<Screams> CORPORATIONS AREN’T PEOPLE!

Not sure if I’m talking to the acquisitive 17th century British Empire or modern America? This book, sadly, shows us that the latter learned nothing from the former in this regard.

This is a fine, well-researched account of the East India Company’s early form of corporate piracy in Asia.

Darymple gives us a thorough and thoughtful compendium of the EIC’s transition from aspiring trade partner with the East to its subjugator.

Though the narrative was more dry than I would have preferred and includes what seems like an unnecessarily amount of detail on Indian political history, the story proves interesting and is frighteningly relevant in today’s world, where we once again witness blatant abuse of power by corporations.

A Well researched and well written book on East India Company and India. full of facts and little known history but I never found it boring and very hard to put down . A must read for anyone interested in Indian history.

A robust history lesson, in narrative fiction and beyond, whether you believe it or not.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

***I was granted an ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

Imagine if a multinational corporation not only was a global leader in trade but also had at its beck and call an army which it used to subjugate other countries to protect its profits and interests. It may seem like a farfetched scenario but in the past a corporation with these characteristics existed: The East India Company. The rise and excesses of what would become the world’s first great multinational corporation, are described in The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple. This isn’t Dalrymple’s first time writing about topics concerning India, but this is his first book on the topic of the Company. With this work, Dalrymple wishes not only to relay the history of the Company but also to show the reader the danger of corporations operating unregulated.

With hindsight, it might seem that the Company was destined for success, however, Dalrymple points out that its rivals were better funded, had been at the game longer and had better luck in their endeavors. “The result of […] inadequate funding was a small company with small fleets, and no capital of its own.” Circumstances, however, conspired to change that once the Company began to focus on India. Once they obtained a foothold in India, the Company began conducting business with the local authorities who owned allegiance to the Mughal Empire. But as one observer describes: “When they first came to this country they petitioned the then government in a humble manner for the liberty to purchase a spot of ground to build a factory house upon […] they have enticed several merchants and others to go and take protection under them and collect a revenue which amounts to Rs 100,000 […] They rob and plunder and carry a great number of the king’s subjects of both sexes into slavery.”

The author then details how the Company went from just doing business to becoming a local power player to becoming the de facto ruler of India guided by the leadership of men like Robert Clive, Charles Cornwallis and Richard Wellesley. But he also highlights the actions of Indian leaders in the Company’s story, such as Emperor Shah Alam and Tipu of Mysore. Showing the story from both the English and Indian perspectives and using firsthand accounts to show what was going on in the subcontinent is one of the strengths of this book. It gives the reader a better understanding of the choices made by both sides and why Indian rulers felt siding with the Company was a better choice than fighting or vice versa. The author also seems to enjoy profiling the leaders on both sides especially Shah Alam, the Mughal Emperor and tragic figure. At times, these profiles go into details that can make them seem like a distraction from the discussion of the Company but fleshing out these individual’s personalities adds gravity to the effects that greed and mistrust had on both sides.

Dalrymple also shows how many powerful corporations today share similar characteristics to the Company such as threatening to move to greener pastures if local governments imposed higher taxes, putting profit before the local community’s welfare and when facing bankruptcy asking for government to bail them out. But while these comparisons are spread throughout the book, these points tend to get lost in the historical narrative. It is not until the very last chapter that the line from the Company to the corporations of the present is driven home for reader. While Dalrymple assures us that corporations today aren’t exactly like those of Company, in that they don’t have armies and navies, he does remind us that the “most powerful among them do not need their own armies: they can rely on governments to protect their interests and bail them out.”

Dalrymple writes an informative history on the East India Company and the unchecked greed that drove it to eventually wield the power of a nation state in India. Not only does the reader get an inside look at the Company’s rise but also an in-depth look at how the major players, both English and Indian, at times inadvertently, aided the Company to the detriment of the Indian populace and the enrichment of the Company and Britain. In a time when corporations seem more powerful than ever, The Anarchy is a cautionary tale that we would be remiss to ignore.

How did a mercantile proposition turn into the largest private army in the world, that was able to conquer practically all of India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh). Originally given the Royal English Charter in 1600, to be the exclusive English rights to trade with South India, the East India Company (EIC, the Company) began with one ship and cargo until in the end they controlled directly or indirectly an area with a population of over 250 million.

Beginning in the middle 1700s, the EIC came into conflict with the French merchants who were also creating trading factories (warehouses) on the east coast of India, and the Portuguese on the west. They started by capturing each others ships and stealing the cargoes, until they then began to attack each others factories. This became especially violent during all of the Anglo-French Wars during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Company built armies that were made up of a few English Officers and Sepoy (Indian) Troops. They were smart enough to use soldiers from one Indian empire against the others, playing all the Rulers against each other till they were so powerful that no one in India was powerful enough to challenge them.

