The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600–1784: A Grand Strategic Interpretation, by G.J. Bryant

Abstract

The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600-1784: Grand Strategic Interpretation, by G.J. Bryant. Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2013. xx, 350 pp. $99.00 US (cloth). How did the British East India Company (EIC) transfonn itself from a commercial trading corporation to an imperial state, ruling (or at least dominating) the several hundred million inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent? When did this transition occur? From Nathaniel Halhed to James Mill, from T.B. Macaulay to Percival Spear, from S.N. Mukherjee to Ranajit Guha, these questions have been at the centre of Indian and imperial history. In this book, G.J. Bryant weighs in with an interpretation of his own. Bryant is a military historian who has been writing about eighteenth century Anglo-Indian wars and armies for the past forty years. Although this book is broader in scope, it approaches the creation of the Raj as a process that was essentially military in nature. Bryant's subtitle A Grand Strategic Interpretation is thus advanced in a narrowly technical sense: At what point did EIC strategy (both military and geo-political) shift from the goal of protecting the assets of a quasi-private trading company to that of promoting the interests of a quasi-sovereign government determined to exercise suzerainty over the entire subcontinent? Although the title promises a broad sweep over the course of two centuries, the book focuses on the four decades between 1744 and 1784. Bryant maintains that until the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1744, the attention of the EIC's military and civilian leaders was entirely on protecting its trading assets. It was only in the course of defending against assaults by the French that these leaders learned to appreciate the value of alliances with indigenous states and rulers within India itself. Having begun to play the game of Indian politics, however, the EIC could never look back. In India, the peace of 1748 did not lead to a cessation of hostilities, since the British and the French continued their struggles through the proxy wars with native allies, which continued right up to 1754, when the European rivals went to war again. When this new Seven Years War began, the conflict was centered primarily in the Carnatic, where both sides perceived that their primary interests lay. What fundamentally changed the entire situation was Clive's unexpected victory at Plassey, which brought all of Bengal under British control. After enthroning and dethroning two successive puppet Nawabs, the EIC finally engineered a direct grant of the diwan to themselves, in 1765. Now, with the revenues of Bengal directly at the EIC's disposal, the British had become a territorial power within the subcontinent, endowed with interests (and newfound resources) that fundamentally changed its grand strategic approach. …