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History of India Power Struggle During the latter half of the 17th century another foreign power set its eyes on the fruitful Indian trade. They were the last of the four Europeans to make their mark in India (Portuguese, Dutch and the English had preceded them). A French dreamer and entrepreneur Jean-Baptiste Colbert started the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) in 1664 with an investment of fifteen million livres tournois (about 600,000 British Pounds.) The early steps taken to colonize Madagascar proved futile. But in 1669 a trading post was established in Surat by the Francois Caron with the help a Persian named Marcara. Marcara also helped to broker a deal with the ruler of Golconda and established a French trading post in Masulipatam (called Machlipatnam now) giving them access to Bay of Bengal. Within a decade after the birth of the French compagnie, Francois Martin established its Indian headquarters at Pondicherry, eighty-five miles south of Madras. Francois Martin obtained the land from the Muslim governor of Valikondapuram and transformed the small village into a major center after 1674. Another trading post on the banks of the river Hughli named Chandarnagar in 1690, purchased from the Nawab of Bengal completed the tripod of trading posts on both coasts of India, thus emulating the British. The French also entered into severe competition with the British for the Indian merchandise. Soon the profits posted by the French company surpassed that of the British East India Company. In 1721 the French seized two strategically important islands, Mauritius and Bourbon, in the Indian Ocean that gave them the advantage of swift action to defend its posts in India, if needed. Mahe on the Malabar Coast was annexed in 1725 and Karikal, to the south of Pondicherry was taken over in 1739. Pondicherry had a checkered beginning. The British, nervous about the intrusion of the newly arrived French, let the Dutch do the fighting with the French. Pondicherry was taken by the Dutch in 1693 but given back to the French in 1697 as part of the Treaty of Ryswick. Francois Martin once again saw to the prosperity of Pondicherry and when he died in 1706, the population of Pondicherry rivaled that of Madras, at about fifty thousand. In contrast Calcutta only had a population of twenty-two thousand in that year. However, they had to abandon their post in Surat and Masulipatam, as it was becoming more and more difficult to defend them. By the early 18th century the Dutch had appeared to be tired of their Indian trade. After fighting the Catholic Portuguese on religious basis and then the British on the basis of trade rivalry, the Dutch retreated to their Southeast spice trade in Java and left India after 1759. Now there were only two players left in India, the British and the French, not counting the diminished power of the Portuguese, who confined themselves to Goa and its vicinity. In 1741 a visionary Joseph Francois Dupleix (1697-1764) was given charge of Pondicherry presidency. He was the son of the director-general of the company and had a vision of building a French Empire in India. So far the foreign nationals in Indian soil seemed to have no other interest but to profit from trade so that their mother countries could prosper. But Dupleix had other ideas. Nabobism of Dupleix
Among the prisoners Dupleix held in Fort St. George in Madras was an English Company ‘writer’ named Robert Clive (1725-1774). The clerk of the British East India Company had attempted suicide out of sheer ‘boredom’ of his hapless job. His life had been spared only because the gun had misfired. Now as a prisoner of the French in Fort St. George, writer Robert Clive analyzed from the motives of Dupleix that all of India was in such political turmoil that it was the right time to attempt imperial conquest and establishment of an empire. Dupleix played his part as the king maker like the game of chess. There were two principal nawab states in South India, namely Arcot and Hyderabad. Internal rivalry and fratricide had reduced them to bickering kingdoms ready for intrigue and interference. Dupleix got his chance serendipitously. Nawab of Arcot, one Anwar-ud-din, who had been appointed by Nizam of Hyderabad laid claim on Madras and insisted the French hand it over to him in October of 1746. When Dupleix refused Anwar-ud-din attacked Fort St. George with a force of ten thousand men. He was soundly defeated by the smaller French force, a tenth of its size, with the discipline of European fighting squad. Then in 1748 the Nizam of Hyderabad died and this created a vacuum in the most powerful kingdom of the South. He bought freedom for a Chanda Sahib, a