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However, with the onset of globalization,
interest in the company has increased and efforts are being
made to project the Company as a pioneering force behind
world trade and the birth of modern consumerism. Its
founders are often portrayed as flamboyant adventurers, and
its executives as glamorous “White Moguls”. But the author
reveals how the legacy of the East India Company provides
profound and perturbing lessons to us on business ethics as
well as the need for corporate accountability.
Behind the façade of the East India Company’s success lay
deceit, intrigue and tragedy. The author reveals the
hitherto untold, appalling social record of the East India
Company. The company and its executives amassed huge riches
through the methodical plunder of Bengal and later the whole
of India. The misery the Company brought to humanity was
unparalleled. |
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Corporate greed coupled with the greed of its executives caused a famine in
Bengal. Its human rights abuses drove innumerable weavers in Bengal to
suicide and self-mutilation to avoid further exploitation. The company
showed total disregard for laws and regulations, and openly traded in
prohibited domestic goods in Bengal, and later on smuggled opium to China
where it was banned. In addition to this, its executive malpractice,
corruption, violence and stock market excesses shocked the world and
resulted in many a debate in the British Parliament.
The Company did not lead a charmed life, by any means. Its stock prices were
always fluctuating. Relations with governments at home and abroad,
corruption, and wars all contributed to this series of peaks and troughs.
The author narrates how the excesses committed by the Company ultimately led
to its fall. For the better part of its existence, the Company was a
monopoly power. From the very beginning, it zealously defended its monopoly
by employing all possible means - including deceit, violence and bribery.
This monopoly combined with lack of accountability finally devoured it from
within, through mismanagement and negligence. This decadent system led to a
stock market crash and one of the worst famines in India. It also led to a
revolution, called the first war of independence in India and the Sepoy
mutiny in the West. This uprising sounded the death knell for the mighty
East India Company.
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