"The need to impose greater parliamentary control over the Company's affairs increased during the decades (1773 - 1853) after Plassey." Discuss.

Answer:

After Plassey the East India Company ceased to be merely a trading body and became a territorial power. British Parliament, alarmed by corruption, misgovernment and the constitutional anomaly of a company ruling millions, progressively asserted control through a series of Acts between 1773 and 1853.

Why parliamentary control became necessary

• Company servants amassed private fortunes through the inland trade and presents.
• The Bengal famine of 1770 and the dual system exposed gross misgovernment.
• The Company sought a loan from the government in 1772, giving Parliament its opening.
• The 'nabobs' returning with wealth aroused resentment and political anxiety.
• It was constitutionally anomalous for a chartered company to rule a territorial empire.

The successive Acts

• The Regulating Act of 1773 created a Governor-General and Supreme Court at Calcutta.
• Pitt's India Act of 1784 established the Board of Control, creating dual government.
• The Charter Act of 1793 continued the arrangement for twenty years.
• The Charter Act of 1813 ended the trade monopoly except for tea and China.
• The Charter Act of 1833 ended commercial functions entirely and created the Governor-General of India.
• The Charter Act of 1853 introduced open competition for the civil service.

The direction of change

• Commercial character gave way progressively to purely administrative functions.
• Patronage passed from Company directors to competitive examination.
• The Governor-General's authority over the presidencies was steadily strengthened.
• Law Members and a Law Commission introduced codification under Macaulay.
• The Charter of 1833 permitted Christian missionaries and Europeans to settle freely.

Assessment

• The process culminated in the Crown's assumption of direct rule in 1858.
• Control was motivated by British political and commercial interests, not Indian welfare.
• It nonetheless introduced regularity, accountability and codified law.
• Free-trade pressure from British manufacturers drove much of the change.

Effects in India

• Codification under Macaulay produced the Indian Penal Code, enacted in 1860.
• Open competition after 1853 was nominally open to Indians but held in London.
• Satyendranath Tagore became the first Indian to enter the service in 1863.
• Centralisation under the Governor-General laid the basis of an all-India administration.

Parliamentary control therefore grew steadily and inevitably as the Company's territorial responsibilities outgrew its commercial character. As constitutional historians observe, the Acts from 1773 to 1853 progressively converted a trading corporation into an agency of the British state, a process completed by the transfer of power to the Crown in 1858.