Britain's First Encounter with India

When India became independent I was only 7 years old. I remember wearing a white frock and carrying the Indian flag and singing ‘Jan Gan Man Adhinayak Jaya He’ the Indian national anthem, every Sunday to school. I heard so many stories about the British rule and the Indian freedom fighters and how we had now become a free country. I decided that one day I would read the history and find out how this all started and how it lasted for almost 200 years.

How it all started

The first Britisher to arrive in India was a catholic priest called Father Stevens, who came from Lisbon, Portugal to Goa, India on 4th April 1579. He came as a missionary to establish Christianity in the far lands.

After staying in India for some time he wrote letters to his father in England, saying that there was a huge scope for trade with India and the East Indies. After this many merchants and explorers had discussions on his letters, and they decided to try their luck and started sailing towards India, for trading purposes.

The British first landed on Indian soil at the Port of Surat in August 1608. Over the next few years the Dutch also arrived and starting competing with the British over trade and both started employing troops to build their respective armies. Prior to this, the British had been trading with the Arabs. They were very clever; when they entered India they brought Arab people with them as the Arabs could communicate with the Mughals (the arabic and farsi (persian) speakers who had come to India since the 8th century and were ruling many Indian kingdoms) so the British did not find settling in India difficult. The wealthy and educated Indian aristocrats received education in Arabic. At the same time, the British travellers learnt Arabic for their personal economic gains. This way the language barrier was not there. Over time, of course, the British trained their officers in the Indian languages too.

As they say, business has a common language all over the world: the language of money, so the British used their gold and silver for trading with the Indians, and this is how they made a place for themselves and settled in India.

Here to stay

When the first Europeans arrived in the late 15th/early 16th century for trading, India was split into many medium and small sized kingdoms. Over the years they established trade links with several kingdoms and continued to dominate the indian-european trade through the 16th century. The company was called East India Company of England and later became East India Company of Britain. The company was initially formed to trade in the area next to the Indian Ocean but the company ended up expanding to occupy large parts of India. The focus of the company was trade, not building an empire in India.

The British were very successful compared to other European countries, and expanded their trading operations in India. In many places, they established trading offices along the east and west coasts of India and considerable British communities developed around the main cities, like Madras and Mumbai. They traded mainly silk, Indigo die, cotton, tea and opium. It was 7 years after arriving in India that the emperor Janghir gave them permission to build their first factory under the leadership of Sir Thomas Roe in Calcutta. After this the East India company also got permission from Vijayanagar empire to set up another factory in Madras.

While doing their trading business, they also realised that all the kingdoms were independent and they started planning to bring them all together. By 1750, the East India company began entering Indian politics. The company saw the rise of its fortunes and its transformation from trading company to a ruling company. One of its military officials Robert Clive defeated the forces of Siraj ud Daulat in the battle of Plassey, which really started the path towards political takeover.

The Battle of Plassey

This battle holds great historical significance as this was the first battle the British fought and won to take over an Indian state. After this they took over more and more states and soon governed the whole of India, and we had to go through slavery for almost 200 years. This battle took place on the banks of river Bhagirathi at Plassey which was about 150 kilometers from Calcutta and south of Murshidabad, the capital of Bengal. The war was fought on the 23rd of June 1757. To fight this battle Nawab Siraj ud Daula (ruler of the kingdom of Bengal) had a very large army but the Britishers had only 300 soldiers against such a large army. The Britishers were very shrewd diplomats; they knew that it would be difficult for them to fight such a large army and it was impossible for Robert Clive to collect such a large army so far away from England, but Clive had a deep interest in India.

During the battle the monsoon storms began and drenched the battleground and the soldiers. The armour of the Indians was not sufficient protection, while the Britishers protected their weapons very well in tents. After the rain stopped the battle started again.

The battle of Plassey was fought between the Governor of the East India company and the Nawab of Bengal Siraj Ud Daulat, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The East India company won the Battle of Plassey. It was possible only due to the defection of Bengal’s Military General and the Nawab’s right hand man Mir Jafar Ali Khan. Jaafar Ali Khan didn’t fight with/lead the Nawab’s army because Clive had promised that if he helped to defeat the Nawab, he would make Jaafar Ali Khan the new Nawab. In greed he agreed to the deal.

When the Nawab found that his army was losing, he fled. Later he was captured and killed by the Britishers. After that Mr. Jafar was appointed as the Nawab of Bengal, which was under the control of the East India company.

Many such battles were fought and through shrewd tactics the British eventually took over the whole of India and put India officially under British rule.

What followed was tremendous unrest for 200 years until India finally fought and got Independence from the British on August 15, 1947, but that’s a very long and eventful story for another day…

Jai Hind! Long Live India!