In 1857 a large part of the Sepoy soldiers revolted against the Company. There was much damage and bloodshed before the rebellion could be put down. The English government realized that they couldn't continue to allow merchant house to control the 'jewel in the crown of english colonies'. So over the next few years they took away control and in 1874 the Company was dissolved. But using the bureaucracy created by the Company, Britain continued to rule India until 1947.

William Dalrymple has written the definitive history of the East India Company with The Anarchy. Provides insights into a company and its impact on the corresponding era

William Dalrymple' has written an absolute success. Besides striking the excellent balance between richly detail and readability as it thoroughly describes the rise of the East India Company as a colonizing power, "The Anarchy" makes it absolutely clear that this is a must-know history that could not be more relevant in an age where numerous multinationals continue to grow in power, influence, and seem less tamable by the year.

The story of the East India Company, nominally of London, is a huge, sprawling, fascinating and gripping collection of great stories. The stories are of wars, battles, heroes, cowards, lovers, fools, incompetents, rape, plunder, torture and death. Lots of death. William Dalrymple has linked the stories into the history of the Company, that unregulated, arrogant and racist firm that took over the Indian subcontinent, piece by piece from the early 1700s, and held it and milked it until 1859 (when the British government took over the milking and abuse itself).

The Anarchy of the title refers to what Indians call the Great Anarchy, a period as the British showed up when constant wars and invasions redistributed (concentrated) the wealth continuously, and when no one was ever quite sure whose empire they were living in from one year to the next. The various Emperors, nabobs, nawabs, viziers and shahs were constantly making alliances, ignoring them, going to war, combining, separating, and killing. Always killing. Piles of bodies and rivers of blood. And betraying. Almost as much betraying as killing it often seems. It makes for a riveting read, which becomes more amazing the farther you get into it. Dalrymple keeps up the pace and entrances with remarkable stories.

India was a dependable engine of wealth. From its fabrics to its jewels, its gold to its spices, it was forever creating wealth. Every so often, an intruder would swoop in from the next province or from Afghanistan, clean out the treasury and take every last thing of value from everyone. Plus future reparations. And yet, a few years later, there was prosperity once again. There was always wealth for bribes, and everyone was on the take, from Company employees up to royalty. And the figures were huge. Prosperity and chaos in one huge package. This was the cycle the Company stumbled into.

It began as a combination of small firms of English traders and pirates to better exploit Indian trade. It had a public share basis, and soon nearly half the members of parliament and the House of Lords were shareholders, and therefore compromised in their dealings with it. The dividends were gigantic, as a ship bringing Indian goods home would regularly net four times their cost. The ship would then return to India, loaded with gold and silver for the next shipment.

This was not good enough.

The Company wormed its way into Indian politics, allying with one potentate or another as needed to maintain its presence and expand it. It would pay taxes or not as it positioned itself more and more firmly as a power on its own. Its employees were on the take, doing side deals and making fortunes for themselves, which they shipped back to England on Company boats, draining more wealth from India.

The tipping point seems to have come in 1761, Dalrymple says. The Company now had as many as 500 factories running throughout eastern India (Bengal, Orissa and Bihar). It had actually founded Calcutta for a factory and it attracted traders and workers, becoming a major city and port, as well as the Company’s head office in India. Even then, Indians recognized it as the threat it could clearly become.

After endless complaints about the arrogance and extortion by the Company Men (as they entered a village all the shops would close and pedestrians fled), the Nawab Mir Qasim in whose territory the Company was located got creative. He decided not to fight. The Company not only trained local sepoys in English style warfare, but hired mercenaries and press-ganged French soldiers into serving. So rather than fight, Qasim decided to end all duties, leveling the playing field. Until this point, the Company simply refused to pay, giving it an unfair advantage over Indian traders, who had to. The Nawab calculated that increasing business for native traders would compensate for the loss of duties. This cost his treasury, and infuriated the Company. Qasim had to go.

By 1763 the Company had transformed into an “autonomous imperial power” Dalrymple says, with its own army, navy, and designs on the whole subcontinent. As it took on Qasim’s territory, it taxed like any other potentate – hugely and harshly, so that ships from home didn’t have to bring gold any longer. The company became self-financing. This didn’t stop greedy and incompetent mangers from nearly bankrupting it several times. Between the shareholders in power and being too big to fail, bailout loans always appeared when needed.

