Warren Hastings

Hastings, Warren 

Born Dec. 6, 1732, in Churchill, near Daylesford, Oxfordshire; died Aug. 22, 1818, in Daylesford. British colonial figure.

In 1750, Hastings arrived in India as an employee of the British East India Company and later played a role in organizing the conquest and sacking of Bengal. He was a member of the India Council at Calcutta from 1761 to 1764 and at Madras from 1769 to 1772; he was made governor of Bengal in 1772. In 1773, under the newly passed Regulating Act for India, Hastings was appointed the first governor-general of India. Serving in this position until 1785, he consolidated the British conquests in India.

Hastings used every means possible to fill the coffers of the British East India Company. He methodically plundered the Indian peasantry by farming out the land tax in return for bribes, discontinued the pensions allotted to the nabob of Bengal and the Great Mogul (1773), sent troops in return for a large sum of money to Siraj-ud-daula, the nabob of Oudh, to be used to conquer the Rohillas (1774), annexed the vassal state of Benares to the company’s domains (1781), and confiscated property of the begums of Oudh (1782). Hastings ruthlessly suppressed popular uprisings against the British colonialists, including the sannyasi movement (1760–75), the uprisings in Benares (1781) and Oudh (1782), and the peasant revolt in Dinajpur (1783).

Hastings retired in 1785 under pressure from the Whig Party, which opposed the monopoly of the British East India Company in India. In 1788 he was brought to trial in the House of Lords on charges of cruelty, acts of injustice, and corruption. The trial dragged on for several years, and in 1795 Hastings was acquitted, despite the evidence against him. The materials of Hastings’ trial are an important source for the history of the British colonial seizure and ruthless pillaging of India.

REFERENCES

Antonova, K. A. Angliiskoe zavoevanie Indii v XVIII v. Moscow, 1958.
Feiling, K. Warren Hastings. London-New York, 1955.

K. A. ANTONOVA