The Anarchy

Books like this are tough to read. Not because Dalrymple's writing is hard to follow or the history suspect, but rather the opposite: it's just such a clear and depressing march towards atrocity.

The running theme is Dalrymple's comparison of EIC era looting with modern sums of wealth. It helps wrap the mind around just what a tantalizing target India was for corporate looting. The tactics and escalating scale of the EIC are scrutinized in the own words of British politicians and powerbrokers and care is taken to depict the Mughal leaders whose collaboration and conflict with a corporation would decapacitate their own empire.

The only major fault would be Dalrymple's treatment of EIC Governor-general William Hastings and Shah Alam is relatively sympathetic to their openly rapacious brethren. No matter how kind their sentiment to the Indian population was compared to the likes of Clive, rampant exploitation with a kind hand is hardly redemptive. There are no heros in charge during the anarchy.

Really enjoyed this.
It's also a lot more than a history of EIC - you see innovative strategies, waning nations, power vacuums, opportunities in chaos.
It has made me re-appraise my view on global trade and commerce.

গুরুজনেরা বলেন ইতিহাস থেকে শিক্ষা নিতে। তারপর ইতিহাস বইটি কেটে-ছেঁটে এমন এক পর্যায়ে আনা হয় যেখান থেকে গুরুজনেরা যা শিক্ষা দিতে চান সেইটুকুই শুধু পাওয়া যায়। খুব বেশি ইতিহাস বই নেই যাকে আমরা ডালরিম্পল সাহেবের মত ‘হিস্ট্রি অব অ্যাডমোনিশান' বলতে পারি।
তো, ইতিহাস আমাদের কী শিক্ষা দেয়? প্রথম শিক্ষা মনে হয় নেড়া অসীম সংখ্যকবার বেলতলায় যায়। তবে ইতিহাস যা আসলে কিছু পাদটীকাসহ একটি খুনের ফর্দ, তার সবচেয়ে গভীর শিক্ষাটি বোধহয় টিপু সুলতানের পরাজয়ের যুদ্ধের এই অফিসার থেকে পাওয়া যায়:

James Kirkpatrick, who was in the second column, had gazed across the river and seen Tipu's magnificent Mughal-style garden palace, ‘Lall Baug, in all its glory', the day before: ‘Alas!' he wrote to his father, ‘it fell sacrifice to the emergencies of war.' The palace was made a hospital for the wounded and the beautiful garden ‘toppled to supply materials for the siege. Whole avenues of tall and majestic cypresses were in an instant laid low, nor was the orange, apple, sandal tree or even the fragrant bowers of rose and jasmine spared in this indiscriminate ruin. You might have seen in our batteries fascines of rose bushes, bound with jasmine and picketed with pickets of sandal wood. The very pioneers themselves became scented ...'

The East India Company limped on in its amputated form for another fifteen years when its charter expired, finally quietly shutting down in 1874, ‘with less fanfare,' noted one commentator, ‘than a regional railway bankruptcy'.

Its brand name is now owned by two brothers from Kerala who use it to sell ‘condiments and fine foods' from a showroom in London's West End.