The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
Page 57
CHAPTER 7: THE DESOLATION OF DELHI
1
Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), IS.38–1957.
2
Even if the jewelled Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan had long been stolen and destroyed and what remained was only a wooden replica, sitting in a half-ruined palace.
3
NAI, Select Committee Proceedings, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Headquarters, Allahabad, 20 April 1771, pp. 177–81.
4
CPC 3, pp. 134–5, no. 504, 14 Dec 1770; CPC 3, p. 98, no. 329, 11 Aug, to the King; CPC 3, p. 194, no. 719, 22 April, to the King; K. K. Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, Calcutta, 1965, p. 57.
5
NAI, Select Committee Progs, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Fort William, 20 April 1771, pp. 177–81.
6
William Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, London, 1798, p. 36.
7
NAI, Select Committee Progs, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Fort William, 17 May, pp. 184–7.
8
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, pp. 27–8.
9
NAI, Select Committee Progs, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Fort William, 17 May, pp. 184–7.
10
CPC 3, pp. 190–1, no. 702, 14 Dec 1770, General Barker to Nawab Shuja ud-Daula; CPC 3, p. 189, no. 698, General Barker to the King.
11
Jean-Baptiste Gentil, Mémoires sur l’Indoustan, pp. 257–9.
12
Michael H. Fisher, ‘Diplomacy in India 1526–1858’, in H. V. Bowen, Elizabeth Mancke and John G. Reid, Britain’s Oceanic Empire: Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550–1850, Cambridge, 2012, pp. 276–7. I’tisam al-Din’s book, Shigrif-namah-i Vilayet is at BL, Or. 200. For a full translation, via Bengali, see The Wonders of Vilayet, being a memoir, originally in Persian, of a visit to France and Britain, trans. Kaiser Haq, Leeds, 2001.
13
Nandalal Chatterji, Verelst’s Rule in India, 1939, p. 129.
14
There is a fascinating popular ballad on the Battle of Panipat which gives a sense of the scale of the upheaval it caused. K. R. Qanungo, ‘Fragment of a Bhao Ballad in Hindi’, Historical Essays, Calcutta, 1968, pp. 81–113.
15
Percival Spear, The Twilight of the Moghuls, Cambridge, 1951, p. 16.
16
Jadunath Sarkar, The Fall of the Mughal Empire, 4 vols, New Delhi, 1991, vol. 2, p. 329.
17
Ganga Singh, Ahmed Shah Durrani, p. 326. See also Gulfishan Khan, Indian Muslim Perceptions of the West during the Eighteenth Century, Karachi, 1998, pp. 72–8, and K. K. Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, pp. 49–50.
18
Ganga Singh, Ahmad Shah Durrani, Patiala, 1959, p. 326.
19
Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1: Delhi Affairs (1761–1788), Bombay, 1953, p. 21.
20
Michael Edwardes, King of the World: The Life of the Last Great Moghul Emperor, London, 1970, p. 172.
21
Govind Sakharam Sardesai, A New History of the Marathas, 3 vols, Baroda, 1948, vol. 3, p. 138.
22
Iqbal Husain, The Rise and Decline of the Ruhela Chieftaincies in 18th Century India, Aligarh, 1994, p. 138.
23
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, pp. 50, 70.
24
BL, Add 6585, Shakir Khan, Tarikh-i Shakir Khani, f. 91.
25
CPC 3, p. 216, no. 798, from Nawab Shuja ud-Daula, 22 June 1771.
26
Ibid.
27
CPC 3, p. 215, no. 795, General Barker to the King, 20 June 1771.
28
CPC 3, p. 225, no. 828, 22 May; from Raja Shitab Ray, 20 July; NAI, Select Committee Progs, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Fort William, 6 July 1771, pp. 266–9.
29
Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, pp. 58–9.
30
NAI, Select Committee Progs, 2 Jan to 6 Dec, 1771, No. 18; Allahabad, 17 July 1771, pp. 258–9.
31
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 36; Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 2, pp. 330–1.
32
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 47.
33
NAI, Foreign Select Committee Progs, 1772–3, vol. 20, 10 Jan 1772.
34
Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, p. 59.
35
Voyage en Inde du Comte de Modave, 1773–1776, ed. Jean Deloche, Pondicherry, 1971.
36
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 55; Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol 2, p. 331.
37
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 57.
38
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 32.
39
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 58.
40
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 34; Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL Or. 1932, f. 207–8.
41
Husain, The Rise and Decline of the Ruhela Chieftaincies in 18th Century India, p. 144.
42
Sardesai, A New History of the Marathas, vol. 2, p. 516.
43
Mirza ‘Ali Bakht, Waqi’at-i Azfari, ed. T. Chandrasekharan and Syed Hamza Hussain Omari, Madras, 1957, p. 5.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid., pp. 5–6.
46
This section is derived from a brilliant essay by Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam in Writing the Mughal World, New York, 2012, pp. 433–44.
