Paper short abstract:

Torture as a means to extract revenue and confession from Indian subjects was an unsanctioned, yet ubiquitous mode of governance for the East India Company’s rule in India. This paper demonstrates the liberal imperial project’s contradictions of humanitarianism and maintaining empire at any cost.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the nineteenth century under the East India Company, torture was a widespread and open secret amongst officials and inhabitants. The perpetrators were often 'native servants' of the state in the police and revenue departments, and the victims were most commonly the ryots. Torture was universally reviled by all British administrators at every level of governance - district, presidency, and metropole. Yet torture persisted, often with the collusion of officials who turned a blind eye to its application. As a universally condemned practice, torture when perpetrated by Indians, functioned as a hallmark for the savagery of native customs and justified the need to expand British law, justice and other institutions of good governance within the subcontinent. Simultaneously, the use of torture served the state as an object of stark imperial control through its use to collect revenue. The contradiction of liberal governance perpetrated under a corporate regime is laid bare through the persistence of torture, occurring under a company state that was responsible ultimately to its self rather than its subjects. This is the fundamental problem of a company masquerading as government. Scholars of the East India Company have frequently separated the trading from governing aspects of the Company. This paper argues instead that the governing of subjects was carried out under the same principles as trade, and that the structures created by the Company led to a stark contradiction between needing to appear as a good government while maintaining their corporate responsibilities. Torture demonstrates this was not readily accomplished.