son-in-law of the deceased ruler of Arcot, from the Maratha prison by paying a ransom and appointed him as the nawab of Arcot. Dupleix himself refused to be named the nawab three times when proffered the throne. He was content to play the puppetry from behind the screen. The next chance came when the new Nizam of Hyderabad was assassinated in 1750. Under the command of French lieutenant, Marquis de Bussey, a force marched on Hyderabad and placed Salabat Jang, one of the deceased Nizam’s sons on the throne in Hyderabad. French power in India had reached the zenith as both Hyderabad and Arcot fell under them. The English were scrambling and licking their wounds. But a historic turn of events beyond the control of Dupleix gave the British an opening and thus altered the course of history of India. It came in the wake of a peace treaty between England and France in the continent of Europe. Reversal of Fortunes - Rise of Robert Clive The European peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle forced Dupleix to return Madras to the English in 1749. Louis the XV and Madame de Pompadour, the rulers in Paris showed little interest in the events in India. With any support from the French rulers in Paris, Dupleix could have been the undisputed de facto emperor on India. Even the Marathas who were very much involved in the South were powerless in the face of brilliant political maneuvering of Dupleix. British with the second wind they had been afforded by events, learned quickly to play the same game Dupleix had played. Muhammad Ali, who was the son of the deceased Anwar-ud-din, (the erstwhile nawab of Arcot before the French had dethroned him), had fled to Trichinopoly, to the south of the peninsula, where he had fortified his position. The British quickly took his side in his bid to win back the throne in Arcot. Chanda Sahib laid siege on Trichinopoly but waited too long, thus creating a vacuum in Arcot.
Following the peace treaty the hostilities between the two rivals ceased for a while until another war erupted in Europe that saw them on the opposite sides again. The Seven Years’ War (1756 – 1763) spilled over to India but this time saw weakened French against a much stronger British force. Bengal became the casualty this time to Clive’s ambitions. Top | Next Page | History of India
The Week of November 13, 2005
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At
the home front in Europe, trouble was brewing between the French and the
English. Maria Theresa’s disputed claim to the throne in Austria saw
both these countries on the opposite sides of the dispute. The European
war between them soon spilled over to South India in the summer of
1746. The British captured some French ships and Dupleix summoned help
from Admiral Mahe de la Bourdonnais from Mauritius, who sowed up with a
formidable armada of naval fleet to quickly defeat the British along the
Coromandal coast. Madras fell to the French on September of 1746. Soon
Dupleix would become so powerful that he would be the de facto Nawab and
Nizam of the Princely states of South India. He never acknowledged the
title in public but played a behind the scene game, while maintaining
all controls. This ‘game’ of politicking came to be known as ‘nabobism’.
Soon the British would emulate this tactic in their pursuit of a British
Empire in India.
Robert
Clive, the writer of East India Company now had found his true calling.
His failed suicide attempt had given him a new impetus in advancing his
position within the Company. Moreover, he found blowing off other’s
brains was lot more sporting and to his liking than his blowing his
own. Now a captain, Robert Clive volunteered to lead a march more than
one thousand miles south in the heat of the summer of 1751 to Arcot.
There he found little resistance as the whole garrison was in
Trichinopoly laying siege on the fort where Muhammad Ali was trapped.
Chanda Sahib had no choice but to end his siege in Trichinopoly and
return to Arcot with his army. But “brave” Clive held off for over
fifty days with a diminished band of soldiers, and staved off Chanda
Sahib. Then with the help of Maratha troops Muhammad Ali triumphed in
Trichinopoly and came to the rescue of Clive in Arcot. Chanda Sahib was
captured and executed in 1752. Now Clive had become the new “nawab-maker.”
The French government did not show any appreciation of the brilliant
successes of Dupleix and he was unceremoniously recalled back to France
in 1754 for “wasting too much investment on unprofitable ventures.” The
last nail on the coffin of any design of French imperialism in India by
Dupleix had been hammered by nonchalant French rulers in Paris. Dupleix
lived out the rest of his years in disgrace and in oblivion.