Close X
Friday, November 1, 2024
ADVT 
India

Has Dalrymple Stirred Fresh Controversy With Marwari Remark?

Darpan News Desk IANS, 11 Oct, 2019 09:59 PM

    Scottish historian and award winning author William Dalrymple recreated his latest work, "The Anarchy" at the launch of a seven-city book tour here, contending that the East India Company (EIC), which later morphed into the British Raj, was the "greatest corporate coup in history".

     

    But, has he stirred a controversy by contending that this was fuelled by the Marwari businessmen of Bengal?


    "This will come as a surprise to most Indians, but Marwari businessmen and their capital aided the East India Company," Dalrymple said adding that the EIC and the businessmen "came from different lands and spoke different languages but they both understood the common language of accounts and profit".


    The Marwaris "knew that their capital would be safe with the Company", he maintained before a packed audience at The Imperial hotel here on Thursday evening.


    Why would the Marwaris side with the EIC, was there no sense of patriotism, his interlocutor, journalist Vir Sanghvi, asked during a tête-à-tête after Dalrymple unveiled, with the aid of a slide show, the basic elements of "The Anarchy".


    The Marwaris, as also the Indian "elite" of the time, realised that the Mughal empire was crumbling and switched to the winning side.


    "It would be like voting for the Congress...you know they're not going to win," Dalrymple said amidst much laughter in a reference to the 2004 general elections that saw the Grand Old Party voted out of power by the Bharatiya Janata Party.


    "The Company seemed to be on the winning side and it made business sense to keep it happy," the author said.


    He also ascribed the fall of the Mughal empire largely to Mohammad Shah Rangeela (1719-48).


    "Delhi, at the time, was the biggest city between Istanbul and Tokyo. It was an overripe mango waiting to be picked and Nadir Shah (the founder of Persia's Afsharid dynasty) was the first to strike. Despite being heavily outnumbered, he defeated the Mughal army (at what is now the city of Karnal). He then invited Rangeela for lunch and the idiot accepted. He then stayed in Delhi for a while and departed with wagon-loads of wealth, including the Peacock Throne," Dalrymple said.


    Many historians believe that had Nadir Shah not invaded India, the history of the Mughal empire, as also that of British colonial rule in India, could have been quite different.


    "The East India Company remains today history's most ominous warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power - and the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders can seemingly become those of the state. For, as recent American adventures in Iraq have shown, our world is far from post-imperial, and quite probably will never be," the book says.


    Imperialism is transforming itself into forms of global power that use campaign contributions and commercial lobbying, multinational finance systems and global markets, corporate influence and the predictive data harvesting of the new surveillance -capitalism rather than - or sometimes alongside - overt military conquest, occupation or direct economic domination to effect its ends.


    "Four hundred and twenty years after its founding, the story of the East India Company has never been more current," Dalrymple writes.


    "We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that began seizing great chunks in India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by a violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator - (Robert) Clive. India's transition to colonialism took place under a for-profit corporation entirely for the purpose of enriching its investors," the book says.


    "The Company's conquest of India almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history. For all the power wielded today by the world's largest corporations - whether ExxonMobil, Walmart or Google - they are tame beasts compared with the ravaging territorial appetites of the militarised East India Company," Dalrymple writes.


    The book tour will take Dalrymple to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai and Kochi before concluding on October 22.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Foreigners Visiting India Can Now Get Treatment Without Medical Visa: Centre

    The decision has been taken as some foreigners, who are already in India on valid visas, were facing difficulties in availing medical treatment in the event of their falling sick during their stay.    

    Foreigners Visiting India Can Now Get Treatment Without Medical Visa: Centre

    In-Laws Live In Kashmir, Not Spoken To Them In 22 Days: Urmila Matondkar

    "The question is not about abrogating Article 370 but the manner in which it was done," the Congress politician told the media.

    In-Laws Live In Kashmir, Not Spoken To Them In 22 Days: Urmila Matondkar

    Imran Khan Warns Of 'Direct Military Confrontation' With India If World Ignores Kashmir

    In a piece titled "The World Can't Ignore Kashmir. We Are All in Danger", Khan says that "if the world does nothing to stop the Indian assault on Kashmir and its people, two nuclear-armed states will get ever closer to a direct military confrontation".    

    Imran Khan Warns Of 'Direct Military Confrontation' With India If World Ignores Kashmir

    Not In Politics To Get Clicked Or Blow My Own Trumpet: Sunny Deol

    Actor and BJP MP Sunny Deol said that he doesn't pay attention to people's reaction about “his fledgling political career because he believes in quietly doing his work”.

    Not In Politics To Get Clicked Or Blow My Own Trumpet: Sunny Deol

    Pakistan’s Gopal Singh Chawla On Jalandhar Police Radar For Espionage

    Pro-Khalistan leader and former secretary of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee Gopal Singh Chawla is on the radar of the Jalandhar (Rural) police following the arrest of his ‘aide’ Harpal Singh Pala for espionage from Bhatija village of Kartarpur three days ago.

    Pakistan’s Gopal Singh Chawla On Jalandhar Police Radar For Espionage

    Aspiring TV Actress Pearl Punjabi Commits Suicide By Jumping Off Terrace Of Apartment In Mumbai

    The Mumbai police have issued a statement on aspiring actress Pearl Punjabi's suicide case.

    Aspiring TV Actress Pearl Punjabi Commits Suicide By Jumping Off Terrace Of Apartment In Mumbai