Recently, I had the
blessed opportunity of listening to William Dalrymple in New Delhi, just this last
Saturday, to be precise! I was quite interested in the historic sweep which seasoned his impressive talk, that he spoke with such gusto to an ardent audience in rapt attention
to every word and every line of what he had to say! (YouTube link follows!)
Acclaimed historian
and author Dalrymple, was speaking extensively from his just released book,
titled, The Anarchy: The East India
Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire!
‘One of the very first Indian words to enter the
English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: “loot”’, he started off, and went on to register his remarkable insights into this corporate plunder of
epic proportions, even going to the extent of calling the East India Company, the world’s first corporate
raider!!!
Yet another interesting
observation that he made on the dais, caught my attention real
well! He alluded to a medieval Welsh castle, in Powys, Wales, that goes by name
Powis Castle! This Castle was built by the last hereditary Welsh prince, Owain
Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, way back in the 13th century! History has it that, this huge manorial
estate seems to have been gifted on a platter unto him for vacating Wales and
handing it over to the English monarchy!
Now, Dalrymple’s
question is this: This castle seems to sport some of the rarefied gems, war
spoils and treasures that were brought back home by Robert Clive and his son,
Edward Clive, from off India, which included: some good old master paintings, along with the bounty accumulated after the Battles of Srirangapatna and Plassey, a
vintage collection of intricately carved French and English furniture, amongst a
host of such rare treasurable heritage collections! Now, how on earth, did this Castle of
yore, come to house such a huge and exalted collection from off the imperial
plunder, room after room!? he wonders!
He piled up one
shocker after another by observing that, this private property on the quiet
Welsh countryside - Powis Castle, - houses Mughal
artefacts stacked beyond number – more and beyond the Mughal artefacts on display
at any one place in India – even the National Museum in Delhi! These
treasure-troves were far more valuable and much more of heritage value than
even the Kohinoor diamond, he quips!
Be it the palanquins,
be it the hookahs of burnished gold inlaid with ebony, spinels and jeweled
daggers, green emeralds, ornaments of jade and ivory, talwars with yellow
topaz, rare statues of the Hindu pantheon of gods, and more, how-o-how did it happen? he avers!
When he had visited this
Powis Castle this last summer, one of these rich paintings, on a hugely framed
canvas seemed to have caught his attention! And this painting contained the cue
and the clue to how all these bounties from India had made their way, across
climes and times to this private property, he observes!
The audience was all
blued, glued and wooed! Not a soul stirred! We were all in such dazed, amazed
attention to all that he was telling us, corroborating them all with ample evidence to his side of the defence!
This picture-painting that he witnessed at Powis Caste, was
hanging in the shadows at the top of a dark, oak-panelled staircase, and
although it was not a masterpiece of any high order, the painting seemed to repay
a close study, he quipped. An Indian prince, wearing clothes of gold, is seen
sitting on his throne under a bright silken canopy. To his left are seen
standing ‘spear-bearing’ officers from his own army and to his right are seen a
motley group of powdered and periwigged Georgian gentlemen!
The prince on the
painting, is seen quite eagerly thrusting a scroll into the hands of a ‘slightly
overweight’ Englishman in a red frock coat, he pointed out. [Since the picture
he pointed out on screen wasn’t easy to look at from a distance, thought of
giving it y’all here!]
The scene depicts a
fine day in August 1765, when the young Mughal emperor Shah Alam, exiled from
Delhi and defeated by East India Company troops, was pressurized to go for
involuntary privatization! The scroll that is seen in the scene, is then an
order that was meant to dismiss his own Mughal revenue officials in Bengal,
Bihar and Orissa, and replace them instead, with a set of English traders
appointed by Robert Clive – the new governor of Bengal! And that’s how the
collecting of Mughal taxes was from thence on, contracted to a powerful
multinational corporation!
This was a defining
moment for the East India Company, as, it was exactly during this point of time
that, the Company backed by a solid 20,000 strong military contingent, recruited
local Indian soldiers and started administering and ruling over entire Bengal.
And that’s how an international corporation slowly evolved into an aggressive,
strategic colonial power!
By the year 1803, the
army power of the Company grew manifold! It now had a whopping 2,60,000 men on
its military rolls by which means it was easy for them to quickly win over and
subdue the entire subcontinent! And
surprisingly, all this within four to five decades in time!
Dalrymple remarked
that, although we still talk about the British conquering India, that was not
the obvious case though! The reality gotta be more sinister than this! It was
to be precise, a dangerously unregulated private company, that had its
headquarters in a very small office, in London, just five windows wide, managed
deftly in India by an unstable sociopath by name Robert Clive!
Henceforth most of the
wealth and prosperity of Bengal was being rapidly drained into Britain, even
while its local weavers and artisans were forced and coerced into a ‘slave-like
regimen’ by their new masters!
A huge proportion of
the loot of Bengal was going directly into Robert Clive’s pocket, and reports
say that, he returned to Britain with a huge personal fortune – then valued at
£234,000 – that made him then the richest self-made man in Europe.
The painting at Powis,
hence is very suspicious and deceptive, remarks Dalrymple. The painter,
Benjamin West, had never been to India in the first place. Added, many reviewers
had also pointed out the fact that, the background bore a suspiciously strong
resemblance ‘to the dome of St Paul’ ;-)
That’s because, in
reality, there had been no grand public ceremony at all! In fact, the transfer had
taken place much in private, inside Clive’s tent, that had just then been erected
on the parade ground of the newly seized Mughal fort at Allahabad, he quipped!
Well, tells us how the
‘official memory’ is worked, reworked and re-synced to suit the whims and
fancies of the powers that be!
To be continued…
images: amazondotcom, britishlibrarycatalogueviatheguardian, this blogger's!
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