English Department of Anandamohan College

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ভাইরাস ও ব্যাকটেরিয়ার বিরুদ্ধে সক্রিয় হ্যান্ড স্যানিটাইজার প্রস্তুত করা হলো। হ্যান্ড স্যানিটাইজার ব্যবহার করুন এবং নিরাপদে থাকুন।
প্রস্তুতকারকঃ রসায়ন বিভাগ, আনন্দ মোহন কলেজ, ময়মনসিংহ।

Today is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare

End
Speech on Fox's East India Bill
[December 1, 1783]
4.5.0
Between 1773 and 1783, Burke's thinking on the problem of British government in India went through a radical change. The East India Company had been chartered in 1600 as a commercial company with a monopoly of British trade with India. As such Burke and the Rockingham Whigs still regarded it in 1773. In their eyes, efforts to extend the control of government over the Company were an attack on private property and chartered rights, and a dangerous extension of the power of the Crown. They did not sufficiently attend to the fact that the Company was no longer merely a trading enterprise. By its involvement in Indian wars, it had become the ruler of extensive Indian territories, of which Bengal was the principal one, and a major military and political power that controlled a number of nominally independent states.
4.5.1
After 1773, Burke gradually became convinced that the Company was not only exercising political power but was abusing it badly, to the detriment of the people of India. He made himself as well versed as he could in Indian affairs, and when he was appointed in 1781 to the House of Commons Select Committee on Bengal, he had access to a steady flow of privileged information.
4.5.2
In April 1783, his party, the Rockingham Whigs, led since Rockingham's death by Charles James Fox, came into power in coalition with Lord North, whom they had long opposed as George III's prime minister during the greater part of the American crisis. The Coalition submitted two bills in the Commons, one of which would effectively put the political government of India under the control of a commission appointed by Parliament. The other bill would put the management of the Company's commerce under another commission. The first, and more important, of the bills was drafted and introduced by Fox but incorporated many of Burke's ideas; Burke is the acknowledged author of the second bill.
4.5.3
The present speech, made on a motion for the House of Commons to go into committee to consider the first bill, was Burke's major contribution to the debate on it. Burke's enlightened imperialism in regard to Britain's government of India may have been unduly idealistic in several ways. Many of his charges against the Company, and against Governor-General Warren Hastings in particular, have been controverted by historians on factual grounds. But the speech reflects his conception of the proper role of Britain in governing other countries, his sincere concern for the just treatment of the people of India, and his genuine sympathy with their sufferings.