Oxford English Dictionary:
 For the first century and a half of the Company’s
history and more, nabob was simply an Anglicisation
of nawab, “the title of certain Mohammedan officials,
who acted as deputy governors of provinces or districts
in the Mogul Empire”.
 In its “transferred sense”: “ a person of great wealth:
specifically one who has returned from India with a
large fortune acquired there; a very rich and luxurious
person.”
 Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian
Words and Phrases (1886): “It began to be applied in
the Eighteenth Century, when the transaction of Clive
made the epithet familiar in England, to Anglo-Indians
who returned with fortunes from the East; and Foote’s
play of the ‘The Nabob’ (1768) aided in giving general
currency to the word in this sense.”
A story of global history:
Empire in Asia
Respectability in Europe
Who went to India in the service of the East India
Company?
Why did they go?
Where did they go?
What happened to them in Asia?
The opportunity for Empire
Mughal Empire (1526-1857)
Death of Aurangzeb (1707)
Decline (1707-1857)
What Empire?
Seven Years War (1756-1763)
Black hole incident (1756)
Battle of Plassey (1757)
Battle of Bedara (1759)
Clive returns to Bengal, disposes of the Nawab, and
takes direct control (Diwany rights) (1765)
Who wanted this Empire?
Servants
EIC
Army and Royal
Navy
Clive, the conqueror of Bengal, after putting an English
straw man on the throne of Bengal, received a ‘Jagir’ of
£27,000 pound a year from the grateful new Nawab.
A ‘Jagir’ was a reward for his services and later hotly
debated in parliament.
The Company obtained a £100,000 a year to pay for its
military expenses
 Pamela Nightingale, Fortune and Integrity, A Study of
Moral Attitudes in the Indian Diary of George Paterson,
1769-1774 (Delhi Oxford University press 1985), 96, (…)
Pigot, who was governor from 1755 to 1763, laid the
foundation of his fortune of pound 300,000 on the Nawab’s
gratitude for the restoration of his country, and when Palk
succeeded him he demanded from the Nawab 50,000
pagodas on the ground that ‘he understood Mr Pigot had
received a Lack, and he could not receive less than his
Predecessor. It was sent him: for the Nabob had many
favours to ask of the Governor.’ (note) (…) (Similar stories
on pages 94-96).
Alternative version:
Fortunes made from trade
As English have been seen as the most successful private
traders even before empire, private trade is the
foundation of empire
Fortunes related to Empire
Often not clear how servants got them
The Auriol and Dashwood families by John Zoffany, Calcutta, 1783-7
Mr and Mrs Warren Hastings by John Zoffany, Calcutta, 1783-7
Mildred Archer, India and British Portraiture, p.140
Elizabeth and Mary Davidson
By Tilly Kettle, London, c. 1784
Mr and Mrs Joseph Champion, by Thomas
Seton, Calcutta, 1780
 The Hindu Temple at Melchet Park, William Daniell,
London, c.1800.
 The nabob. A comedy, in three acts. Written by Samuel
Foote, esq. As performed at the Theatre Royal HayMarket
 The intrigues of a nabob: or, Bengal the fittest soil for
the growth of lust, injustice and dishonesty. Dedicated
to the Hon. the Court of …
 The nabob: Or, Asiatic Plunderers. A Satyrical poem,
In a Dialogue between a Friend and the Author. To
which are annexed, A few fugitive Pieces
 Caraccioli, Charles, The life of Robert Lord Clive,
Baron Plassey (1766)
Ceiling painting, East India House, London 1878. In: Mildred Archer, India
and British Portraiture, 1770-1825 (London and New York 1979), p. 40.
In India, all the vices operate by which sudden fortune is acquired … Arrived
in England, the destroyers of the nobility and gentry of a whole kingdom will
find the best company in this nation, at a board of elegance and hospitality.
Here the manufacturer and the husbandman will bless the just and punctual
hand, that in India has torn the cloth from the loom, or wrested the scanty
portion of rice and salt from the peasants of Bengal, or wrung from him the
very opium in which he forgot his oppressions and his oppressor. They marry
into your families; they enter into your estates by loans; they raise their value
by demand; they cherish and protect your relations which lie heavy in your
patronage.
Edmund Burke (1783) speech in parliament
Empire not perceived as for the general good:
State has invested heavily in armies and fleets to aid the
Company to fight the French in the Seven Years war
(1756-1763), but Nabobs exploit the situation
Problem: Nabobs buy themselves into the company and
parliament and try to influence politics on the East India
Company
Clive returns to England after Plassey, manipulates the
company
Clive before leaving for second time to India bought up
40,000 pounds worth of stock in the Company, split this
up for more voting power. Started sending news about
attaining the Diwani rights. Forced the directors to raise
dividend from 6 per cent to 10 per cent.
The first Parliamentary intervention, 1766-7
Parliament: East India Company becomes a subject of
discussion, the states wants a pieces of the territorial
revenues. (1767)
The crisis of 1772
 Famine in Bengal (1769)
 Trade financed through bills of exchange
 Financial crisis, debtors want their money quicker
 The increased dividend is unsustainable and leads to
structural debt
Regulation act (1773)
The crisis of 1772
Regulation act (1773)
Company under control of the Crown. Territories under
sovereignty of the Crown and leased out to the Company
for a fixed rent. Governor-General of Bengal appointed
only with the approval of the Crown. Dividend lowered.
Loan from the State
The crisis of 1772
Regulation act (1773)
Pitt’s act (1783)
Company possessions in India under state control. Only
commercial freedom for the Company
The crisis of 1772
Regulation act (1773)
Pitt’s act (1783)
Charter act (1813)
Company loses monopoly on India, only on China
Slow evolution of Company into Colonial empire
Company servants become civil servants
Nechtman explores the
tensions and contradictions
inherent in British national
identity
He focuses on the
controversies surrounding
East India Company servants
He sheds new light on the
stereotypes of so-called
‘Nabobinas‘ – the wives and
daughters of Company
servants
Dirks‘ book is decisively anti-imperialist
and very political! For him empire is an
scandal.
He analysis political debates in the later
eighteenth century and the
impeachment of the most famous nabob
– Warren Hastings
British imperial rule was legitimized
through scandalising and denouncing
individual cases of corruption. For
Dirks: thisis the real Scandal of Empire!
• Empire and the British national
identity emerged side by side
according to Linda Colley
• This book was published in 1992
and still is hugely influential
•
The British defined themselves
against an external ‘other‘ – against
Catholic France and the ‘despotic
Orient‘
• Linda Colley‘s work is influenced by
Benedict Andersons ‘Imagined
Communities‘ (1983)
Curiosity
Intermarriage
Collecting
Cosmopolitanism?
How did Company servants live in India? How did their
attitudes towards Indian society change over time?