The East India Company was founded in 1600 after Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter allowing for voyages to be conducted to begin trade in the regions around the Indian Ocean. They began building factories in the ports of India in 1611, beginning a long period of English control of the region. The East India Company took control of the region from the Mughal Empire through the force of their private army. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the company implemented heavy taxes, which were heavily unfavored by the Indian citizens. The company also challenged many of the Hindu customs and religious beliefs, such as by introducing meat into the diet. The local Indian citizens became increasingly dissatisfied by the East India Company’s practices. The East India Company continued as a central trade and political powerhouse in India and East Asia until the Indian Rebellion in 1857. The rebellion was led by sepoys, or local soldiers, who were upset about the wage and other inequalities between them and the British soldiers, as well as the general mistreatment of the Indian population by the company. The rebellion was put down bloodily by the company in 1858. The British government took this as the final sign of the company’s inability to govern the region and took complete control of the trade and political institutions established. The East India Company was formally dissolved in 1873.
John Stuart Mill worked for the East India Company and saw its dissolution. Mill was against this change initially. He states that, “I was the chief manager of the resistance which the Company made to their own political extinction, and to the letters and petitions I wrote for them, and the concluding chapter of my treatise on Representative Government, I must refer for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this ill-considered change.” Government involvement in economic affairs was contrary to the Liberal beliefs Mill was affiliated with. Laissez-faire policies toward the economy were central tenants of the party.
Citations:
Adam Matthew Digital and India Office Library and Records. East India Company. Adam Matthew Digital, 2017
Roos, Dave. “How the East India Company Became the World’s Most Powerful Monopoly - HISTORY.” Www.history.com, A&E Television Networks, 23 Oct. 2020, www.history.com/news/east-india-company-england-trade.
Cartwright, Mark. “Sepoy Mutiny.” World History Encyclopedia, www.worldhistory.org/Sepoy_Mutiny/#.