1 00:00:06,440 --> 00:00:10,120 Just over 400 years ago, a group of London merchants arrived here 2 00:00:10,120 --> 00:00:13,840 on the Indian coast, hoping to do some peaceful trading. 3 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:18,000 Those early pioneers dreamt of making huge profits. 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:23,040 From humble beginnings, this ragtag band of adventurers secured land 5 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:28,320 from Indian rulers, formed alliances with local craftsmen and built 6 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:32,040 from scratch a commercial enterprise to export goods to Britain. 7 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:37,720 The East India Company was part of this tremendous globalisation 8 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:40,440 of the world which really started in the 17th century 9 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:43,520 and speeded up in the 18th and 19th centuries. 10 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,400 Over 200 years the Company grew into a commercial titan. 11 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:50,800 Its wealth rivalled that of the British State. 12 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:58,240 It had its own army and eventually ruled over 400 million people. 13 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:02,680 Its trade was vital to Britain's commercial success 14 00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:07,120 and its shares were the centre point of London's financial markets. 15 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:10,120 It revolutionised the British lifestyle. 16 00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:12,200 The East India Company changed the way we dress, 17 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:16,280 it changed the way we eat, it changed the way we socialise. 18 00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:22,320 And, by accident, created one of the most powerful empires in history. 19 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:28,000 They were instrumental in making Britain the maritime superpower, 20 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:32,160 they helped lay the foundations for our own global trading system 21 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:36,280 today and they also helped to make English the world's language. 22 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:41,960 Every step of the Company's rise is recorded in a unique archive. 23 00:01:41,960 --> 00:01:45,200 "What a lucky fellow you are, Charley, going to India. 24 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:48,000 "You lead such a luxurious life. Why, you dog! 25 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,560 "When you come home you will be a rich man." 26 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,920 But the letters and diaries also chart its fall 27 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:56,800 into profiteering, nepotism and corruption... 28 00:01:56,800 --> 00:01:58,960 "Every ancient friend of the family 29 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:01,680 "hoped I should live to be a major general..." 30 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:05,840 ..and eventually a chilling story of drug-running and famine. 31 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:08,360 "Numbers of famishing wretches followed our army 32 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,400 "for the sole purpose of existing on the offal of the camp." 33 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:16,360 This is the story of the greatest company the world has ever known. 34 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:47,080 By 1880 the East India Company had grown from a tiny band of merchants 35 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:53,000 with a small foothold in India into a colossal trading empire, 36 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:58,040 pouring wealth into the pockets of its shareholders back in Britain. 37 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:11,560 They had conquered the wealthy region of Bengal and bled it dry... 38 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:17,240 ..amplifying the effects of a deadly famine, 39 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:19,920 leading to the deaths of millions of people 40 00:03:19,920 --> 00:03:22,720 in a human tragedy of unprecedented scale. 41 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:28,760 The British were horrified and the government was forced to step in. 42 00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,920 From that point on the state's grip grew ever tighter 43 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:35,520 as it attempted to control this voracious monster. 44 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:41,760 A new chapter in its history began. 45 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:44,440 From now on its affairs in India would be run 46 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:48,120 by a Board of Control appointed by the British government. 47 00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:50,280 And Parliament would gradually transform 48 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:52,880 the way that the Company functioned in India. 49 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,800 This new role as ruler of India would herald a new attitude 50 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:08,160 towards its subjects. 51 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:12,560 Over time, the British would grow more distant and aloof. 52 00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:21,040 They increasingly see a need to separate themselves from the people 53 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:25,160 that they're ruling and to create a sense of British prestige around 54 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:28,600 themselves as the ruling race and the people who are in charge. 55 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,000 Neglecting its relationship with the people of India 56 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,360 - carefully cultivated over the previous centuries - 57 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:41,400 would prove a terrible mistake 58 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:43,960 and threaten the Company's very existence. 59 00:04:47,560 --> 00:04:50,480 In the 19th century the biggest risk to the Company 60 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:54,240 would be the emerging struggle between trade and Empire. 61 00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:59,000 This conflict was intensified by one man when, in 1798, 62 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,640 he was given the top job in India. 63 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:05,840 Governor-General of the Bengal Presidency, Lord Richard Wellesley. 64 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,400 Wellesley was from a grand, aristocratic family back home 65 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,120 and he took one look at Government House in Calcutta 66 00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:27,520 and decided that something a little more ostentatious was required 67 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:30,080 to reflect the power of the British in India, 68 00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:32,120 not to mention his own exalted status. 69 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:35,760 And so he built this, the new Government House. 70 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,440 It's not much, but it's home. 71 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:47,960 The cost of the project rang alarm bells 72 00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:51,080 back at Company headquarters in Leadenhall Street. 73 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:54,880 But of more concern were Wellesley's outright imperial ambitions, 74 00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:57,480 which clashed with the Company's stated objectives 75 00:05:57,480 --> 00:05:59,560 to minimise military expenditure. 76 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:05,280 In London the directors were keen to avoid wars. 77 00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:08,080 Their costs were certain, their outcomes less so. 78 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:10,600 But Wellesley dismissed the concerns of the people 79 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:13,680 he described as the cheesemongers of Leadenhall Street. 80 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:15,720 He was here with a personal agenda, 81 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:17,720 one supported by the British government, 82 00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:20,120 and it had little to do with the rag trade. 83 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:23,520 He wanted to smash the vestiges of French power in India, 84 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:25,560 wipe out local opposition 85 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:28,560 and extend British rule across the subcontinent. 86 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:30,640 And from 14,000 miles away, 87 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:33,600 there was little the directors could do to stop him. 88 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:41,440 Wellesley had set his sights on a formidable Muslim adversary - 89 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:44,000 Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. 90 00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:55,800 The rich, battle-hardened Muslim leader of Mysore 91 00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:59,600 was the East India's Company's most intractable enemy. 92 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:04,160 Three times in three decades his family had fought the Company. 93 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:07,200 They were known as the Terrors of Leadenhall Street. 94 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:10,080 And now Wellesley discovered that on top of it all, 95 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:12,680 they were in league with the French. 96 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:19,760 I think he identified quite early on that if he could play the French 97 00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:25,120 and British off against each other he could expand at their expense. 98 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:29,320 The French were at the time Britain's main global rival 99 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:33,880 for the status of global superpower and that was being played out 100 00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:37,320 in India as it was in North America and other arenas. 101 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:45,880 A striking force of around 4,000 East India Company troops 102 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,360 - many of them native soldiers or sepoys - 103 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,840 attacked Tipu's fort in Seringapatam. 104 00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:55,360 Inside with his men, the Tiger was ready to do battle. 105 00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:02,800 A ruler who prided himself on military prowess 106 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:05,840 had to have an extensive, extravagant, 107 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:09,400 ornate collection of weapons in his personal arsenal. 108 00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:11,440 And here are some of them. 109 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:13,600 The sword was the emblem of manhood in this period, 110 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:15,520 the emblem of a great ruler. 