National Geographic: Treasure Seekers - Empires of India (2000)

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National Geographic: Treasure Seekers - Empires of India (2000)

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India a land of seductive riches,

land of the Kohinoor diamond

a priceless gem which legend says

was given by the god Krishna

to test mankind's greed.

Possessed of such wealth and beauty,

thought Krishna, would men

behave like beasts?

or would they think and

achieve wisdom?

This is the story of India

and its conquerors.

One stormed south

across the mountains,

one came from across the seas,

both were hungry for wealth

and dominion.

Each would become his own answer to

Krishna's question

wise man or beast?

For three hundred years the

Mughal empire dominated India.

It was a Mughal emperor who created

the radiant mountain of white marble

called the Taj Mahal,

one of the wonders of the world.

The wealth and sophistication of

the Mughal court were legendary.

Here, Mughal kings ruled

from the famous peacock throne

made of gold, rubies and sapphires.

All these treasures of

the Mughal empire

were the legacy of one remarkable

man, a poet, a k*ller,

a wild nomad who was not

from India at all.

His name was Babur.

Babur's life began in 1483

in Fergana,

a small kingdom in the highlands

of central Asia.

Fergana was one square of a

bloodstained checkerboard

of competing dynasties,

each struggling to expand

its little empire.

But a little empire wasn't

what Babur had in mind.

Babur's dynasty was part Turk

and part Mongol

"Mughals" as the Persians

called them.

Babur was a direct descendant

of the two greatest conquerors of

Central Asian history,

Genghis Khan

and Timur or Tamerlane.

He wanted something that would be

worthy of their memory.

From the very beginning,

Babur tried to take inspiration

from Genghis and Timur.

These were his two heroes.

And it was probably this reason

which had, at times, goaded him

to think of India as

his final destination.

Born to nobility,

at 11 Babur inherited Fergana.

Almost immediately other warlords tried

to take it away from him.

Not surprisingly for one so young,

the fortunes of w*r started to

turn against him.

Before long, he had lost much of

his kingdom and his men

deserted in droves to hitch their

fortunes to more promising leaders.

All seven or eight hundred of

my lords and warriors deserted me.

It was a terrible blow.

I remember, I couldn't help crying.

He was only fifteen.

It was a harsh education which made

young Babur's heart ache.

But his early failures toughened him.

If you desire to rule and conquer,

you don't just fold your hands

when things go wrong you act.

Action meant w*r.

And with whichever followers

he could muster,

he started to wage guerrilla warfare

against his more powerful neighbors.

He and his men seesawed

between victory and defeat.

Allies deserted him;

enemies became allies.

One day in 1501, he laughed

when he realized

a sword he had given to an ally as a

token of loyalty one year,

was the same one that almost split

his skull in battle the next.

My own soul is my most

faithful friend.

My own heart, my truest confidant.

Always, Babur's ambition was to found

a great dynasty like his ancestors.

He needed children who would be

his heirs.

He admitted he was so shy

as a young man,

his mother and sisters had to bully

him into sleeping with his first wife.

But before long he had more wives,

and a son, Humayun,

on whom the weight of Babur's dreams

would fall.

With his succession assured,

the question that now dogged him was:

what would he leave his sons?

He had lost his kingdom and was

being shut out of Central Asia.

So where was the land in which

his dynasty could flourish?

Slowly, Babur's reputation as

a w*rlord was growing

and with it the perception that

he might be a future ruler after all.

Lured by the promise of

conquest and booty,

warriors of other dynasties began to

join him.

In 1504, Babur's fortunes took a

decisive turn for the better.

He caught wind of tumult in the

Afghan kingdom of Kabul to the south.

Here, he thought, was a chance.

At the age of 21,

Babur rode out of the mountains

with his small band of men

and raced toward Kabul.

Warriors joined him as he approached

and they swept into the city.

The battle for Kabul was short

and Babur triumphed.

As he settled into his new home,

Babur immediately fell in love

with Afghanistan,

its cool climate, and the beautiful

rivers of its fresh upland plateaus.

Kabul signified a new beginning,

an end to the years of wandering

but not, of course,

an end to his dreams of empire.

Not far to the south lay the vast,

teeming land of Hindustan, India.

He had heard many stories

of its wealth.

He realized it was now within

his grasp.

From the time I took Kabul,

I set my heart on Hindustan.

