Treasure Seekers: Empires of India Page #4

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When the door opened the next morning,

at least 40 British were dead.

"The Black Hole of Calcutta"

they called it,

and the incident sparked uproar.

It was just what Clive had been

waiting for.

Here was a chance to really

take control of India

and make a name for himself.

He received command of

a small British army.

Clive and his troops hit Bengal

like a monsoon.

In 1757, he swept into Calcutta and

forced the Nawab's troops to withdraw.

With promises of lucrative deals,

Clive then strong armed

an Indian prince

into joining him in a

military alliance against Siraj.

With typical guile,

Clive secured the allegiance of his

Indian allies with fraudulent treaties.

Finally, he marched into Bengal

with 800 European troops and

over 2,000 Indian sepoys.

It was an impressive force

but nothing compared to what Siraj

mustered against him.

by the French

and 50 pieces of state of the art

heavy artillery.

The two armies met near a town

called Plassey.

The Nawab's superiority

may have seemed overwhelming

but Clive knew that discipline,

not numbers, was the key.

The Europeans had already

gone through something

like a bureaucratic

military revolution

in the organization of their armies.

Everyone is trained to act in unison

and it is not heroic battle action

which matters but the discipline

of formation

and quick succession to anybody who

falls in the field of battle,

exactly as one faceless bureaucrat

is replaced by another.

Clive was outnumbered enormously,

but he could use his resources

much more effectively.

Faced by the disciplined phalanxes

of the British trained troops,

the Mughal army fell apart.

Clive's triumph at Plassey

effectively gave India to the British.

Although the British empire in India

would not be formally declared

for another 100 years,

India now belonged to the

British East India Company.

Clive became known as the Master of

Bengal and lost no time

in turning his position into an

astonishingly lucrative business.

He had learned the technique years

ago as a quartermaster in Madras.

Indian merchants were prepared

to do anything

to ensure their continued good

relations with the East India Company.

On the same principle,

the Prince of Bengal now paid Clive

huge sums to ensure his favor.

On top of this Clive was collecting

trade and land revenues.

Within the space of two years

he had amassed a huge fortune.

But with the action over,

it was not long before Clive slumped

into another cycle of depression,

accompanied now by agonizing pains in

his stomach, gout and prostration.

In 1760 he returned to England

as Clive of India a very rich,

very famous and very sick man.

When Clive returned to London,

one of the only things that could

drag him from his gloom

was the prospect of

a spending spree.

He now had wealth, recognition,

fame in India

the only thing he didn't have was

social position in England.

He decided he would buy his way

into the English upper classes.

He hungrily set out to amass property

and social status in equal measure.

He remodeled the family home

at S0tyche, and bought four more

a luxurious town house in

London's Berkeley Square,

two more estates in England

and one in Ireland too.

He engineered himself a seat in

Parliament and one for his father also.

The power and reach of

Clive's money was huge

but not limitless.

The one thing Robert Clive wanted

more than anything else was

to be accepted by the establishment

and the aristocracy

and for people to consider him

a gentleman.

He did flash his money around.

And sadly, people considered him

to be rather vulgar.

They didn't like this chap coming

back from India out of nowhere

and buying all these estates

and big houses and,

you know, sort of buying his own

furniture if you like.

Clive soon found himself mired

in the intricacies of the

English class system.

Try as he might, spend as he might,

the inner circles of the aristocracy

would not let him in.

His rough manners only made things

worse for him.

They called him a 'nabob',

English slang based on the Hindi

word 'Nawab' or ruler.

The nabob is a pejorative

expression for an Englishman

who has given up to bad stomach,

bad digestion,

bad temper as a result of

overindulgence in India.

And usually plundered India

and made a lot of money.

They're something like robber barons

in fact.

And their idea was to

make a fortune here and then

establish themselves in England

as respectable notables.

And try to make a political

career there.

Now in England they were looked upon

as adventurers who were slightly seedy,

and Clive was a classic example

of that.

The English aristocracy closed

its doors in Clive's face.

But Clive was not to be put off.

Still intent on his social climb,

Clive decided to try a different tack.

To enhance his reputation, he agreed

to return to India in a different role.

No longer just the businessman,

but now statesman as well.

In 1765,

only five years after leaving,

the 40 year old Clive returned

to India

as governor of the

British East India Company.

He now cast himself as a high minded

champion of British interests.

Clive's mission was to clean up the

practices of the British in India.

They certainly needed it.

In the eight years since

Clive's victory at Plassey,

profiteering had run wild in Bengal.

The British had achieved an effective

trade monopoly.

British merchants and soldiers

strong armed

and extorted money from

Bengali traders

just as Clive himself had once done.

Resentment was seething.

Clive countered the growing unrest

with a tone of patrician contempt

for all the practices

that had made him rich.

The confusion we behold,

what does it arise from?

Rapacity and luxury;

the unreasonable desire of many

to acquire in an instant,

what only a few can

or ought to possess.

With almost biblical fervor,

Clive launched reforms outlawing

the abuses he had instituted.

In a whirlwind 20 months

Clive totally revamped the

British East India Company.

By the end of it he was drained.

And it was now that disaster struck.

In 1769 the monsoon rains

failed in Bengal.

And in 1770 famine set in.

Hundreds of thousands died

as much as one third of the population.

Share prices for the East India

Company's stock plummeted.

By 1772 the Company's credit

had failed.

Meanwhile stories were

circulating that

English merchants were hoarding rice

as Indians starved.

There was a public outcry

against the company.

People looked for a scapegoat.

Fingers pointed at Clive.

It was a bitter irony.

Only as Clive was at last making

a noble hearted effort

to clear up the morass of greed

in India,

was he finally accused of being

its cause.

A parliamentary committee was formed

to investigate the company

and Clive's role in it.

The accusation?

Extortion and profiteering in India.

As usual, energized by the prospect

of a fight,

Clive rose magnificently to his own

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