ABSTRACT
The contemporary global economy was moulded, to a large extent, by the European colonists. The primary place goes to the English EIC (1600–1873). The study of the rise and progress of the most extensive trade and commerce of the English EIC, unparalleled in the history, stands incomplete. Its historiography, especially with reference to India, continues to be widely discussed and debated. The EIC experimented its colonial economics in Madras/Chennai first, later in Bengal. Their clever survival strategies and economic ideas and political policies amounted to divide the strong into weak parties by sophistries, win them one by one by false promises and menacing threats, and finally rule over all of them. They left the European continent to the ‘French fanatics’ and showed the ‘Mysore tigers’ to the Indian elite as the immediate alternatives in waiting. Chennai became the starting centre and experimental ground of all these and other successful and costless colonial tactics. Also, the first modern colonial historiography started in India with the European trade in Malabar spices. Resultantly, the 18th century tuned into a ‘pioneering period’ of trade and commerce as well as geographical discoveries and scientific innovations in Britain. The role of their tactical trading company, the EIC, was often deeply disputed since they were involved, in the 18th century, in many extra-trade activities and territorial tampering. The controversies continue to flow into the studies of many modern economic historians. The present study is limited to the economic history of a free enterprise. It was a wonderful private organisation that apparently showed to the world as only a trading company, but was actually different at its core. The open secret was its concealed empire building activities. The theme is interesting that the EIC could establish the vast British Indian Empire on a firm footing within the shortest period of about five decades and without spending even a single penny from its mother country. Britain, being interested in the trade and commerce, never fought, nor advised the EIC to fight a war against India or any of its legitimate native ruler, nor to indulge in any non-trade activities.
