'The greatest benefit they ever received from us': British India and the origins of the Great Game, 1757--1805

This thesis traces the origins of the Great Game, a geopolitical conflict between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia to the intellectual and constitutional construction of 'British India' after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Using a diverse range of ideas and facets of British and Indian society it will examine how the East India Company, the Mughal Empire and the domestic British state all contributed to the development of the Great Game in the middle of the nineteenth century. By examining how British politicians and scholars interpreted the nature of British sovereignty and government in Bengal, it will demonstrate that once the East India Company had secured territorial domain in India, its employees set about interpreting many of the political, legal and religious ideas and traditions of Indian society in a way that made them more governable for Britons. This exercise in intellectual imperialism, in turn, had many unforeseen consequences, one of which was a propensity to expand the British Indian state into the rest of the subcontinent. This paper uses a variety of primary sources and the rich historiography of British India from recent decades to examine and evaluate this interesting and important episode