111 00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:17,560 and judging by these swords, 112 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:21,800 Tipu Sultan was a deeply religious man and a deeply aggressive one. 113 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:24,240 Look at this fabulous sword here. 114 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:28,120 The hilt is entirely covered in gold. 115 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:32,040 Gold tiger clasping a steel blade in its mouth. 116 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:35,160 This man was absolutely obsessed with the tiger motif. 117 00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:37,200 He lived his life as a tiger. 118 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:39,240 In fact, his favourite expression was, 119 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:41,240 "It's better to live one day as a tiger 120 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:43,360 "than a thousand days as a sheep." 121 00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:46,000 What I love about this particular blade is on the hilt 122 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:48,400 is written an expression in Persian. 123 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:50,440 "This blade is the lightning 124 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:52,800 "that flashes though the lives of infidels." 125 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:55,840 Probably quite near the end of their lives, I expect. 126 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:59,320 And on here is the name of Tipu Sultan himself 127 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:01,800 and Allah and Muhammad his prophet. 128 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:06,920 This was a man who believed that he was engaged in holy war. 129 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:12,080 He was God's instrument on Earth and his task was to destroy infidels, 130 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:14,840 driving them out from the Indian subcontinent. 131 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:20,480 But this time it wasn't to be. 132 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,000 After a month-long siege, Tipu's stronghold fell 133 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:26,040 and the tiger was slaughtered. 134 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:30,760 The significance of the defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799 135 00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:34,040 is that it's the beginning of the end of the independence 136 00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:37,720 of the great southern principalities in India. 137 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:41,000 It meant of course that British paramountcy was beginning 138 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:43,360 to be established in that region of India 139 00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:45,400 and that the Madras Presidency, 140 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:48,440 the most southern of the East India Company presidencies, 141 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:51,720 was increasing, territorially, hugely in size 142 00:09:51,720 --> 00:09:55,240 in this very short five or six years 143 00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:58,680 of Richard Wellesley's time as Governor-General. 144 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:04,880 Almost immediately after Tipu's death, 145 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:07,520 his palace of treasures was looted. 146 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:10,320 The Company's troops could hardly contain themselves 147 00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:13,240 when they came across Tipu's showpiece. 148 00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:23,160 This comes from Tipu Sultan's unbelievably flamboyant throne he had built. 149 00:10:23,160 --> 00:10:26,320 These little tiger heads would have sat atop the edge of the throne, 150 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:28,640 and like this one here they're all covered in gold, 151 00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:31,960 set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. 152 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,120 This would have been so striking that really it sealed its own fate 153 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,880 because as soon as the East India Company's Prize Committee 154 00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:41,160 - the people responsible for giving out rewards to its troops - 155 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,200 set their beady little eyes on this, 156 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:46,560 they hacked it up and gave it away or sold it off. 157 00:10:46,560 --> 00:10:50,160 Some of those pieces arrived back here in Britain. 158 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:54,440 It's a tiny glimpse into what must have been one of the most 159 00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:57,320 spectacular objects these people had ever seen. 160 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:11,520 When news of the Tiger's death reached Britain, 161 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:13,560 there was jubilation. 162 00:11:13,560 --> 00:11:16,200 It turns out the British people didn't share Tipu Sultan's 163 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:18,800 opinion of himself as a noble servant of God. 164 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,000 They thought he was an extremist tyrant. 165 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,200 There were parties and balls cross the country, 166 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,240 decorations and medals were struck. 167 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:29,400 Artists got in on the act and painted depictions of the final battle. 168 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:31,920 This wasn't being celebrated as a private, 169 00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:34,440 commercial triumph for the East India Company, 170 00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,960 but as a moment of national, public achievement. 171 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:40,960 There was now nothing else standing in the way 172 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:44,480 of total British domination in the subcontinent. 173 00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:55,680 With the vast, rich kingdom of Mysore now under their dominion, 174 00:11:55,680 --> 00:11:59,080 the Company's power in India was growing. 175 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:01,360 But territorial growth meant bigger 176 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:03,920 and more expensive armies to hold it. 177 00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:08,240 The cost of this could ruin the Company but from their offices in London, 178 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:11,840 the directors were powerless to contain Lord Wellesley. 179 00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:15,800 Wellesley saw himself as a ruler, not a merchant and, 180 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:17,920 like countless other empire builders, 181 00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:22,040 he developed an insatiable desire for ever-wider expansion. 182 00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:24,640 He spent a vast amount of money that should have been 183 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:27,360 for commercial purposes on conquest. 184 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,000 He wrote a bragging letter home to Britain, saying that 185 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:34,080 he was satisfying, "the voracious appetite for lands and fortresses." 186 00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:37,920 He went on to say, "Seringapatam ought, I think, to stay your 187 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:42,000 "stomach for a while, not to mention Tanjore and the Poliga countries. 188 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,480 "Perhaps I may be able to give you a supper of Oudh 189 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:47,520 "and the Carnatic, if you should still be hungry." 190 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:53,400 Against the Company's wishes, 191 00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:56,040 Wellesley annexed more and more Indian territory. 192 00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:58,080 Vast swathes of southern, 193 00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:01,000 western and northern India fell to the British. 194 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:06,040 One quoted contemporaneous at the time is that he's increased 195 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,000 the population of British India by 40 million. 196 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,640 So this is a massive expansion and it's really the time when the 197 00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:14,960 East India Company moves from paramountcy, 198 00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:17,760 from being the major influential power, 199 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:20,000 to being the major territorial power. 200 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,520 It's the start, in effect, of the British Empire. 201 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:27,280 Wellesley had completely transformed the Company's position in India, 202 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:30,040 even whilst the directors back in Britain were complaining 203 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:32,880 that his actions were taking them into debt. 204 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:34,880 By the time he was finished, 205 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:39,120 Britain controlled an area that was ten times the size of the British Isles, 206 00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:42,200 with a population of 180 million people. 207 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:46,760 That's one sixth of the entire global population at the time. 208 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:08,760 An important part of Wellesley's plans 209 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,640 was bringing a little bit of Britishness to India. 210 00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:25,480 When Calcutta all got a bit too much for Wellesley and the greater good 211 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,560 of British society, they would head 16 miles north to Barrackpore. 212 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,200 But they travelled in slightly more refined style. 213 00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:55,960 "Barrackpore is a charming place, 214 00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:58,760 "like a beautiful English villa on the banks of the Thames. 215 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:00,800 "So green and fresh." 216 00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:10,760 "The Governor General has a country residence with a fine park there. 217 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:14,040 "During the races the Calcutta world assembles there. 218 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:17,680 "Lady Amherst rendered Government House gay with quadrilles 219 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:19,720 "and displays of fireworks." 220 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:24,800 British officers once lived here 221 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:27,760 in single-storey buildings known as bungalows 222 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:32,000 - one of the many Indian words that has permanently entered the English language. 223 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:35,120 Their decaying remains are still visible today. 