Europeans & the East India Company

Answer: (d) Cotton, silk, saltpetre and opium

In the mid-18th century the Company's main exports from Bengal were cotton and silk cloth, saltpetre (used for gunpowder) and opium. Bengal was the Company's source of fine textiles, and after 1765 its revenue was used to buy these goods rather than importing bullion from Britain.

• ✓ (d) The Company bought fine cotton and silk cloth in Bengal, held a monopoly of Indian saltpetre from the middle of the 18th century, and by the late 18th century was expanding opium cultivation.
• ✗ (a) The Company bought finished cotton and silk cloth from Bengal, not raw cotton or oil-seeds; only opium in this list fits.
• ✗ (c) Gold and silver went the other way: before 1765 the Company brought them from Britain to pay for Indian goods.
• ✗ (b) Sugar, salt, zinc and lead were not the Company's staple Bengal exports of this period.

Remember · Bengal exports of the Company in the 1750s: cotton and silk textiles, saltpetre, opium. Before Diwani (1765) it paid for them with bullion from Britain.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) To secure a fixed income for the Company

Why not the tempting option · UPSC's key is (c). The subsidy an ally paid was a reimbursement for the British force kept in its territory, and rulers who could not pay lost territory instead (Awadh gave up half its land in 1801), so a fixed income for the Company was not an object of the system; its purposes were a large army at Indian expense, exclusion of the French and British paramountcy. In the exam, judge a policy by its stated aims, not by its incidental receipts.

The Subsidiary Alliance was a military and political device. It planted a British force in an ally's territory at the ally's cost, offered the ruler protection against external threats, and tied the states to British control. Securing a fixed income for the Company was never its aim: the subsidy was the price of the troops, and when a ruler could not pay it, territory was taken instead. So (c) is the statement that does not apply.

• ✓ (c) The money an ally paid was the cost of maintaining the British contingent stationed with it, not a revenue for the Company. NCERT notes that if the ruler failed to pay, part of his territory was taken away as a penalty; the object was control, not a steady income.
• ✗ (a) This did apply: the ally had to provide the resources for maintaining the British armed contingent stationed in its territory, which gave the Company a large army at Indian expense.
• ✗ (b) This did apply: NCERT says the British Resident was installed to protect rulers against internal or external threats, and Britannica names Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798-99, which created a new French threat to India, among the immediate causes of the Company's drive towards paramountcy in Wellesley's time.
• ✗ (d) This did apply: an ally could not negotiate with other rulers or go to war without British permission and had to accept a Resident, and NCERT says the system effectively transferred real power to the British, which placed British power above the Indian states.

Remember · Wellesley's Subsidiary Alliance: British troops in the ally's state, paid for by the ally (territory taken if unpaid); foreign relations only through the British, no wars without the Company's consent; protection against external threats. Its aims were military and political, not revenue.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 2 (practise this chapter) · Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), Ch 4 (practise this chapter) · Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), Ch 4 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error