Colonial Frontiers of the Georgian State: East India Company's Rule in India*

Abstract

Abstract The East India Company in India during the period of “indirect rule,” has so far been seen as a trading corporation drawn unprepared into the exigencies of warfare and rule. Early colonial rule, however, entailed much more than the quotidian problems of maintaining trade and commerce in the colonies. Its ideology and objectives derived from reigning notions of eighteenth century political economy, and it shared crucial aspects of nation‐state formation in Georgian England. Through an exegetical reading of contemporary political economic texts, pamphlets and tracts, this essay attempts to elicit a sense of accepted ideas and articulations pertaining to the equations between nation, commerce, law and the state ‐ especially as they were seen on the colonial front in eastern India.