224 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:42,920 These crumbling ruins are now all that remains 225 00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:44,920 of the magnificent British homes. 226 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:47,520 You can see how well laid out they were. 227 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:50,800 Nice big gardens, no doubt planted with beautiful beds of flowers, 228 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,440 big airy windows and doors so the breeze, 229 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:56,360 or what breeze there was, could just flow through the house. 230 00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:58,400 Lots of shade, of course, big trees planted. 231 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,080 It's funny, you look at these houses and they're so confident. 232 00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:03,120 Built in the imperial style. 233 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:05,320 The people who lived in them would have been certain 234 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:08,400 that their grasp on India and, in fact, the world, was unshakable. 235 00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,440 And yet here, only a couple of hundred years later, 236 00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:13,840 they're shelters for wild dogs. 237 00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,320 'In the Company's day, it was British officers 238 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:29,880 'who sheltered here from the blistering heat of the sun.' 239 00:16:29,880 --> 00:16:31,920 Thank you very much. Good morning. 240 00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:35,200 'It was generally far too hot to do any actual work.' 241 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:40,320 "My disgraceful laziness is appalling. 242 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:44,000 "I have hardly opened a book or written a line for the last ten days. 243 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,280 "In fact, I have done absolutely nothing but lounge and saunter about." 244 00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:57,960 Barrackpore was given the stamp of approval 245 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,720 when Wellesley chose it as his summer retreat. 246 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,120 This is how Wellesley would have got to Barrackpore 247 00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:07,680 - the river acting like a private highway, 248 00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:09,800 taking him from his palace in Calcutta 249 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:13,000 up to the front steps of his palatial residence here, 250 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:15,920 minimising the time he had to spend in the public space. 251 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,960 I mean, God forbid he would actually have to travel through the country 252 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:22,360 and look out on the plight of the Indians over whom he ruled. 253 00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:31,000 Wellesley spent £50,000 of Company money 254 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:32,840 building himself a palatial residence 255 00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:35,120 at the heart of this British haven. 256 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:51,560 But his burgeoning empire was in direct conflict 257 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:53,480 with the Company's objectives... 258 00:17:56,760 --> 00:17:58,800 ..which were still trade and profit. 259 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:05,920 Attempting to gain the upper hand, 260 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,280 the Court of Directors came up with a plan. 261 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:17,720 They would train a new breed of employee 262 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:20,080 to act on the Company's behalf in India. 263 00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,120 The civil servant. 264 00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:29,600 Civil service is a term coined by the East India Company at this time. 265 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:32,280 It describes a group who had previously been administrators, 266 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:34,240 known as writers. 267 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:36,680 But the use of the term marks an important shift 268 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,640 because in the past these writers hadn't been terribly high quality. 269 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,000 As long as they could read and write and do a bit of maths, 270 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:43,840 they were given the job. 271 00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:46,640 But now there were whole swathes of India to rule over, 272 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,680 they had to know the people. 273 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:50,720 And they had to know how to govern them. 274 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:52,760 It was time for an upgrade. 275 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:59,000 In 1806 the Company opened a new school to train its future 276 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:03,280 governors and administrators - East India College in Hertfordshire, 277 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:05,800 known today as Haileybury College. 278 00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:15,800 To educate this new class of servant, 279 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:18,320 the training was progressive and exacting. 280 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:24,440 The curriculum was pretty demanding. 281 00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:27,720 Just how demanding became clear 282 00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:30,440 when I had a go at an exam in my own favourite subject. 283 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,880 Here's a history one. OK, here we go. 284 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:34,920 OK, for 1851. 285 00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:36,920 "Describe the foundations 286 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,600 "and progress of ecclesiastical wealth and power. 287 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,000 "Distinguish between the depositories of that power 288 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:44,640 "in the ninth century and the 12th..." 289 00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:46,680 Mm-hmm. 290 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:51,960 "In what manner did the Curia regis of the Conqueror 291 00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:54,200 "create and extend the original jurisdiction?" 292 00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,280 OK. I think we'll just leave those actually. 293 00:19:56,280 --> 00:19:58,520 I think we've looked at those enough. 294 00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:02,080 Once every term, the directors would come down. 295 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:05,520 These were known as dye days, at the end of the term, 296 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:11,000 and distribute prizes and medals to Haileyburians 297 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,320 or East India men that had done well. 298 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,560 And these are the medals here. Beautiful, aren't they? 299 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:21,360 That is a medal for Sanskrit, there. It's even got Sanskrit on it. 300 00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:26,400 And the inscription says that the pursuit of knowledge 301 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:30,080 is better than the pursuit of gold, which is very apt. 302 00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:35,520 Self-enrichment would no longer be the sole ambition 303 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:37,840 of young men bound for India. 304 00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:40,320 This new college was educating them with new goals 305 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:42,840 and instilling them with new values. 306 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:48,120 And would it matter how well they'd done at this college? 307 00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:51,360 Would that affect their careers once they got to India? 308 00:20:51,360 --> 00:20:54,400 If you made it through the rigours of the four terms, 309 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,880 it was indeed a job for life. 310 00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:59,040 Guaranteed? Guaranteed. 311 00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:09,000 The same patronage that helped the pupils through their studies here 312 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:11,840 at the school would also smooth their paths once they got to India. 313 00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:14,520 And although there were no longer the opportunities to make 314 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:17,880 vast amounts of money now that private trading had been outlawed, 315 00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:21,200 they were still the highest paid civil servants in the world 316 00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,840 and they had generous living allowances 317 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:26,480 and they even got a commission on tax revenue. 318 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,120 This was still an extremely attractive career 319 00:21:29,120 --> 00:21:31,520 for Britain's most influential classes. 320 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:38,000 "It is with feelings of both pleasure and pride that we can record 321 00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,400 "the fact of you passing through the college at Haileybury 322 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:46,000 "and that the prize in Hindoostanee has been awarded to you. 323 00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,240 "You have passed through the fiery ordeal of college unscathed, 324 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:53,240 "without being contaminated by its vices." 325 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:09,160 Soon they would have to resist the vices of India. 326 00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:13,360 Where earlier Company men had embraced local and religious customs, 327 00:22:13,360 --> 00:22:16,000 now people were becoming alarmed by them. 328 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,480 Especially Britain's growing number of Christian missionaries, 329 00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,760 who had been arriving in India in small numbers, 330 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:23,800 against the Company's wishes. 331 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,280 And in the British Library's archives are some persuasive letters 332 00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:36,520 warning of the consequences of allowing them free rein. 333 00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:43,040 One of the loudest voices was General Charles Stuart, 334 00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:47,120 known as Hindoo Stuart because of his profound love of Hindu culture. 