Number of words: 730 The East India Company had received permission from the Mughal Emperor to start a factory at Surat early in the seventeenth century. Some years later they purchased a patch of land in the south and founded Madras. In 1662 the island of Bombay was presented to Charles II of England by … Read more

Number of words: 199 The feudal landlords and their kind who came from England to rule over India had the landlord’s view of the world. To them India was a vast estate belonging to the East India Company, and the landlord was the best and the natural representative of his estate and his tenants. That … Read more

Number of words: 1,271 It seems clear that India became a prey to foreign conquest because of the inadequacy of her own people and because the British represented a higher and advancing social order. The contrast between the leaders on both sides is marked; the Indians, for all their ability, functioned in a narrow, limited … Read more

Number of words: 313 If the Marathas (and much more so the other Indian powers) were amateurish and adventurist in their methods, the British in India were thoroughly professional. Many of the British leaders were adventurous enough but they’ were in no way adventurist in the policy for which they all worked in their separate … Read more

Number of words: 136 The East India Company had originally established itself for trading purposes, and its military establishment was meant to protect this trade. Gradually, and almost unnoticed by others, it had extended the territory under its control, chiefly by taking sides in local disputes, helping one rival against another. The company’s troops were … Read more

Number of words: 1,267 The real protagonists for power in India during the eighteenth century were four: two of these were Indian and two foreign. The Indians were the Marathas and Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the south; the foreigners were the British and the French. Of these, it appeared almost inevitable, … Read more

Number of words: 284 The 100 years that followed the death of Aurungzeb in 1707 saw a complicated and many-sided struggle for mastery over India. The Mughal Empire rapidly fell to pieces and the imperial viceroys and governors began to function as semi-independent rulers, though so great was the prestige of the descendant of the … Read more

Number of words: 171 The last of the so-called ‘Grand Mughals,’ Aurungzeb, tried to put back the clock, and in this attempt stopped it and broke it up. The Mughal rulers were strong so long as they put them- selves in line with the genius of the nation and tried to work for a common … Read more

Number of words: 313 Babar is an attractive person, a typical Renaissance prince, bold and adventurous, fond of art and literature and good living. His grandson, Akbar, is even more attractive and has greater qualities. Daring and reckless, an able general, and yet gentle and full of compassion, an idealist and a dreamer, but also … Read more