66 Enlargement of East India Company's

power base

एक दुखी परिवार - 66

Erosion of the Mughal empire on the one hand and enlargement of the East India Company's power base , on the other, was going hand in hand.

 Company's rich technology and armoury was increasingly making it high in demand for the states that were falling apart , from the control of the perishing Mughal dynasty.

The fragmented powers which were getting disintegrated , did not see the British as its rival, since their immediate priority was to establish themselves as independent kingdoms, freed from the Mughal tentacles , least concerned that it amounted to release from the captivity of one to fall into another's.

However, shift in loyalties did fetch shift in the power structures, as the new fragmented kingdoms were emerging as new control centres of power.

There were conflicts within some of the new states. 

Contestants for power in certain coastal states were thus seeking willing European support for their ambitions and Europeans were only too willing to give it, for twin reasons. One was that it promoted its business. Not just arm business, call it army business. Besides, it suited their future objectives which had already begun to take shape, to expand itself and capture larger areas militarily, first by alliances followed by covert usurpation in complete sense.

(Cont.   .)