335 00:22:47,120 --> 00:22:49,960 Now this culture was under threat 336 00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,120 so he published his feelings in an effort to protect it. 337 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,240 So Stuart lays it down on the line. 338 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,560 "Is it wise, is it politic, 339 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:06,000 "is it even safe to institute a war of sentiment 340 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,200 "against the only friends of any importance that we seem to have left 341 00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,480 "in India - our faithful subjects of the Ganges." 342 00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:15,160 By which he means the Hindus and the Muslims. 343 00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:20,680 Hindoo Stuart wasn't the only man to regard missionaries with suspicion. 344 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,720 Stark warnings were issued by the famous tea merchant Thomas Twining. 345 00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,040 He's saying that they're facing a danger no less 346 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:34,320 than the threatened extermination of our Eastern sovereignty 347 00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:38,360 and that danger commands them to step forth 348 00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:42,480 and arrest the progress of such rash and unwarrantable proceedings. 349 00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:46,560 Stop the missionaries now before it's too late. 350 00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,360 When men like Twining and Stuart made their feelings public, 351 00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:53,880 the missionaries fought back. 352 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,600 Here is another letter to the poor, long-suffering chairman 353 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,440 of the East India Company, a Court of Directors, 354 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:04,720 from a member of the British Bible Society. 355 00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,480 And he says that Mr Twining's letter is an extraordinary publication 356 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,840 and the plain object is to frighten the Company from imparting 357 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,480 the blessings of Christianity to 50 million people in India, 358 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,160 to represent the circulation of the scriptures amongst them 359 00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,840 as a crime of the deepest dye and most dangerous tendency. 360 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:29,520 Broadly, what was the Company's sort of point of view during this period? 361 00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:34,600 The Company believed that...publicly declared a policy 362 00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:36,960 that they weren't adverse to Christian missionaries 363 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,000 but what they were against 364 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,960 is anything which would disturb the status quo. 365 00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,200 Anything which would make the Hindus, particularly, 366 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:48,560 feel that their religious beliefs were being threatened. 367 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,240 The Company believed that the people of India should be left 368 00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:59,240 to practise their own religions, otherwise they could grow hostile. 369 00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:03,160 And that would jeopardise Britain's position on the subcontinent. 370 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,440 But it wasn't up to the Company any more. 371 00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,160 With ultimate control over its activities in India, 372 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,320 the British Government found itself lobbied by some powerful 373 00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,360 Christian representatives. 374 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,520 The most forceful part of this group were a number 375 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,440 of evangelical Christians who lived around Clapham Common, here. 376 00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,840 They were known as the Clapham Sect 377 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:35,960 and they worshipped here at the Holy Trinity Church. 378 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,200 They were led in Parliament by the veteran humanitarian 379 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,680 campaigner William Wilberforce. 380 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,440 Wilberforce is perhaps best known for his successful campaign 381 00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,000 for the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century. 382 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,240 After that, he turned his attention to India, declaring it... 383 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,440 "The greatest of all causes, for I really place it before Abolition." 384 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,400 Wilberforce, in common with other Clapham Sect members, 385 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:13,400 saw the propagation of Christianity in India as sort of British duty. 386 00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,680 They had a world view that saw everything 387 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,120 that happened as being part of God's plan. 388 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:22,760 And they saw British imperial expansion in India as being 389 00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,240 indicative of God's plan for them to use that platform 390 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,880 to spread the message of Christianity. 391 00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,320 These windows are modern but they clearly reflect the great 392 00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,280 passions that drove Wilberforce through his life. 393 00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:53,040 On the right you can see the work he did getting the slave trade abolished, 394 00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,120 freeing the slaves of the West Indies from their bondage, their servitude. 395 00:26:57,120 --> 00:27:01,200 On the left his other great passion, spreading the Christian message, 396 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,240 evangelizing all over the word. 397 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,480 And you can see the distinctive national dresses 398 00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,560 of all the people in the bottom left, 399 00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,440 from the native Americans to the Indian there as well. 400 00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,320 He believed that everyone was created equal in the eyes of God 401 00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,640 and there were many aspects of religion in India 402 00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:18,640 which he heartily disapproved of. 403 00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,760 For example the caste system, which seemed to enshrine inequality. 404 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,000 He, and the other influential Christians who worshipped here, 405 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,440 wanted Britain to use its rising power 406 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,360 to civilize and Christianise India. 407 00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,680 The British found Hinduism in particular 408 00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,040 very difficult to understand. 409 00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,400 There were a number of Hindu practices that the 410 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,160 East India Company were concerned about, 411 00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,800 in particularly suttee or widow-burning. 412 00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:03,760 Suttee was the Hindu practice of burning widows alive 413 00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,320 on the funeral pyres of their husbands. 414 00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,880 Because of its sort of sensational and emotive appeal, 415 00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,320 it was something that became very prominent 416 00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,440 in the way in which Britons imagined India. 417 00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,160 "Their Divinities are absolute monsters 418 00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,960 "of lust, injustice, wickedness and cruelty. 419 00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:35,560 "In short, their religious system is one of grand abomination." 420 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,320 In 1813 the British government gave way and forced the Company 421 00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,120 to give missionaries full access to India, 422 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,560 sending a dangerous message to its people that the British 423 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:49,960 planned to convert them to Christianity. 424 00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,440 Missionaries were just one of the Parliamentary impositions 425 00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,520 the Company was forced to accept in order to stay in India. 426 00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,600 Just 20 years since Parliament extended its prized Royal Charter, 427 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,640 it was up for renewal again. 428 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,440 Other British merchants took advantage of the deadline. 429 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,760 They wanted a slice of the tea trade 430 00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,880 and pressured the British Government to act. 431 00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,240 Every time the East India Company's Royal Charter 432 00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,160 had come up for renewal there were calls to end 433 00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,000 its commercial monopoly on trade with India. 434 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,000 But it had survived intact for more than 200 years. 435 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,720 But this was now the era of free trade 436 00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,680 and Parliament decided to end that privileged position. 437 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,200 That meant that the East India Company's servants were no 438 00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,680 longer here to trade, to make money through buying and selling, 439 00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,240 but as colonial administrators, 440 00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,720 running its vast territories on behalf of the British Crown. 441 00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:01,760 The 1813 Charter Act marked a complete shift 442 00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:03,800 in the Company's role. 443 00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,520 After some 200 years in India, 444 00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,000 they were no longer here as merchants but as rulers. 445 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,720 And this new position would have a tangible 446 00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,000 effect on the behaviour of the British in India. 447 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,880 Britain was going through a massive Industrial Revolution. 