Empire and Revolution by Richard Bourke

Author:Richard Bourke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

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A DREADFUL STATE OF THINGS

MADRAS AND BENGAL, 1777–1785

10.1 Introduction

As Burke pondered the implications of a formal pact with the American colonies that might help bring to an end two years of angry warfare, the affairs of India were unexpectedly thrust onto the parliamentary agenda. It was in the aftermath of the violent deposition of Lord Pigot from his position as Governor of Madras in August 1776 that Burke’s attention was newly focused on the transactions of the subcontinent. For two years from the spring of 1777 he concerned himself in particular with developments in the south. This culminated in the joint publication with William Burke of the Policy of Making Conquests for the Mahometans in the summer of 1779.1 The Policy sought to expose the implication of East India Company servants in the depredations perpetrated by the Nawab of Arcot in the Carnatic region of southern India. The Nawab had undertaken a series of conquests with the aid of loans drawn on prominent Company officials. Since his success was a precondition for repayment of the debts, prominent servants were determined to facilitate his exploits. As the Nawab, Muhammad Ali, pushed south towards the cape in an effort to absorb competing dynasties, he set his sights on the fertile terrain of the Kingdom of Tanjore. In supporting this venture, wayward elements within the Company in effect subverted official policy. British power and resources were put at the disposal of an upstart usurper, committing the Company to the pursuit of empire by proxy. The Nawab’s project of aggrandisement by the sword seemed to Burke a typical instance of despotic usurpation of a kind that had long been associated with the proclivities of “oriental” power. In the face of this ruthless bid for expropriation and oppression, Burke proposed that the might of the British should be put in the service of current possession by defending existing territorial boundaries in the Deccan. In this way, the ancient Indian constitution could be secured against the ferocity of “Mahometan” conquest.

Burke’s understanding of the affairs of the subcontinent drew on British historical writing that began to appear in the 1760s. Commentators from Robert Orme to Alexander Dow had cast doubt on the highly schematised perspectives that survived down to Montesquieu from the Jesuit literature of the late seventeenth century. It emerged from British observers that the brutality of regional commanders like the Nawab of Arcot was a symptom of the disintegration of Mughal authority between 1707 and 1740. At the same time, it was commonly understood that this relatively recent eruption of marauding expansionism violated primordial Hindu rights that had survived the various waves of Islamic inundation since the twelfth century. What increasingly disturbed Burke after 1779 was the suggestion that the greatest threat to the established principalities and property in India was less the recidivist barbarism of opportunists like the Nawab of Arcot than the paramount power of British arms in both Madras and Bengal. With the American war consuming the energy of parliament in 1780

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