East India Company: #4 -The "Never Again" Man

Warren Hastings’ replacement was Lord Charles Cornwallis, writes William Dalrymple in The Anarchy. Cornwallis, the man who had surrendered the thirteen American colonies to George Washington. Never again, he swore, would he allow a colony to gain independence. Cornwallis brought in “unembarrassedly racist legislation” to prevent the British from mixing with the natives. After all, wasn’t that exactly what led to the American freedom struggle? Never again… And so began the phase of discrimination and contempt for non-whites.

By now, the EIC’s revenue streams were so large that Cornwallis could out-finance all the EIC’s rivals, buy off enemies or hire armies to defeat them:

“The colonial conquest of India was as much bought as fought.”

It was this new, well financed army that now bore down on Tipu and forced terms of surrender that cut down his power to a point where he was no longer a possible rival to the EIC. Cornwallis also introduced the zamindari system: “just get EIC the revenue” was the mantra, nothing else matters.

The EIC had become truly unassailable in eastern and southern India. It had more money and secure revenue streams than anybody else. And that set off a cycle: it made sense for Indian financers to lend to the EIC since they were the strongest and hence most likely to win… and pay back money with interest.

So had the EIC now won for good, at least in eastern and southern India? While they may have become top dog within India, there was now an external threat looming large on the horizon: Napoleon, with his conquest of Egypt, was now eyeing India…