448 00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,520 It was becoming one of the richest, perhaps the richest country in the world, 449 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,000 and the British in India, I think, reflected that change. 450 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,680 They no longer saw themselves as people who'd chosen to live 451 00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,720 in India and had to muddle along and just get on with the locals. 452 00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:35,040 They now saw themselves as part of a superior, advanced, progressive civilisation, 453 00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,600 and they saw themselves increasingly as detached from India. 454 00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,320 The respect for Indian culture that had characterized previous 455 00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,760 generations had completely vanished. 456 00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,960 It was no longer acceptable for an East India Company servant 457 00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,640 to speak like or dress like an Indian. 458 00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,560 They had to now wear European dress and the army soon followed suit. 459 00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,000 European customs and manners were emphasised. 460 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,120 A huge gulf was opening up between the British governing elite 461 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,480 and the Indian subjects. 462 00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,960 By the 19th century you have the British increasingly talking 463 00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:15,360 in terms of a British race, which is somehow different from other races, and embodies different values. 464 00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:17,360 And it wasn't just the British doing it, 465 00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,600 this was what was happening in the 19th century. 466 00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,400 And so when it comes to India you have a lot of the British saying, 467 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,600 "Really, the Indians are an inferior race, 468 00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,600 "they wouldn't be ruled by us if they weren't inferior." 469 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,400 "We should always preserve the European, 470 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,280 "for to adopt their manners is a departure from the very principle 471 00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,040 "on which every impression of our superiority is grounded." 472 00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:43,080 As the British entered the new self-assured Victorian age, 473 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,640 their attitude towards the Indians hardened. 474 00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,280 They were convinced of their own cultural superiority 475 00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:51,120 and they believed that India needed all the help it could get. 476 00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,880 India was a barbaric place and its civilisation was stagnant. 477 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,320 From now on, Company servants and officers who came to India 478 00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:12,600 were influenced by this conviction of moral and racial superiority. 479 00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,360 And so were the growing numbers of British women. 480 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,800 To our ears, their views seem shockingly racist. 481 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,760 "There is something in the idea of gentlemen who never wear any clothes 482 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,360 "picking the fruit you eat which is not at all appetizing." 483 00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,920 "I take all the naked black creatures 484 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,480 "squatting at the doors of their huts in such aversion, 485 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:43,480 "and what with the climate and the strange trees and shrubs, 486 00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:45,920 "I feel like Robinson Crusoe. 487 00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:48,800 "I cannot abide India and that is the truth." 488 00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,320 The refusal to learn local languages, 489 00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,720 dismissing Indians as savage barbarians 490 00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:56,920 incapable of elevated thought. 491 00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,640 These were ignorant views, and ones which ironically confined 492 00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,680 the British into a narrow life that many of them found so boring. 493 00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,080 But perhaps even more than being stupid and racist, 494 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,880 these views were dangerous because if that chasm opens up 495 00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:13,920 between the rulers and the ruled, 496 00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,560 then there's fertile ground for conflict. 497 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,320 The blame for this increasingly racist attitude 498 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,200 has often been entirely levelled at Victorian women. 499 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,840 I think to blame the British women in India for the gulf 500 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,280 that grew between the races is really unfair 501 00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:33,320 and I've always felt it to be unfair. 502 00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,000 The British women were very much part of their own community 503 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,680 and they were part of a community that didn't want a closer involvement with India. 504 00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,720 In fact, the British establishment in India, which was male, of course, 505 00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,120 discouraged women from getting too closely involved in India. 506 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,440 I mean there was a real bias now, among the British men in India, 507 00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,120 that they wanted their women kept separately. 508 00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,000 Few of these Brits had the urge or the need to look outside 509 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,520 the confines of this artificial little bubble. 510 00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,400 Often the only natives they did meet were their own servants. 511 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,800 Thy tried to recreate their old British lives, eating British food 512 00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:14,080 three times a day, planting British seeds in their gardens and wearing 513 00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:18,720 ridiculous British clothing as they went out in the hot Indian sun. 514 00:34:18,720 --> 00:34:21,840 It was an obstinate, desperate attempt to keep a little 515 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,000 piece of Britishness alive, here in the heart of India. 516 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,320 "I keep up as much as possible all English customs, 517 00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,960 "so that when I come to see you all again I hope you will find me 518 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,360 "just as much of an Englishman as I was before I left." 519 00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,720 This determination to Anglicise India was about to gain momentum 520 00:34:59,720 --> 00:35:03,160 with a final shift in the Company's operations and purpose. 521 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,240 The British government closed in on their one remaining, 522 00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:08,520 jealously-guarded trading monopoly. 523 00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:12,600 In the early 1830s the East India Company's charter 524 00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:14,760 came up for renewal once again. 525 00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:18,080 This time its monopoly on trade with China was stripped away 526 00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,120 and all commercial operations came to a halt. 527 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,920 The transition from merchant trading house 528 00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:27,320 to imperial administrator was complete. 529 00:35:40,720 --> 00:35:42,760 As administrator of India, 530 00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,640 the East India Company was allocated a pot of money by the 531 00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,880 British government for "intellectual improvement" of the people. 532 00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,120 But no-one could decide how best to use it. 533 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,400 No-one, that is, until the arrival of one man, 534 00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,840 Thomas Babington Macaulay, 535 00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,920 lawmaker on the newly-created Supreme Council of India. 536 00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,520 And his legacy has left a profound mark on the subcontinent. 537 00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,480 Macaulay when he arrived in India, 538 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:15,320 saw it as his role to establish a very Westernising, 539 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:20,800 Anglicist approach to education and government in India. 540 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,760 He decisively defeated the Orientalist lobby, which had 541 00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:30,880 been in favour of encouraging native Indian classical languages. 542 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:36,000 Macaulay's approach was that India had to be introduced to modern, 543 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:40,280 scientific knowledge via the English language. 544 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,360 It couldn't be done through Indian classical languages. 545 00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,160 These poor young men have got exam week on at that moment. 546 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,600 It's bringing back all sorts of horrible memories 547 00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,480 of my own time at school. 548 00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,200 Macaulay, like many other prominent Victorians, assumed that British 549 00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,680 culture was basically the highest form of human civilisation. 550 00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,240 And he was desperate to try 551 00:37:06,240 --> 00:37:09,120 and bestow some of that on the Indian subjects. 552 00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,800 He envisaged an education system that would create, 553 00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,440 as he said "Indians in blood and colour but English in tastes, 554 00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,280 "Opinions, morals and intellect." 555 00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,840 And the first thing to do was teach them all English. 