The East India Company’s royal charter gave it the ability to “wage war,” and initially it used military force to protect itself and fight rival traders. In 1757, however, it seized control ...

The Company – “the most advanced capitalist organisation in the world”, Dalrymple calls it – ran India, and like all companies, it had one principal concern animating its capitalist masters in London: ...

Adam Smith (1723-1790) made copious notes about India and the British East India Company’s presence and impact on the contemporary Indian economy. (Artist unknown. Source: British Museum ...

But something changed in 1765, shortly after the East India Company took control of the subcontinent and established a monopoly over Indian trade. Here’s how it worked.

Patna's Sewak Ram painted this watercolour of prayers at a Muharram festival, 1820 Founded in 1600 as a trading enterprise, the English East India Company gradually transformed into a colonial ...