Too big to fail - how an 18th century corporate giant, the East India Company, came to dominate India and prepare the path of empire

The Anarchy – the relentless rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

published by Bloomsbury Publishing   Price - £30

 This excellent chronicle of the rise and fall of the East India Company (EIC) has real resonance for the world today.

The East India Company was in many ways the first transnational corporation, starting life as a trading company in 1599.

Author William Dalrymple notes that for some time the Company struggled to get “a foothold in India and the region.” This though all changed in the mid-18^th century, with the EIC effectively transforming from being a trading company to an aggressive military combatant in the region. By 1750, the Company had a 200,000 strong standing army.

Dalrymple nicely summarises the transformation of the EIC over the 35 years to 1798,  “from a trading company to a privately owned imperial power with a standing army and territorial possession far larger than that of its parent country.”

The out of control nature of the Company, which was run by a group of directors from Leadenhall Street in the City of London, was revealed in the 1770s when it hit difficulties. At the time the Company accounted for half of all British trade – it amounted to a channel to transport Indian wealth into the pockets of the English elite.

The joint stock nature of the Company structure meant that many in the elite of society – including a large number of politicians – were heavily invested in the enterprise. So when it hit trouble, the EIC was regarded as too large to fail. A phrase applied more recently applied to unaccountable banks going bust in the 2008 financial crash.

The 1770s crisis also marked the point when Parliament would come to regulate and control more and more of the Companies activities. A major regulatory role was the price exacted for a huge £1.4 million loan extended to the Company by Parliament in 1773.

While operating as what amounted to a corporate mercenary the Company managed to take over running most of India - defeating the previous Mughal Empire rulers, then other pretenders such as the Nawabs, the Marathas and Rohillas.

Key players over the years were Robert Clive, a bold brutal British adventurer, who really established the military vice that was to extend out across India. Then power was consolidated under the likes of governor generals Warren Hastings, Philip Francis, George Cornwallis and latterly the Richard and Arthur Wellesley.

In the background to the ongoing effort to take over more and more Indian territory was a proxy war going on with the French for control of the continent. At one point in the late 1790s, there is an appeals from Tipu Sultan direct to Napoleon to support them against the British.

Meantime, the last influential governor general for the Company was Richard Wellesley, ably supported by his younger brother Arthur – later better known as the Duke of Wellington. The Wellesleys finished off the effort of the Company to take over most parts of plunderable India, whilst also moving the enterprise ever more closely under the control of the British State. It took though until 1857 before the Company was effectively no more, with India passing under the total control of the British Empire.

The great strength of this book is in revealing the truly brutal and aggressive nature of those pursuing the early stages of creating the rudiments of what was to become the British Empire. Dalrymple does a great service to history with this work that reveals the reality of what really went on, rather than the shiny image often presented in British history books of empire as some sort of civilising force for humanity