556 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:27,920 We have traced from the fall of Constantinople, 557 00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:34,600 in 1453 and we had explained to you what Renaissance meant. 558 00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:39,200 Now, tell me one thing, why was this reawakening required? 559 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,400 The spirit of enquiry grows amongst the people 560 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:46,960 and then they wanted to learn new things and explore new worlds. 561 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,400 Macaulay's Act, The Minute on Education, 562 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,760 was passed in February, 1835. 563 00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,800 And almost immediately the children of India's elite began 564 00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,200 learning English as their main language. 565 00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,120 Macaulay did not intend to educate all the masses. 566 00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,160 He talked about educating the cream of society. 567 00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,680 And from there his downward filtration 568 00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,920 theory, that is going to percolate down to the masses. 569 00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,040 In some time, it's going to be like education for all 570 00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,160 but it'll take some years to happen. 571 00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:21,760 So, is the fact that this kind of 572 00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,360 English, modern education system was introduced, 573 00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:25,840 is that seen as a good thing? 574 00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,400 We definitely appreciate the coming of the English 575 00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,760 and the English language and everything as our, you know, 576 00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:33,800 the doors opening to enlightenment, 577 00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,520 the touch of light, the enlightenment. 578 00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:41,120 Of course, definitely. The doors opening onto the Western world. 579 00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,840 And it's still carrying on, the remnants of the Raj is still 580 00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,880 there, you and I are speaking the language of the Raj. 581 00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,440 Macaulay's educational revolution had far-reaching 582 00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,680 consequences for the children of India. 583 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:56,560 Do you speak English at home, as well? 584 00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,880 Yes, all the time, it's the only language I speak, 585 00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,320 pretty much, at home. 586 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:01,800 Do you speak any other languages? 587 00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,320 Yeah, I speak Hindi and Bengali 588 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,440 but at home it's only English, as in school. 589 00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,840 In fact, we're only allowed to speak English in school. 590 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,560 Really? In the playground here? 591 00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,920 Yeah, everywhere except in the Hindi and Bengali classes, where we 592 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,000 have to speak Indian but otherwise it's only English. 593 00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,880 It feels like a faintly controversial thing to say but 594 00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:29,200 when you come here and you look at these young men and their uniforms, 595 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,280 their ties, they're speaking their impeccable English, in a lesson 596 00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,640 about the Renaissance, discussing which football club they like 597 00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:37,840 best, Chelsea or Man United. 598 00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,080 It does seem like, in some ways, Macaulay's 599 00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:46,200 dream of creating Englishmen out here in India, is being realised. 600 00:40:02,240 --> 00:40:05,280 But while Macaulay claimed to be improving the young 601 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,400 minds of India, the Company he served was still prepared to 602 00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,920 do anything to increase its wealth. 603 00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:16,000 Including pursuing an immoral, government-backed, trade in drugs. 604 00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:33,280 The Company controlled the opium-growing areas of India. 605 00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,440 It operated a brutal monopoly, 606 00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,360 it forced peasant farmers to grow opium but then they could 607 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,360 only sell it to the Company, it was then brought here to Calcutta. 608 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,560 Now to get round accusations they were pushing drugs, 609 00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,560 the opium was then sold in auction houses here for 1,000% profit, 610 00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,760 to independent traders. 611 00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,320 They would then ship it off, down the Hooghly, 612 00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,000 across the Indian Ocean and into China. 613 00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,920 But the Company was not the only guilty party in this illicit trade. 614 00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:12,280 The story of the opium trade is really one of just mass collusion. 615 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,520 It was collusion between the East India Company 616 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,000 and the British Government, 617 00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,680 who both benefited immensely from this illegal trade. 618 00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,800 And it was collusion between the private traders and many officials 619 00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,560 in the Chinese authorities, who with receipt of a bribe, would 620 00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:30,800 quite happily turn their eyes away from this smuggling in of opium. 621 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:38,320 In 1838 over 35,000 opium chests were shipped from Calcutta to 622 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:43,120 China and the Chinese Emperor finally snapped. 623 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:47,840 All in the name of profit, opium was ruining 624 00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,000 the lives of over 12 million Chinese people and draining 625 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:52,760 the country of prosperity. 626 00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,800 The Chinese government seized 20,000 chests 627 00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:59,880 of the finest East India Company opium and dumped in the ocean. 628 00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:02,440 Then they banned traders from bringing any more 629 00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:04,040 opium into the country. 630 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,440 But neither the Company nor the British Government was 631 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,360 prepared to let matters end there. 632 00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,040 Opium was the Company's most profitable export from India 633 00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,840 and funded the lucrative tea trade. 634 00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,720 I don't think there's sort of any other way really of viewing 635 00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:25,360 what was going on with the China trade in this period other 636 00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,160 than drug pushing. The East India Company and the private 637 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,160 agency houses who worked with them, the opium trade, were aggressively 638 00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,800 marketing opium in the coastal towns of China against the wishes 639 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,160 of the Chinese government because it was the one commodity that they 640 00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,480 could sell there and the one that allowed them to finance their 641 00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:46,240 trade in tea, which obviously was hugely profitable back in Britain. 642 00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:50,320 This dubious business had to be protected, 643 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,840 whether China wanted it or not. 644 00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,720 An Asian state had the nerve to stop the Company trading 645 00:42:55,720 --> 00:42:58,320 and stand in the way of its making money! 646 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,240 The East India Company had been here before, in India, 647 00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:04,440 and its solution was the same...force! 648 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,040 The British Government sent the Royal Navy to batter 649 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:08,720 the Chinese into submission. 650 00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:10,440 They backed down and even 651 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,160 had to hand over the island of Hong Kong to the British, 652 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:17,000 which then became the centre of the ongoing opium trade. 653 00:43:21,240 --> 00:43:25,360 But, back in India, a final reckoning was looming. 654 00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,320 And it would be sparked from an unexpected quarter. 655 00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,560 THEY CHANT 656 00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:38,280 The Company's own loyal, standing army. 657 00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,160 The Indian army had grown to become a bit of a source of worry 658 00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,320 for many in the East India Company. 659 00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,040 What had begun as a few 660 00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,520 security teams guarding the Company's forts around India, 661 00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,880 had grown into one of the largest standing armies in the world. 662 00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:02,280 More than 250,000 troops, 663 00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,440 larger than most European armies at the time. 664 00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,880 And that was 96% composed of native 665 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,000 Indian troops, known as "sepoys". 666 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,640 Keeping these sepoy troops loyal was critical to the Company's survival. 667 00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,240 So what would happen if this huge native army turned on them? 668 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:41,480 But, increasingly, the quality of those few Englishmen was debatable. 