans were sent to Bengal in order to train their
Indian counterparts in the art of producing for the European market. The
changing currents of European fashion demanded that the Indian
producers adapted their output to the latest fashion as quickly as possible.
In spite of this demand there was no investment in the means and methods
of production. The weavers remained poor, and the middlemen made the
profit. In due course the British eliminated these Indian middlemen and
sent their own agents directly to the weavers.
The rulers of Bengal regarded these British activities with mixed
feelings: while greatly appreciating the stream of silver which the British
brought into the country, they looked askance at the fortified factories
and the increasing participation of the foreigners in the inland trade.
Even a strong ruler like Alivardi Khan, who governed Bengal from 1740
to 1756, feared the influence of the British and did not trust them. But in
his lifetime they could not subvert the political order in Bengal and had
to operate within the limits imposed upon them. However, when Alivardi
Khan’s weak and impetuous successor demanded that the British should
remove their fortifications, they defied his order, repulsed his subsequent
attack and defeated him. He had feared that the East India Company
would grow into a state within the state; now this state within the state
soon took over the state itself. The British seapower became an Indian
landpower.

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