THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREservice. He joined this service in 1750 as a young clerk in Calcutta, in 1756
he was head of the factory at Kosimbazar and had been imprisoned by the
nawab, the next year he was sent as the company’s agent to the court of
the new nawab, and in 1764 he had returned to Britain. Five years later he
was appointed as a member of the council of the governor of Madras,
where he was in charge of the company storehouses. His knowledge of
India and of Indian languages, his diplomatic skills and his experience in
commercial activities made him an excellent candidate for the post of
governor of Bengal: he was duly appointed at the age of 39. Even so,
nobody could have predicted at that time that this man would almost
single-handedly turn the wheel of fortune in favour of the British during
the subsequent fourteen years of his remarkable career.
The tasks which Hastings faced when he assumed office in Bengal were
crushing. Only one year earlier the great famine of 1770 had decimated the
population of Bengal and just at this juncture the board of directors in
London insisted that the company should ‘stand forth as Diwan’ (i.e.
assume direct responsibility for the civil administration of Bengal). So far
the governor of Bengal had delegated this work to an Indian deputy (naib
diwan) who carried on his business in the old style of the nawabs. This
naib diwan had his office in Murshidabad, where the provincial treasury
was also maintained until Hastings ordered its transfer to Calcutta. Except
for some assertion of British control, however, Hastings could not reform
the revenue administration all at once. Moreover, much of his attention
was claimed by foreign policy (i.e. relations with Indian rulers).
The nawab of Oudh was fighting sometimes against the Marathas and
sometimes against the Rohillas, an Afghan clan settled in northern India—
and the British frequently joined in the fray. The Great Mughal, who had
resided at Allahabad under direct British control, had been lured back to
Delhi by the Marathas’ promise that they would restore him to his old
position of supremacy. The Great Mughal as an instrument of the
Marathas could be quite dangerous to the British. Hastings stopped British
payments to the Great Mughal; at the same time he gave his backing to the
nawab of Oudh, with whom he concluded an alliance—thus enabling him
to beat the Rohillas and to annex their territory. When Shuja-ud-Daula
died in 1775 his successor, Asaf-ud-Daula, was forced by Hastings to
surrender the area around Benares (Varanasi) to the British: thus Oudh’s
acquisitions in the west were paid for in terms of losses in the east.
British landpower expanded, Hastings having no scruples about
interfering with the affairs of Indian rulers—a fact which Edmund Burke
was later to hold against him when he demanded his impeachment in
Parliament. Hastings’ methods were no doubt incompatible with the
standards of Parliament: as much as MPs were willing to decry his
methods, however, no move was made to restore the territories acquired by
Hastings to the respective Indian rulers.