In 1504, the Indian sub continent

Was a disunited mass of

independent kingdoms and sultanates

Hindu in the south,

largely Moslem in the north.

One of the largest and most powerful

of these was Hindustan,

controlled by the sultanate

of Delhi.

Babur knew he stood no chance

of directly confronting

the armies of Hindustan.

But having taken Kabul, he lost no

time in making an exploratory raid

into the plains of northern India

just to see.

With a small army he moved

south in 1505.

He was amazed by what he found.

I had never experienced such heat

or anything like Hindustan before

different plants, different trees,

different animals and birds,

different tribes and people,

different manners and customs.

It was astonishing,

truly astonishing.

India exceeded his wildest

expectations.

He discovered beautifully

crafted textiles,

refined sugar, perfumes and spices.

Here indeed was a rich land.

As he headed back to Kabul,

his resolve to return was redoubled.

But he would have to bide his time.

For 20 years Babur

made Kabul his home.

to taste the pleasures of life.

Until now he had been a clean living

and sober young Moslem.

In Kabul all that started to change.

At that time I had not committed

the sin of drinking to drunkenness

and did not know the delight

and leisure of being drunk

as it should be known.

Here all the implements of pleasure

and revelry were ready and present.

If I didn't drink now,

when would I?

He discovered a taste for fine wines,

and the sweetmeats laced with

hashish called Ma'jun.

In Kabul he drank often.

His memoirs filled with parties,

drunkenness and head splitting

hangovers.

We drank on the boat until

late that night.

We got on our horses,

reeling from side to side,

then let them gallop free reined.

The next morning they told me I had

galloped into camp holding a torch.

I swear I didn't remember a thing,

except that when I got back to

my tent I was extremely sick.

In Kabul, Babur learned how to let go,

but he never forgot that

if he was ever to take Hindustan

his troops had to stay disciplined.

He had no qualms about

extreme punishments.

I had one of the soldiers clubbed

at the gate for stealing a pot of oil.

He d*ed.

The others were successfully

cowed by this punishment.

As he explored Afghanistan,

this ruthless nomad who was perfectly

capable of

putting entire cities to the sword,

became a keen student of flowers.

All sorts grow in these foothills;

I once counted them and found

We named one the rose scented tulip

because it smelt

rather like a rose;

it grows all by itself

on the Sheikh's plain.

Joy was to sit peacefully in one of

his beautiful highland gardens

and write poetry.

He built no fewer than

ten gardens in Kabul.

Before long, Babur's seven wives had

produced him eighteen children.

He was devoted to all of them

but it was his first born son,

Humayun, who he was determined would

inherit a great kingdom.

Babur bided his time, watching and

waiting for his opportunity in India.

Finally, in 1526, it arrived.

The Sultanate of Delhi was overtaken

by internal strife.

Babur realized his moment had come.

It would be now or never.

Babur marched into Northern India

with 12,000 men.

The sultan of Delhi marched to

meet him

with 100,000 men

and 1,000 armored elephants.

They met on the plain of Panipat

north of Delhi.

Babur's Tr*mp card was

the discipline of his troops

and his Turkish a*tillery.

The Indian elephants charged

but were met with explosions

of canons and mortar.

They panicked, spun, and stampeded.

The whole army fell into disarray.

Just a few hours after it began,

the battle became a rout.

The Indians, including their leader,

were massacred as they ran.

Babur had just pulled off

an astonishing m*llitary feat.

Finally, Hindustan was his.

With Hindustan in his grasp,

one of the first things Babur did was

to send Hindustani dancing girls

to entertain his wives

in their harem in Kabul.

It was a gracious gesture.

His wives, covered and restrained,

their faces painted stiffly white

in the central Asian style,

must have been astonished.

Out of meetings like this, of the

stark world of central Asian Islam

with the lush anarchy of India, would

arise the glories of the Mughal style.

As Babur took stock of

his new possession,

even he well versed in plunder

was stunned.

The astonishing treasuries

of Hindustan

contained the Kohinoor diamond.

Its name, he learned meant

"mountain of light."

He was told it was worth enough

to feed the entire world

for two and half days.

Offered it as a gift,

Babur refused and left it

with his son Humayun.

Suddenly he was less interested in

the riches

than in how to govern

this strange new land.

But as he surveyed Hindustan, his

enthusiasm for it started to melt away.

There is no beauty in its people,

no graceful social intercourse,

no poetic talent or understanding,

no etiquette, nobility or manliness.