47
Quoted in Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, p. 81.
48
Voyage en Inde, p. 231.
49
Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639–1739, Cambridge, 1991, p. 167.
50
C. M. Naim (translated, annotated and introduced), Zikr-I Mir: The Autobiography of the Eighteeenth Century Mughal Poet, Mir Muhammad Taqi ‘Mir’, New Delhi, 1998, pp. 83–5, 93–4.
51
Khurshidul Islam and Ralph Russell, Three Mughal Poets: Mir, Sauda, Mir Hasan, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 221–2, 247–8.
52
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 45.
53
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 35.
54
René-Marie Madec, Mémoire, ed. Jean Deloche, Pondicherry, 1983, p. 170.
55
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 61.
56
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 55.
57
These translations are taken from a beautiful essay by David Lunn and Katherine Butler Schofield, ‘Delight, Devotion and the Music of the Monsoon at the Court of Emperor Shah ‘Alam II’, in Imke Rajamani, Margrit Pernau and Katherine Butler Schofield (eds), Monsoon Feelings: A History of Emotions in the Rain, New Delhi, 2018, pp. 219–54.
58
Lunn and Butler Schofield, ‘Delight, Devotion and the Music of the Monsoon at the Court of Emperor Shah ‘Alam II’, pp. 219–54.
59
Modave writes well on this. See Voyage en Inde, pp. 427–8.
60
Ibid., pp. 420–2.
61
Ibid., p. 422.
62
Ibid., p. 103.
63
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, pp. 68–9. ‘This victory proved,’ as Khair ud-Din writes, ‘the title page of Mirza Najaf Khan’s record of victories and the first rung in the ladder of his fortune.’ Quoted in K. R. Qanungo, History of the Jats, Calcutta, 1925, pp. 145–6.
64
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, pp. 72–3. On the battle of Barsana see F. S. Growse, Mathura: A Di
strict Memoir, 1883.
65
The fort of Ballabhgarh was captured on 20 April 1774, and Farukhnagar 6 May 1774. See Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 64.
66
Ibid., p. 83.
67
Emile Barbé, Le Nabob René Madec, Paris, 1894, Sec. 48.
68
Voyage en Inde, p. 438. Khair ud-Din captures the valour of the Jats during their war with Mirza Najaf Khan. He says, ‘Not a single man tried to save his life. If they had fought unitedly they would have slain many more and safely made their way out [of the fort].’ Qanungo adds that ‘no johar seems to have been lighted at Deeg; women and children were put to sword.’ See Qanungo, History of the Jats, p. 174, fn. 15.
69
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 75.
70
Yuthika Sharma, ‘From Miniatures to Monuments: Picturing Shah Alam’s Delhi (1771–1806)’, in Alka Patel and Karen Leonard (eds), Indo-Muslim Cultures in Transition, Leiden, 2002, pp. 126–30.
71
Voyage en Inde, pp. 434–5.
72
Antoine Polier, Shah Alam II and his Court, Calcutta, 1947, p. 99.
73
Voyage en Inde, pp. 432–4.
74
Ibid., pp. 217–18.
75
Polier, Shah Alam II and his Court, pp. 67–9.
76
Voyage en Inde, pp. 254–69.
77
CPC 4, p. 95, no. 506, 9 Sept 1773, from the King.
78
Sir Penderel Moon, The British Conquest and Dominion of India, London, 1989, p. 158.
79
Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, p. 69.
80
Sir Penderel Moon, Warren Hastings and British India, London, 1947, pp. 158–9.
81
Sir John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, Oxford, 1892, p. 97.
82
BL, IOR, HM/336, f. 1–8.
83
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL Or. 1932, 116v.
84
Ibid., 117r–120v.
85
Quoted in Qanungo, History of the Jats, pp. 185–6.
86
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL Or. 1932, 120v.
87
Sayid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al’Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarianism and Jihad, Canberra, 1982, p. 29.
88
Urdu Letters of Mirza Asadu’llah Khan Ghalib, New York, 1987, p. 435.
89
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, pp. 105–6.
90
Ibid., p. 146.
91
Ibid., p. 124; Ganda Singh, ‘Colonel Polier’s Account of the Sikhs’, The Panjab Past and Present, 4 (1970), pp. 239, 24.
92
Spear, The Twilight of the Moghuls, p. 21.
93
C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, Cambridge, 1983, p. 102.
94
Islam and Russell, Three Mughal Poets, pp. 62–3.
95
Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, p. 86.
96
Sayid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al’Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarianism and Jihad, p. 47.
97
Quoted in Jean-Marie Lafont, Indika: Essays in Indo-French Relations 1630–1976, Delhi, 2000, p. 179.
98
Ibid.
99
Herbert Compton, The European Military Adventurers of Hindustan, London, 1943, pp. 8–9; Lafont, Indika, p. 185.
100
Sayid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al’Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarianism and Jihad, pp. 29–30.