By the 1770s, even Parliament had to take notice. In 1774, the first parliamentary oversight committee landed in Calcutta and was immediately offended that they only received a 17 gun salute instead of 21, thus establishing their priorities. They were further horrified that the governor general received them for luncheon in informal attire – not even a ruffled shirt. Real governance issues and political priorities could clearly wait.

By far the most revolting section concerns Ghulam Qadir’s sacking of Delhi. The personal horrors he inflicted are as brutal as anything ever printed, and indeed, British readers were originally denied the sight by censors. He blinded people with hot needles, gouged out their eyes, took everything they had including their clothes, and those he didn’t kill he threw in prison without food or water. As he left with everything his army could carry, he blew up what remained. When he was finally caught, he was treated the same way. He was chained up and paraded in a cage for three days. Day one his eyes were scooped out, day two his ears cut off and hung around his neck, followed cutting off his hands, feet and genitals. When he was eventually killed, his headless body was hung in public and a dog licked up the blood until a few days later, when both disappeared.

This gory horror was followed by an absurd and fraudulent show trial back in London, the social hit of the season, in which the Company’s head man in India faced impeachment. Ironically, of course, Governor General Warren Hastings had been the most effective, efficient and compassionate of the Company’s leaders, tasked with cleaning up the mess of his predecessors. Edmund Burke, the prosecutor, took four days just to make his opening remarks, all but entirely false accusations. It was a litany of lies perpetrated by one man on that original parliamentary committee visit, Philip Francis. Francis simply hated Hastings and would stoop to absolutely anything to undermine him, right up to phony impeachment charges. In this story, Francis, with no knowledge of weapons whatsoever, challenged Hastings to a duel. Hastings let him shoot first, then shot him. Sadly, Francis survived, now even more determined than ever to take Hastings down. He returned to London and worked Parliament to denounce him.

The man they should have prosecuted, Robert Clive, was instead a national hero and one of the richest men in Europe as a result of his machinations in India. Clive was uncontrollably violent (which is why he was sent away to India), ruthless, corrupt and smarmy, and that’s why the Company had him back for three tours of duty. Despite his fortune(s), Clive ended up committing suicide.

A highly intelligent and hardworking lifelong Company man, Hastings had to stand by and witness it all, noting down everything along the way. Back in England, after seven years of idiotic hearings, Hastings was finally cleared. Completely. But rather than learn from this, the men the Company sent as a series of his successors, each proved far worse than anything Hastings was ever charged with.

His immediate successor, Lord Cornwallis, had recently managed to lose the 13 colonies that became the USA. He set out to avenge himself. He went to war of course, greatly expanding the Company’s territory, implemented racist laws such as keeping the children of mixed marriages out of the Company, and as Dalrymple explains it, prevented a middle class that could rise up against him as in the USA. His approach to India was ancient Roman: 1) divide and conquer, lying to allies keep them out of battles as needed, and then attack them when convenient, and 2) Buy the local potentates, give them salaries, and let the citizenry think they still had independence and integrity – personal, political and territorial. Much like the USA replacing foreign governments as needed to keep its trade unhindered, so the Company used everyone to expand on the ground.

Cornwallis was followed by the arrogant Lord Wellesley, and his younger brother Arthur, who later became the Duke of Wellington. When the last Indian leader’s troops were defeated, its people raped, tortured and killed, its wealth pillaged and plundered, Governor General Lord Wellesley proposed a toast “to the corpse of India.” Wellesley went his own way, communicating little with head office, eventually bagging almost all of India before he was recalled.

By the early 1800s the Company’s private army stood at 195,000, twice the size of the British army. Its spending in Britain alone amounted to a quarter as much as government expenditure. The entire London headquarters staff of the Company numbered all of 35, in a building “just five windows wide.” And this was the largest company in the world. From there, they directed the conquest and acquisition of the entire Indian subcontinent and hundreds of millions of people. It was not just too big to fail, it was an actual threat. As Jeff Mulgan said elsewhere: “It used to be that the banks feared the sovereign. Now the sovereign fears the banks.” So with the East India Company, the poster child for rampant unregulated corporate greed.

By 1859, after just 150 years, even the government had had enough and took control of India itself, merging the Company’s army into the British army and disbanding its navy. Things did not get better.

Dalrymple ends by showing how gigantic multinationals have mutated into not needing expensive armies and navies to effect their conquests. They use big data, surveillance, lobbying and influence instead. He says the history of the East India Company has never been more relevant than it is today. So it’s not just great storytelling, it’s a look in the mirror.

David Wineberg