The arts and crafts have no harmony

or symmetry.

There is no ice, cold water,

good food or bread in the markets.

The peasantry and common people

parade around stark naked.

Hindustan is a place of little charm.

But Babur was determined

he would build Hindustan into

something worthy of his dynasty.

He would introduce Mughal order

and symmetry

into what seemed to him

a chaotic and senseless land.

He made the princes of Hindustan,

the Rajputs,

submit to him and laid foundations

for the future empire.

And it dawned on Babur that

it was no longer enough to be

a successful conqueror.

To fulfill his dreams for his heirs,

he had to become a wise ruler as well.

A sacrifice to god was necessary.

In an extravagant public ceremony,

Babur swore off drink.

He had his drinking vessels crushed

and distributed the gold and silver

to the poor.

At the age of 43, Babur had achieved

his dream of empire.

He settled into Hindustan and

continued work on his autobiography

the first ever written

in the Moslem world.

I have simply set down what happened.

I have reported every good and evil

of father and brother,

every fault and virtue of

relative and stranger.

May the reader excuse me.

And everywhere Babur built the square,

symmetrical gardens called 'charbagh'

which were the perfect expression

of Mughal beauty.

The radiance of nature bound by the

rigid geometrical order of Islam.

And it was in his gardens

that he reflected on his turbulent

life and his successes in battles,

both with enemies and himself.

The temptations of alcohol

had been almost overwhelming.

Two years ago my craving

for a wine party

was such to bring me to

the verge of tears.

This year, praise God, that desire

has completely left my mind.

The one thing that never left

his mind was his homeland, Fergana.

One day as he ate a melon he found

himself crying

as its flavor brought back memories

of the fresh uplands

of his childhood.

He confessed to his youngest daughter

that he wanted to retire

and turn the reins of power

over to Humayun.

But In 1530, four years after

the conquest of Hindustan,

Humayun fell sick.

His doctors gave him up for dead.

It was a catastrophe

the death not only of a beloved son

but the heir to Babur's dynasty

and empire.

Babur had learned the wisdom of

sacrifice.

But what on earth could he offer God

to persuade him to spare his son?

Priests and advisors came with

suggestions:

He could sacrifice the Kohinoor.

But Babur knew it was a worthless

bauble compared to the life of his son.

He decided only one sacrifice

could possibly compare.

For days, he prayed fervently

to Allah

to take his own life

in exchange for Humayun's.

Soon after, Humayun recovered and

sure enough, Babur fell sick.

He stayed true to his oath and

refused all offers of treatment.

He'd made a deal with Allah

a life for a life.

Who was he to renege?

He turned his face to the wall.

Three months later he d*ed, aged 47.

Babur had ruled India

for only four years,

but the dynasty he founded

would rule it for almost 300.

Akbar, Babur's grandson,

would for the first time

unite the subcontinent.

Shah Jahan, Babur's great great

grandson, would build the Taj Mahal.

The Mughals laid the foundations of

the India we know today.

They were able to create

a large empire within India;

they were able to establish the

great institutions of empire

through their army, their especially

important domestic

and other alliance policies

with the Rajputs.

It was a very creative fusion.

Over the generations,

Mughal India would become

synonymous with opulence,

refinement, and wealth.

Before long it attracted the hungry

gaze of yet other treasure seekers.

This time they would come from

further west.

Just over three hundred years

after Babur d*ed,

India was swallowed

by the British empire.

By the end of the 19th century,

Britain dominated most of the world

but India was its most

valued possession.

Queen Victoria called it

the jewel in her crown.

The man who gave all this to Britain

was an unlikely conqueror

a tormented soul

who came from nowhere,

driven only by an unwavering

ambition.

His name was Robert Clive.

in London.

Robert Clive is fighting

for his survival.

He has laid the foundations of

the British empire in India

and in the process made himself

a vast fortune.

Now he stands accused of

criminal greed and exploitation.

In the House of Commons

he rises to his defense.

Gentlemen, a great prince was

dependent on my pleasure,

an opulent city lay at my mercy;

its richest bankers bid against

each other for my smiles;

I walked through vaults which were

thrown open to me alone,

piled on either hand

with gold and jewels!

Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand

astonished at my own moderation!

Robert Clive will not be bowed.

His life is ending as it began

in a furious and lonely struggle.

Born in 1725 in Shropshire

in the West of England,

he was given up by his mother as

a child and raised by relatives.

