In April 1608, when a ship named Hector—belonging to the English East India Company—arrived on the shores of Surat in present-day Gujarat, no one foresaw how some of the merchants on board would go on to alter the course of history in India. From the moment of its docking to the Revolt of 1857, a succession of its eminent passengers helped transform the Company from a trading collective to a colonizing juggernaut. In Governors of Empire, historian Amar Farooqui traces the journeys each of these men undertook, from arriving on Indian shores, through acquiring territories using equal parts trade agreements and political deceit, all the way to returning to Britain considerably wealthier than before.

Beginning with Robert Clive, the self-proclaimed hero of the British imperial project who played a pivotal role in the annexation of Bengal, the book follows several important governors whose actions ultimately delivered India into the hands of the Crown. After Clive came Warren Hastings, who began his tenure as governor of Bengal and settled down to govern both Bengal and Bihar. His ‘rule’ was followed by the regime of Charles Cornwallis, often portrayed as the golden age of British rule in India—a claim supported by colonially-sponsored historiography alone. After him, lesser-known figures like John Shore and Robert Hobart were followed by Richard Wellesley, under whom the system of ‘subsidiary alliances’ became a regular feature of the Company’s expansionist policy in India.

Lord Moira came next, and demolished the peshwai, destroying the rule of the Marathas in western India. William Bentinck’s governor-generalship then marked an interlude before a violent phase of large-scale warfare that completed the Company’s conquest of the subcontinent. Lord Dalhousie, who followed Bentinck, played a key role in the annexation of Punjab and Awadh, expanding the Company’s frontiers to cover swathes of northern India. He was succeeded by Charles Canning, the last governorgeneral to be appointed by the Company, and John Lawrence, the last of the Company’s old timers to rule over the Indian empire (he was crucial to the recapture of Delhi after the Revolt of 1857).

Through rigorously drawn portraits of the Company’s key functionaries, Governors of Empire brings to vivid life the story of the East India Company’s conquest of India through the lives and deeds of its governors.