669 00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,160 The problem with the Indian army at the time is that it's set up 670 00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,560 that if you have any ambition, any get up and go, any drive, 671 00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:52,040 you will leave your regiment early on for probably civil employ 672 00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,920 or staff employ and the reason you did that is because they were 673 00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,040 better paid. So, the residue left in the regiments, the people 674 00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,640 who had close daily contact with the Indian soldiers were the refuse, 675 00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:03,360 were the worst of the lot. 676 00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:07,120 And they didn't tend...these men were disgruntled, they were bored 677 00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,600 and they didn't tend to treat their Indian soldiers very well. 678 00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,880 Just as throughout the rest of British India, 679 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,080 in the Company's three armies, a racial gulf had opened up, 680 00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,360 between the officers and their Indian troops. 681 00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:42,320 All of these accounts bear witness to a catastrophic breakdown in the 682 00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,320 bond between the officers and men of the East India Company's army. 683 00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:50,520 Now any team, but particularly an army, needs that trust 684 00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,160 and respect between those who are giving the orders 685 00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,760 and those who are carrying them out. 686 00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,160 If you were an East India Company sepoy, why would you follow 687 00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:02,560 an officer into battle who's openly disdainful of you? 688 00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,240 In fact, why would you do anything he said at all? 689 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,520 The sepoys no longer trusted their East India Company officers. 690 00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,320 They were appalled at their degrading treatment and 691 00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,360 they were very suspicious about the future intentions of the Company. 692 00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:24,320 What was needed to turn this very tense situation into a full 693 00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,920 blown crisis was a spark. 694 00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:38,280 Appropriately enough that spark was provided by the sepoys' rifles. 695 00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:40,040 In the mid-19th century a sepoy 696 00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,520 would have lots of cartridges in his cartridge pouch. 697 00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:47,920 He had to bite off the end, pour it down the barrel of the rifle, 698 00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:52,520 then put the cartridge itself and the bullet into the barrel, 699 00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:56,040 ram it down with a ramrod and then it would fire at the enemy. 700 00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:57,720 The big problem came 701 00:46:57,720 --> 00:47:00,640 when a rumour spread like wildfire throughout the sepoy forces, 702 00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:05,160 that the British were greasing these cartridges with pig of beef fat. 703 00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,840 For them it was completely intolerable to insert 704 00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,840 anything that had ever been near a pig or a cow into their mouth. 705 00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,480 At a stroke, the culturally ignorant, 706 00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:18,240 distant British decision-makers, had managed to alienate not just 707 00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:22,720 the Hindus, but also the Muslims of their vast Indian army. 708 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:26,760 In fact, realising their error, 709 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:31,200 the East India Company never issued these cartridges to the sepoys... 710 00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:32,880 but it was too late. 711 00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,720 Those soldiers within the army who were disgruntled did not want 712 00:47:35,720 --> 00:47:37,240 to let the issue lie. 713 00:47:37,240 --> 00:47:39,640 In other words they kept it going. Why? 714 00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:41,520 Because something to do with caste 715 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,360 and religion like this was a means of uniting both Muslims and 716 00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,640 Hindus, who traditionally, frankly, had not been the closest of allies. 717 00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,760 The scene was set for the East India Company's gravest 718 00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:54,200 challenge yet. 719 00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:58,040 An episode that's become known to the British as the Indian Mutiny 720 00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,640 but to Indians it was the First War of Independence. 721 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:08,560 The earliest signs of dissent 722 00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,560 occurred in one of the Company's oldest military settlements, 723 00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,200 the favourite summer hang-out of the British. 724 00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,920 In Barrackpore, on 29th of March, 1857, 725 00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,480 the peace of an afternoon was shattered. 726 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:26,200 Sergeant-Major James Hewson was in his bungalow one day when he heard 727 00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:30,200 that one of his sepoys, a man called Mangal Pandey, armed himself with a 728 00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,800 loaded musket and was behaving very erratically on the parade ground. 729 00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:37,640 Hewson warned an officer, got dressed picked up his sword 730 00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,480 and went to work out what the hell was going on! 731 00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:46,000 The inebriated Pandey was acting in protest against the new gun 732 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,960 cartridges but he failed to incite his fellow soldiers to join him. 733 00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,280 The British adjutant arrived to see what all the fuss was about. 734 00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,200 Pandey shot at Hewson. 735 00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,840 He shot at a British officer who came to help him. 736 00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,000 The three of them ended up in a huge sword fight, 737 00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:03,880 the two Brits being wounded before Pandey was arrested. 738 00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,840 Then, a week later, having been court-marshalled, 739 00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,480 and in front of the assembled garrison of both Indian and 740 00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:11,760 European troops in Barrackpore, 741 00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:13,400 he was hanged. 742 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,880 Allegedly from this banyan tree behind me. 743 00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,960 Mangal Pandey's unit was disbanded but the uprising 744 00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:27,960 began for real when troops at Meerut rose up and then headed for Delhi. 745 00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,440 On May 11th, 1857, the city fell. 746 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,880 The rebellion is really a mixture of dissatisfied groups in India. 747 00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,360 The biggest dissatisfied group are, of course the soldiers and because 748 00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,400 they're professionals and they're armed, they are the most dangerous. 749 00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,880 You will see in any revolution you've got a problem 750 00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:46,600 if you're army turns on you. 751 00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,320 But also they were joined by a lot of disgruntled civilians. 752 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,720 People who, for various reasons, weren't happy with 753 00:49:51,720 --> 00:49:53,960 East India Company rule and, of course, 754 00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:55,800 that included a lot of people whose 755 00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,960 principalities had been taken away from them, a lot of people who 756 00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:03,080 felt that they had something to gain by seeing the back of the British. 757 00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:06,240 The East India Company was about to pay a heavy 758 00:50:06,240 --> 00:50:09,720 price for allowing its relationship with India to break down. 759 00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:14,880 Right across northern India native troops rebelled against their 760 00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,000 British officers, often killing them and their families. 761 00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,520 There were serious disturbances at the strategically placed 762 00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,240 towns of Benares, Allahabad and Lucknow. 763 00:50:25,240 --> 00:50:27,160 These were situated between Delhi 764 00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:29,640 and the administrative capital, Calcutta. 765 00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:33,040 If they fell, it would seriously imperil the entire British 766 00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:35,080 position in Northern India. 767 00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:39,800 Even the supposedly reliable garrison of Cawnpore, was in revolt. 768 00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,280 After a bloody three week siege, 769 00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:48,520 the British garrison surrendered to save the women and children inside. 770 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:50,800 They were offered safe conduct 771 00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,680 but it became clear that this was a trick. 772 00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,160 As the survivors made their way down to boats on the Ganges, 773 00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,160 the rebels opened fire. 774 00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,160 Most of those who survived the bullets were then bludgeoned 775 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,000 or hacked to death. 776 00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:07,080 180 women and children were taken prisoner and held for three weeks, 777 00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:10,920 until news arrived of an approaching British relief column. 