It happened at the insistence

of his father

an ineffectual lawyer from

the minor country gentry,

who barely earned enough to keep

the family afloat.

Rejected by his family

and naturally unruly,

young Robert was soon running wild

in the little town of Market Drayton.

He pioneered the business methods,

which would make him his later fortune

as the head of a juvenile g*ng.

It was a protection racket

if merchants agreed to pay a small fee,

the boys would agree

NOT to break their windows.

Robert was adventurous,

brave and bad.

He was an average student

and much more interested in

mischief than in school.

He climbed the church tower

of Market Drayton

and hung over the side

for the sheer thrill of it.

Robert grew up craving excitement,

but wanted acceptance

by his family even more.

When he was 17,

a job as a clerk in the East India

Company promised adventure,

money and a chance

to redeem his family.

Clive set his sights on India.

On the first of June 1744,

a cutter deposited Robert in a

rowboat just off the coast of Madras.

Splashing ashore,

he got his first sight of India.

The Madras, Robert discovered,

was an exotic melting pot

of Indian, Southeast Asian

and European influences.

Here British, French and Dutch

traders had established themselves

to take advantage of the

astonishingly lucrative trade

in cloth, spices and opium.

In those days the young men who

became clerks in the East India Company

were a little bit like the Eurobond

dealers of our day.

If you wanted to make a pile...

I mean there was a great risk

attached to this

because you could go out to India and

promptly die of some dreadful disease.

But there was a chance also,

that you might make a whole

sort of pile of money.

These early European colonialists

merged with the Indian population

much more completely than

later ones would.

Many traders went native, and began

to behave like local potentates.

So they lived as Indians,

wore Indian clothes quite often,

certainly adopted Indian manners

and customs.

Many of them had harems.

As far as the Indian princes

are concerned,

they looked upon the company as

another Indian presence,

not as a foreigner necessarily

invading.

This was global capitalism

in its infancy.

Clive and his friends were pioneers

of the system

that would soon dominate

the entire world.

But in 1745 Robert was

discovering that

the life of a clerk in India

was not easy.

His salary was five pounds a year.

He soon felt desperately lonely and

more cut adrift from home than ever.

His unhappiness came to a head when

several ships appeared in the harbor.

Every European in Madras received

a letter or package from home

except Clive.

He was devastated.

Clive had a mercurial temperament.

This apparent humiliation

at the hands of his family

plunged him into the depths

of depression.

Feeling utterly alone and cast off,

he put a g*n to his head

and pulled the trigger.

Twice it failed to go off.

"Fate it seems must be reserving me

for some other purpose,"

he would later tell a friend.

In fact, fate had extraordinary

things in store for Clive

wild swings of fortune, dizzying

heights but also the darkest depths.

Throughout his life periods

of intense,

feverish activity would alternate

with bouts of deep despair.

He would probably be diagnosed today

as a manic depressive.

Clive soon discovered that

opium was the only cure

and he would use it as a medicine

for the rest of his life.

Clive got used to loneliness.

The British lived in

Fort St. George.

You had the fort and then you had

Blacktown outside.

They called it Blacktown,

and that's where all the Indians lived.

The British seldom ventured into

Blacktown

except when they wanted to go

and pick up hookers, basically.

And Clive, certainly it was known

he had this sort of

fondness for prostitutes.

Perhaps the one consolation for Clive

and his fellow

colonialists was that,

being so far from home, they could do

almost whatever they liked.

As a proverb of the time said:

"there are no sins south of

the equator."

As Europeans woke up to the phenomenal

profits to be made in India,

the competition for trade intensified.

Finally in 1746,

open w*r broke out between the

British and French in India

each side supported by

their local allies and clients.

It was just the push Clive needed.

He was galvanized by new energy

and enthusiasm.

For the next five years of

Anglo French conflict in India,

Clive fought in the militia of

the East India Company

where his raw aggression

and boundless energy won him

promotions and success

at the same furious pace.

In return for his victories against

the French,

culminating in the battle of Arcot,

he was rewarded with an appointment

as quartermaster of the company

factory at Madras.

He would find a way to make a profit

out of the soldiers' provisions.

Now, it doesn't sound very grand,

but the great thing

about quartermaster is

You were given a great wad of money

and told to go feed your troops.

And if you could feed your troops

on half the amount of money

you'd been given,

then you were allowed

to keep the rest.

