Discuss the two major objectives of the East India company.

The East India Company had two major objectives first to acquire exclusive rights to trade from and to India and second to somehow take over the financial resources of the country.

They set about to achieve their first target by persuading the British Govt. to pass a Royal Charter which allowed only the East India Company to trade with India and the east from England. To exclude their European rivals they had many wars on land and sea. Now they could persue their ambition of dominating the Indian trade. The Company took advantage of the deteriorating Mughal empire with its unstable political scene and once political domination was acquired.

The Indian resources fell into the lap of the East India Company.The Indian resources were employed directly  by the Company and forced to produce materials at less than market value, this led to major profit boom for the Company and left the Indian merchants unemployed.

The second objective was for the Company to somehow takeover the Government revenues.This could only be achieved by getting a political hold over the country and for a political hold they needed to conquer certain territories and to conquer they needed an army of their own which in turn would require funds which the Company did not possess.

So the Company began to devise a plan to raise Indian money to purchase Indian goods.This was fulfilled with.first the conquest of Bengal and parts of South India. With that done the East India Company acquired direct control over the revenues of the Indian states and initially this led to uncontrolled extortion of wealth soon. Things were streamlined and the British Government stepped in and appointed officials to overlook matters.