During its tenure in India, the EIC, East India Company, taxed Indians, settled land revenue and imposed the Zamindari system without any apparent and rightful jurisdiction. The company put Indians on trial, which were mostly sham trials, imprisoned them and even went as far as committing merciless shootings and executions by hanging. It is not outlandish to liken such a scenario to a situation where, in the modern era, a private Indian company would be committing identical acts on foreign soil simply because it carries out operations routinely on said soil. However, Western democratic ideals would deem such a situation not just impermissible but downright egregious.
Another fact of significant import is that at the time the East India Company was not even a British Public Limited Company and was, in fact, owned by private shareholders, who were entitled to dividends from the profits that the company would make. This profit seeking exercise was synonymous with the Loot of India.
The company was governed by Charter Acts and Regulation Acts, passed by the British parliament, which defined the scope of the company’s commercial and trading activities.
A basic understanding of the term ‘company’ would imply that the organisation is one, which is established to carry out exclusively commercial activities. Moreover, how could the aforementioned acts allow for the designation of company employees as the Governor of Bengal and the Governor General of India. Moreover, the legislations even allowed company officials, the Governors in particular, to wage war against Indian states.
Classically, violence and the right to wage war have been seen as monopolies of the sovereign and hence delegating such powers would logically amount to excessive and inappropriate delegation. Lord Cornwallis even introduced the Cornwallis Code, which included the provisions for Permanent Settlement that shows that the British government had once again conveniently delegated important sovereign function to an ordinary official. The Education reforms by Macaulay, the Ryotwari System and the Doctrine of Lapse too were formulated in similar fashion.
Until the Charter Act of 1833, the EIC was merely a private company exerting sovereign control over India. Until the said Act, there was no Act that allowed free settlement of India by the British, which implies that up until the Act, there was no formal legal recognition for the colonisation of India. The Act finally also addressed the fact that laws made in India, were to be placed before the British Parliament and only once passed could they become Acts. Thus finding justification for a commercial body exerting sovereign control, without legislative backing, becomes increasingly improbable.
Additionally, until 1858, India was not a direct colony; therefore British rule could only be applied to the territory of India after the Government of India Act, 1858. Only after the said Act, did Queen Victoria become Empress of India, which crystallised the position of India as being a territory under the control of the Crown. The Act extended the executive power of Britain to India through the appointment of Edward Henry Stanley, the 15th Earl of Derby, as the Secretary of State for India in the British cabinet. Power to legislate on matters relating to India was extended to Westminster in London and four years later the High Court at Calcutta was established. The Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure came into existence shortly afterwards, which once again shows that the company exercised criminal jurisdiction over India long before any legislation validated the jurisdiction.
Moreover, modern tenets of administration dictate that tax and expenditure is to be sanctioned by the Parliament and such was not the case right up until the company rule was abolished. Prior to abolishing of the EIC, all the tax accumulated was directly used to fatten the purses of company officials and to keep the company’s coffers overflowing.
For the sake of argument even if the British government could have suitably transferred some authority to the company, the delegation of taxing powers and powers relating to the criminal justice system would amount to obnoxious delegation under any system of law.
Thus far, we have been seeking inaccurate apologies from the British. It is time to demand an explanation from the British Parliament, British Government and the Crown for the atrocities committed by the East India Company, a standard commercial organisation, which had questionable legitimacy at best.
A few may attempt to rationalise that the present generation is not responsible for the actions of the past but this argument holds no water as it is a responsibility of the institutions of the British state. Although the particular individuals themselves are no longer present, the systems and structures that enabled the oppression of our people still persist. The present Government of the United Kingdom should be held accountable for their inhuman, wrong, illegal and illegitimate actions.
Pranjal Pandey is a Lawyer by profession and Ajay is a technocrat turned bureaucrat. Views expressed are personal.