By the time Clive was 27,

he had made himself a small fortune

Clive was also being credited with

turning the tide

against the French.

News of his success astonished

the family back in England.

His father is said to have remarked:

"Perhaps Robert is not such a booby

after all".

Finally Clive was getting

the recognition he craved.

Now he hungered for it

on a wider stage.

One event would set the seal

not only on Clive's fortunes in India

but that of the British as well.

In 1756, the Mughal Nawab,

or 'prince of Bengal' Siraj,

seized the British East India

Company's fort in Calcutta.

The British in India were furious.

Their outrage soared

when stories circulated

about the Mughals' treatment

of European prisoners.

When he seized the fort,

Siraj had ordered the imprisonment

of all company employees.

The Indians locked their

British captives in a cell

designed by the British

for Indian captives.

It was tiny 18 by 14 feet

with only a couple of minuscule,

barred windows.

The night of June 20th,

When the door opened the next morning,

at least 40 British were dead.

"The Black Hole of Calcutta"

they called it,

and the incident sparked uproar.

It was just what Clive had been

waiting for.

Here was a chance to really

take control of India

and make a name for himself.

He received command of

a small British army.

Clive and his troops hit Bengal

like a monsoon.

In 1757, he swept into Calcutta and

forced the Nawab's troops to withdraw.

With promises of lucrative deals,

Clive then strong armed

an Indian prince

into joining him in a

m*llitary alliance against Siraj.

With typical guile,

Clive secured the allegiance of his

Indian allies with fraudulent treaties.

Finally, he marched into Bengal

with 800 European troops and

over 2,000 Indian sepoys.

It was an impressive force

but nothing compared to what Siraj

mustered against him.

by the French

and 50 pieces of state of the art

heavy a*tillery.

The two armies met near a town

called Plassey.

The Nawab's superiority

may have seemed overwhelming

but Clive knew that discipline,

not numbers, was the key.

The Europeans had already

gone through something

like a bureaucratic

m*llitary revolution

in the organization of their armies.

Everyone is trained to act in unison

and it is not heroic battle action

which matters but the discipline

of formation

and quick succession to anybody who

falls in the field of battle,

exactly as one faceless bureaucrat

is replaced by another.

Clive was outnumbered enormously,

but he could use his resources

much more effectively.

Faced by the disciplined phalanxes

of the British trained troops,

the Mughal army fell apart.

Clive's triumph at Plassey

effectively gave India to the British.

Although the British empire in India

would not be formally declared

for another 100 years,

India now belonged to the

British East India Company.

Clive became known as the Master of

Bengal and lost no time

in turning his position into an

astonishingly lucrative business.

He had learned the technique years

ago as a quartermaster in Madras.

Indian merchants were prepared

to do anything

to ensure their continued good

relations with the East India Company.

On the same principle,

the Prince of Bengal now paid Clive

huge sums to ensure his favor.

On top of this Clive was collecting

trade and land revenues.

Within the space of two years

he had amassed a huge fortune.

But with the action over,

it was not long before Clive slumped

into another cycle of depression,

accompanied now by agonizing pains in

his stomach, gout and prostration.

In 1760 he returned to England

as Clive of India a very rich,

very famous and very sick man.

When Clive returned to London,

one of the only things that could

drag him from his gloom

was the prospect of

a spending spree.

He now had wealth, recognition,

fame in India

the only thing he didn't have was

social position in England.

He decided he would buy his way

into the English upper classes.

He hungrily set out to amass property

and social status in equal measure.

He remodeled the family home

at S0tyche, and bought four more

a luxurious town house in

London's Berkeley Square,

two more estates in England

and one in Ireland too.

He engineered himself a seat in

Parliament and one for his father also.

The power and reach of

Clive's money was huge

but not limitless.

The one thing Robert Clive wanted

more than anything else was

to be accepted by the establishment

and the aristocracy

and for people to consider him

a gentleman.

He did flash his money around.

And sadly, people considered him

to be rather vulgar.

They didn't like this chap coming

back from India out of nowhere

and buying all these estates

and big houses and,

you know, sort of buying his own

furniture if you like.

Clive soon found himself mired

in the intricacies of the

English class system.

Try as he might, spend as he might,

the inner circles of the aristocracy

would not let him in.

His rough manners only made things

worse for him.

They called him a 'nabob',

English slang based on the Hindi

word 'Nawab' or ruler.

