The historian William Dalrymple was undoubtedly speaking for many when he described the founding of British rule in India as the ‘supreme act of corporate violence in world history’ — for the story of how the British East India Company, an unregulated private enterprise, succeeded in opportunistically wresting control of some of the richest lands on Earth has long been mired in controversy.
Militarily, the key moment came on 23 June 1757 at the Battle of Plassey — where an upstart Company clerk by the name of Robert Clive (who had arrived in India as a penniless 19-year-old just over a decade earlier) led a small army to victory over the forces of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last Nawab of Bengal, and his French allies. By seizing control of Bengal, the subcontinent’s most fertile and densely populated region, the ambitious Clive managed ruthlessly to pave the way for almost two centuries of British rule over most of modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, carving out a substantial fortune for himself along the way.
For much of the next 200 years, Britain’s role in India would be presented as a proud part of its own national story, and the ‘jewel in the crown’ of an emerging imperial narrative. Despite his often unscrupulous behaviour, and what many would call the fundamentally rapacious nature of his project, Clive himself would also be celebrated at the heart of the British establishment, including in the form of a statue outside the Foreign Office.
More recently, however — and especially since 1947, when India finally gained its independence — more searching questions have been asked: about the true nature of colonialism and empire, and how such figures as Clive (who faced censure in Parliament and was nicknamed ‘Lord Vulture’ even in his own lifetime) should really be commemorated.
In our special feature for this issue, Stephen Roberts first traces the life of this highly effective but undeniably divisive commander, then looks in more detail at the Battle of Plassey, the key victory that helped launch Britain’s empire in the subcontinent.
This is an extract from a special feature on Clive in India from the December 2024/January 2025 issue of Military History Matters magazine.
Read the full article online on The Past, or in the print magazine: find out more about subscriptions to Military History Matters here.
