The Company Becomes The Diwan Video Lecture - Class 8

British ruled India for more than 200
years the British Empire included
territories of modern-day India Pakistan
Bangladesh and parts of my admire but
how did they become so powerful despite
having a handful of soldiers compared to
Indian rulers it all started in 1600 AD
when the Queen of England Elizabeth the
first issued a charter to the East India
Company which authorized it to be the
sole corporation to have trading rights
in the eastern part of the world
including India the company ships first
reached India at the seaport of surah
they were mainly interested in buying
Indian spices cotton and silk fabrics at
a cheap price that could be sold at a
higher value in Britain and large sums
of profit could be accumulated when the
company started trading in India most of
the Indian territories fell into the
Mughal Empire the company officials
persuaded the then Mughal Emperor
Jahangir to grant them the trading
rights in India soon after this they
started building warehouses across the
country mainly at the seaports to store
the goods that were needed to be shipped
to Britain in 1651 the company
established its first factory in Bengal
and soon gained privilege to trade
without paying any duties to the state
on the orders of Mughal emperor
Aurangzeb the company used to buy all
the goods in exchange of gold and silver
that they used to import from Britain to
avoid this form of exchange they started
looking for other sources of revenue so
that they don't need to import such
valuables from Britain some of the
company officials started trading
privately for personal gains meanwhile
the Mughal rule started weakening
specifically after the death of emperor
Aurangzeb this made the local rulers of
Mughal Sultanate more powerful and they
started working independently in 1756
Nawab sir Raja bola was appointed as the
new ruler of Bengal who became quite sir
of the conduct of British officials in
the company he felt that the state is
losing a lot of its revenue due to their
mal practices when the company started
increasing its military strength at Fort
William in Calcutta which was built for
trade purposes the Nawab saw it as a
threat and ordered his troops to seize
all the operating points of East India
Company in Bengal
to counter this situation one of the
company officials named Robert Clyde who
was posted in Madras was sent to Bengal
with a group of soldiers soon after
their arrival the Battle of Plassey was
fought on 23rd June 1757 between the
Nawab and company forces the company
officials formed alliances with some of
the military commanders of the Neva like
me suffer by promising him the position
of nawab after sahaja dollas defeat as a
result of this the soldiers and these
commanders did not take part in the
attacks which led to the defeat of
sahaja Dola
although the Nawabs army was much larger
in number compared to the British Army
after the battle me Zafar was made the
Nawab of Bengal but the company gained a
lot of power a huge fine was paid by the
state to the company to compensate for
expenditure in war also the company
secured rights to collect taxes from
some of the districts of the state which
added as a source of revenue the Battle
of Plassey enables the East India
Company to rise from a mere commercial
enterprise to an important political
figure which marked the beginning of
British Empire in India