The nabob is a pejorative

expression for an Englishman

who has given up to bad stomach,

bad digestion,

bad temper as a result of

overindulgence in India.

And usually plundered India

and made a lot of money.

They're something like robber barons

in fact.

And their idea was to

make a fortune here and then

establish themselves in England

as respectable notables.

And try to make a political

career there.

Now in England they were looked upon

as adventurers who were slightly seedy,

and Clive was a classic example

of that.

The English aristocracy closed

its doors in Clive's face.

But Clive was not to be put off.

Still intent on his social climb,

Clive decided to try a different tack.

To enhance his reputation, he agreed

to return to India in a different role.

No longer just the businessman,

but now statesman as well.

In 1765,

only five years after leaving,

the 40 year old Clive returned

to India

as governor of the

British East India Company.

He now cast himself as a high minded

champion of British interests.

Clive's mission was to clean up the

practices of the British in India.

They certainly needed it.

In the eight years since

Clive's victory at Plassey,

profiteering had run wild in Bengal.

The British had achieved an effective

trade monopoly.

British merchants and soldiers

strong armed

and extorted money from

Bengali traders

just as Clive himself had once done.

Resentment was seething.

Clive countered the growing unrest

with a tone of patrician contempt

for all the practices

that had made him rich.

The confusion we behold,

what does it arise from?

Rapacity and luxury;

the unreasonable desire of many

to acquire in an instant,

what only a few can

or ought to possess.

With almost biblical fervor,

Clive launched reforms outlawing

the abuses he had instituted.

In a whirlwind 20 months

Clive totally revamped the

British East India Company.

By the end of it he was drained.

And it was now that disaster struck.

In 1769 the monsoon rains

failed in Bengal.

And in 1770 famine set in.

Hundreds of thousands d*ed

as much as one third of the population.

Share prices for the East India

Company's stock plummeted.

By 1772 the Company's credit

had failed.

Meanwhile stories were

circulating that

English merchants were hoarding rice

as Indians starved.

There was a public outcry

against the company.

People looked for a scapegoat.

Fingers pointed at Clive.

It was a bitter irony.

Only as Clive was at last making

a noble hearted effort

to clear up the morass of greed

in India,

was he finally accused of being

its cause.

A parliamentary committee was formed

to investigate the company

and Clive's role in it.

The accusation?

Extortion and profiteering in India.

As usual, energized by the prospect

of a fight,

Clive rose magnificently to his own

defense in the house of commons.

And it was now he made his

famous speech saying that

given the opportunities for

self enrichment in India

he was astonished at his moderation.

Clive was cleared but there was

no joy in it for him.

He had been stung by the accusations.

He had effectively given India

to Britain.

Now he was furiously bitter at what

he felt was his country's ingratitude.

He was once again being rejected.

Predictably, he plunged back

into depression.

His agonizing stomach pains returned,

this time complicated by gallstones.

Even opium did little

to relieve the pain.

I have a disease

which makes life insupportable, but

which the doctors tell me

won't shorten it an hour.

He drifted from one mansion

to another,

barely unpacking before

setting off for the next.

Little did he know, many in the

British government had in fact

been deeply impressed with his

reforms of the East India Company.

They were on the verge of giving him

control of yet another colony

that was in chaos and on the verge of

revolt North America.

Unaware of the honor

that was pending,

Clive was consumed by

humiliation and despair.

On the 22nd of November, 1774,

as his family prepared to leave the

London house

at Berkeley square for Bath

they heard a crash in Clive's room.

When they rushed in,

they found him dead.

Robert Clive, still only 49 years old,

had cut his own throat.

Clive's death created a huge scandal,

there was a sort of big hush up

and a lot of sort of muted whispering

going on in the corridors of power

as to whether he had k*lled himself.

It sounds like he slit his throat

with a penknife.

su1c1de was a sin.

In grief and shame, Clive's family

removed his body by night

and buried him without a headstone

in the little church of Moreton say,

outside Market Drayton, the town

where he had run wild as a child.

After Clive's death,

the British grip on America loosened

and tightened on India.

The profits to be earned there

resumed their flow.

A hundred years later, the Kohinoor,

the fabulous diamond Babur had dismissed

as worthless

compared to the life of his son,

was in the British crown jewels.

Krishna's gift had been a test of

mankind's greed.

What would they do with

all that wealth?

Would they behave like beasts

or think and achieve Wisdom?
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