101
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 127.
102
Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, in Writing the Mughal World, New York, 2012, pp. 416–23.
103
Mirza ‘Ali Bakht, Waqi’at-i Azfari, ed. T. Chandrasekharan and Syed Hamza Hussain Omari, Madras, 1957, p. 6.
104
Ibid., p. 8.
105
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 212.
106
Ibid.
107
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 195.
108
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 214.
109
Ibid., f. 213. This section is translated in Sir H. M. Elliot and John Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, 8 vols, London, 1867–77, vol. VIII, p. 246.
110
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932. f. 214. Also Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 270.
111
Dutta, Shah Alam II & The East India Company, p. 101.
112
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, v. This section is translated in Elliot and Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, vol. VIII, pp. 246–7.
113
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 214.
114
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 199.
115
Sarkar appears to have got the wrong mosque when he writes ‘Qadir removed the golden coating of the Jami Masjid and sold it but he was prevented from similarly stripping the remainder by Maniyar Singh who warned him that such an outrage on the holy edifice would rouse the entire city population in arms against him.’ See Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. 3, p. 273.
116
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 214.
117
Mirza ‘Ali Bakht, Waqi’at-I Azfari, ed. Chandrasekharan and Syed Hamza Hussain Omari, p. 9.
118
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 214.
119
Ibid., f. 215.
120
Ibid., f. 216.
121
BL, Add Mss 29171, ff 319–20, Jonathan Scott to Warren Hastings.
122
Fakir Khairud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, ?v. This section is translated in Elliot and Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, vol. VIII, p. 248.
123
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, p. 127.
124
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL Or. 1932, f. 216. This section is translated in Elliot and Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, vol. VIII, p. 249, but I have added a few details censored by those Victorians.
125
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, f. 217r. Previously untranslated.
126
Ibid.
127
Ibid. This section was heavily bowdlerised by Elliot and Dowson. The Persian language is brutal: ‘Mi-khwaham ke in-ha-ra dar zomra-ye parastaran-e khod dakhel nemayam wa dad-e mobasherat deham! wa hama dokhtaran-e salatin be Afghana separam, ke az notfa-ye an-ha farzandan-e jawan-mard be-ham-resad.’
128
Mirza ‘Ali Bakht, Waqi’at-I Azfari, ed. Chandrasekharan and Syed Hamza Hussain Omari, p. 8.
129
Ibid., p. 9.
130
Julia Keay, Farzana: The Woman Who Saved an Empire, London, 2014, pp. 183–4.
131
Ibid., p. 184.
132
Sarkar (ed.), Persian Records of Maratha History, 1, p. 200.
133
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, p. 189.
134
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, ?v. This section is translated in Elliot and Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, vol. VIII, p. 253.
135
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, p. 190.<
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136
Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, ‘Ibrat Nama, BL, Or. 1932, ?v. This section is translated in Elliot and Dowson, A History of India as Told By Its Own Historians, vol. VIII, p. 254.
137
Francklin, The History of Shah Alam, p. 190.
CHAPTER 8: THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
1
Quoted in Tillman W. Nechtman, Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Cambridge, 2010, p. 104.
2
Edmund Burke, The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. P. J. Marshall, 6 vols, Oxford, 1991, vol. 6, pp. 275–6, 457.
3
Edmund Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, ed. George Bell, Calcutta, 1906, vol. 1, p. 361, vol. 6, pp. 275–6.
4
Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings, London, 1954, p. 355.
5
Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, vol. 1, p. 361, vol. 6, pp. 285–7.
6
V. K. Saxena (ed.), Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 2 vols, Delhi, 1987, vol. 1, pp. 13–14.
7
Burke, The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 6 vols, vol. 5, pp. 401–2.
8
Burke, Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, vol. 1, p. 79.
9
Thomas Babington Macaulay, ‘Warren Hastings’, in The Historical Essays of Macaulay, ed. Samuel Thurber, Boston, 1892, p. 362.
10
Quoted in Nick Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational, London, 2006, p. 133.
11
Quoted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XVIII, p. 81.
12
Feiling, Warren Hastings, p. 357.
13
Jennifer Pitts, ‘Edmund Burke’s peculiar Universalism’, in Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton, 2005.
14
Ibid., p. 285.
15
Ibid., p. 339.
16
The more despotic character of the final phase of Hastings’ period as Governor General is well explored in Andrew Otis’s fascinating study, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India’s First Newspaper, Chennai, 2018.
17
Sir Penderel Moon, The British Conquest and Dominion of India, London, 1989, p. 222.
18
Feiling, Warren Hastings, p. 354.
19
Ibid., p. 111.
20
BL, Add Mss 39903, f. 34r.
21
Alexander Dalrymple, A Retrospective View of the Antient System of the East India Company, with a Plan of Regulation, London, 1784, p. 73.
22
Denis Kincaid, British Social Life in India up to 1938, London, 1938, pp. 22, 95.