THE MAKERS OF INDIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16662, 18 February 1922, Page 3

THE MAKERS OF INDIA.

CLIVE’S ACHIEVEMENTS. BEGINNING OF BRITISH RULE. The visit, of the Prince of Wales to India, with the apparently ever increasing demand of the educated section of the Indian peoples, inspired by the ascetic- agitator, Gandhi, for self-govern-ment. makes it interesting to recall the beginnings of British rule in the Indian Peninsula (says “ John o’ London s Weekly In the year 1707. Aiirangzeb, the last really efficient of the Mogul emperors who reigned at Delhi from 1526 until the Indian Mutiny in 1857, died during a military expedition in the Deccan, Practically the whole of what we now call India was subject to his rule. The great mass of the people were Hindus. A minority were Moslems, men of various races, the descendants of the Mohammedan invaders who entered India in a number of waves, the first of which occurred less than a hundred years after the death of Mohammed. The Moslems were the ruling race, just as i.he Normans were the ruling race in England after the battle of Hastings, and most of the important official positions were in their hands. THE GRAND MOGULS. The Mogul emperors bad set up a sort of feudal empire in India. The country was divided into provinces, each governed by a Viceroy. Each province was sub-divided into a number of districts, governed by officials called Nawabs. Each viceroy had his own army, and each nawab had liis own army, and quarrels and fighting became the general order' of things when Aurangzeb died, and was followed by weak and incapable successors. In the early years of the eighteenth century (I quote Sir Charles Wilson). 44 the whole peninsula became one gigantic battlefield swarming with soldiers and marauding bands.”

Meanwhile, for over two hundred years, various European nations had been establishing trade relations with India. The history of tUese relations begins with the voyage of the Portuguese explorer, Vasco Da Gama. who cast anchor off the city of Calicut in the summer of 1498. For a century the Portuguese enjoyed n monopoly of Indian trade. Then the monopoly was destroyed by the Dutch, who. during the seventeenth century, gradually expelled the Portuguese from all their territorial possessions. BRITISH EAST I NOT A COMPANY. The British East India Company was formed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In 1639 the city of Madras was founded, and the English obtained their first grant of Indian soil from a native ruler. Calcutta was founded in 1686, and in 1661 Charles 11. received Bombay from Portugal as part of tho dowry of his wife, tho Infanta Catherine.- All these towns were merely trading stations. and the. various European nations struggled with each other for the favour of the various Joca] petty rulers. The French first established a settlement in India in 1669, and live years afterwards they founded Pondicherry, a city a few miles south of Madras In 1741. the famous Dupleix was appointed its governor. DupJeix was a colonial administrator with something like genius. lie contrived to establish excellent relations with the native prince?, and his openly expressed ambition was to subject tho whole of Southern India to the French power. In 1744 Robert Clive landed in Mad ras. He was then nineteen years old. He had been a difficult and unsatisfactory son. and had been packed off to India to become a writer in the >rrviee of tho East India Company. The French and the English were quarrelling in Europe and quarrelling in India. Dupleix bail contrived to capture the city of Madras, and when Clive arrived in India the prestige of the English was very low.

AT TWENTY-FIVE. Clive was twenty-five when he pel Minded the pusillanimous traders of Madras to let him exchange the pen for the sword. Both the French and the English in India, as in North America at the same time, had Hi oil own native allies, and native soldiers fought, in both their armies. In order to strike a blow at the French power, Clive "obtained permission to attack the town of Arcot. the capital of the Carnatic, the most south-easterly province in India. His force consisted of two hundred Europeans and three hundred sepoys. Ho captured the city, held it. through a long and memorable siege, and when reinforcements were sent him. defeated the French and their allies. But the general timidity and incapacity of the English leaders largely destroyed the effect of his victories. Nevertheless. by the year 1753. the English prestige was infinitely higher in India than it had ever been before. Clive’s health, however, was broken, and lie had to go home on long leave. His success was due to the fact that he had learned from Dupleix three cardinal facts—that native armies were unable to resist disciplined European troops, that European discipline could be imparted to natives, and that the one way of victory in Asiatic warfare is to attack boldly and without hesitation. UNOER THTRT Y A N D FAMOI’S. Clive returned to England a famous and well-to-do man, although he was still considerably less Ilian thirty He was back again in India in 1755, and tho next year he was sent at the head ol an expedition to avenge the murder of one hundred and forty-six English persons by Surajah Dowlah in the infamous Black Hole at Calcutta. When he learned that Clive had arrived at. the mouth of the Hoogley the Nabob at once began to negotiate. BATTLE OF PLASSY. It is impossible in the space at one's disposal even to summarise thei negotiations that took place. The result arrived at in the manner of Machiavelli) v. as greatly to strengthen the. English power and. at the same time, greatly to enrich Clive and to give him the military power necessary to enable him decisively to defeat the French and their allies at Plassy on June 23, 1757 The battle of Plassy is one of th© decisive battles in the world’s history It- marks the beginning of the British Empire in the East. From the date of the battle, the power of the French declined, and the power of the English steadily increased until the Indian Empire, as we know it. came into being. Three months after his great vietorv, Clive once more sailed io England. He fc«*V»»ht a scut in P^rlament. Ho spept

a large part of his money in acquiring preponderating influence in the councils of tln v East India Company, and he became the most conspicuous of those Nabobs whom, many years atterwards, Thackeray satirised in “Vanity Fair.” He remained in England for five years, and during those years the Government of India became hopelessly inefficient -.and corrupt. He was persuaded to return in 1765, and in a few months cleaned out an Augean stable of civil and military abuses, and incidentally made many satisfactory treaties with the native rulers. He stopped in India for nearly eighteen months and then ill-health once more drove him homo. His character and his successful career had. of course, made him many enemies, and his administration was inquired intii by the House ol Commons. The finding of the committee was equivocal. It declared that Clive had abused his power, but at the same time he had rendered great and meritorious service to liis country. Clive was a vt?ry sick man. and the feeling that his services had been unappreciated sent him into a state of perpetual depression, which ended with liis suicide in 1774 at the age of forty-nine-Clive had the greatest contempt for the directors of the East India Company, and urged on more than one occasion that India should be transferred to the Crown. His epitaph has been written by Macaulay :--- “Clive, like most men who are born with strong passions and tried by strong temptations, committed great faults. But every person who takes a fair and enlightened view of his whole career must admit that our island, so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a. man more truly great either in arms or in council.’’