778 00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,920 At that point the prisoners were massacred. 779 00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:15,760 Their bodies hacked to pieces 780 00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:18,880 and the dismembered parts thrown down a well. 781 00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,840 The first British troops on the scene had trouble dealing 782 00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,280 with the shock of seeing the dead bodies of women and children. 783 00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,800 Their accounts survive today in the British Library. 784 00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,120 No Englishman who saw the sight that beheld them, 785 00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:40,160 can ever forget or forgive it. 786 00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,760 The floor was a mass of blood, clots of blood and women's hair, 787 00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,880 with pieces of women's apparel lying about in all directions, 788 00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:50,600 cut and torn. Outside of the compound in a dry well was 789 00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:53,240 seen the bodies, apparently not long thrown there. 790 00:51:53,240 --> 00:51:57,200 Could any human being conceive of such horrible slaughter? 791 00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:00,000 Clearly there's going to be an enormous appetite for revenge. 792 00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,200 And it was fulfilled. 793 00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:07,280 The officer who commanded, a Colonel Neal, of the First Madras Fusiliers, 794 00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:09,200 by way of retribution, 795 00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:12,120 made every man who was taken under suspicion of having been 796 00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:15,600 implicated in the mutiny at Cawnpore, at first wash up 797 00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,280 with his hands portions of the bloodstains in that dreadful room. 798 00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,400 "If he was a man of any influence or high caste 799 00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,360 "He was made to go down on his knees and lick it up 800 00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,920 "And was then hung at the door where a gallows had been erected." 801 00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:33,720 So that fury for revenge, is in the air already. 802 00:52:33,720 --> 00:52:37,720 And we see it in another letter from a Lieutenant Kemp, 803 00:52:37,720 --> 00:52:41,280 who talks about a "fearful vengeance". 804 00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,320 "Colonel Havelock's men, 3,000 Europeans, 805 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,520 "have killed every man, woman and child in Cawnpore. 806 00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:51,680 "The men could not be kept back after seeing their countrymen lying 807 00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:53,720 "dead in all directions." 808 00:52:53,720 --> 00:52:56,240 You can really tell it's his emotion at that moment. 809 00:52:56,240 --> 00:52:59,360 It hasn't been edited or printed or anything like that. 810 00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,880 It's the emotions of a man straight out of combat. 811 00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:10,240 The East India Company was unable to restore order or 812 00:53:10,240 --> 00:53:13,160 prevent acts of savage retribution. 813 00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,720 The situation spiralled out of control. 814 00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,960 The amount of execution which is going on across the country 815 00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:26,040 is astonishing. I mean, we have some images here of what was called 816 00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,800 "Pandey's Hornpipe", which is hanging mutineers. 817 00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:33,480 And then the East India Company 818 00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:37,000 adopted the practices of the old Mughal Empire 819 00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:41,680 and executed mutineers by blowing them from the mouths of canon. 820 00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:44,960 They used to strap them in front of a canon and then fire it, which 821 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:51,040 would shatter, throw the remains of the mutineer a fair distance. 822 00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,160 The East India Company did a lot to provoke the rebellion and yet 823 00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:57,160 it sounds like their handling of it was very messy as well. 824 00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:01,840 It was a terrible shock to the body politic of the East India Company 825 00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:07,200 and they realised, really, the game was up and I think in a way 826 00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:12,720 they must have smelt the end of the East India Company's reign in India. 827 00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,960 The Company had fatally bungled its response to the uprising. 828 00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:25,320 Having been forced, bit-by-bit, to give up its privileges 829 00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,960 throughout the previous century, it was finally on its knees. 830 00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:34,320 The mutiny is the beginning of the end for the East India Company 831 00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,160 because it shows quite clearly to the British Government that the 832 00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:40,280 East India Company is no longer capable of governing India. 833 00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:43,360 It's quite clearly made mistakes, probably chiefly in the way 834 00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:46,280 it runs its army, but also in its civil administration. 835 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:49,640 And the amount of lives that have been lost, the amount of treasure 836 00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:53,880 that's been expended, can only mean one thing and that is that the 837 00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:58,000 India has to be formalized, has to become a part of the British Empire. 838 00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:05,160 The government and the British people had had 839 00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:09,360 enough of the rapacious, profiteering East India Company. 840 00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:13,400 On the first of November 1858, British India was finally 841 00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:18,000 and inevitably handed over to the government of Queen Victoria. 842 00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,440 The Court of Directors issued a poignant farewell message 843 00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,520 to its thousands of servants in India. 844 00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:27,720 The Company has the great privilege of transferring, to the 845 00:55:27,720 --> 00:55:30,800 service of Her Majesty, such a body of civil 846 00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,840 and military officers as the world has never seen before. 847 00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,760 Let Her Majesty appreciate the gift. 848 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,160 Let her take the vast country 849 00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,680 and the teeming millions of India under direct control. 850 00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:45,720 But let her not forget the great 851 00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:48,560 corporation from which she received them. 852 00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:59,480 Over the course of its dramatic rise and fall, 853 00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:03,160 the East India Company made some devastating mistakes that 854 00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:05,480 caused misery and ruin. 855 00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,000 But over more than 400 years in India, 856 00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,600 it left some enduring legacies. 857 00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,200 Cricket! 858 00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:20,920 HE LAUGHS 859 00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:24,240 Probably most importantly, the legal system it puts in place, 860 00:56:24,240 --> 00:56:27,960 so that you get very much the basic infrastructure that is still 861 00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:30,040 being used in modern India today. 862 00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:40,720 The Company was really the model for the multinational 863 00:56:40,720 --> 00:56:44,160 company of today, in terms of the management of long distance 864 00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:48,040 value-chains and so on, and the systems it set out for that really 865 00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:52,600 sort of are the platform for today's international business operations. 866 00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,920 One of India's advantages has been that we have a large 867 00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:03,200 population in numbers, 868 00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:07,960 speaking English of at least international standards, as such. 869 00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,400 We are talking a population, probably, 870 00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,760 almost the size of Britain who could speak English well. 871 00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:15,600 So, this certainly is a legacy and 872 00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:18,160 is an advantage in the international world. 873 00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:25,200 And all of this grew out of a small group of profit-seeking 874 00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:30,440 men and the adventurers and glory-seekers who served them. 875 00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:36,600 It's so hard to generalise about the men of the East India Company. 876 00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:39,840 The system that brought them here was very often cruel, 877 00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,280 rapacious and venal. 878 00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:45,480 But those men who risked everything, endured appalling hardships and saw 879 00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:48,640 their friends and loved ones carried away by disease, 880 00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,160 they weren't inherently evil. 881 00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:55,240 They lived and worked in a world that was unrecognizable to us 882 00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:58,400 today and in doing so they reshaped it. 883 00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:00,480 Their epitaph lies all around us. 884 00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:04,080 Here in India, Britain and even further afield. 885 00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,320 We're all still living with the consequences of what they built 886 00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,280 and what they destroyed, 887 00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:12,840 whilst working for history's most influential company.