Talk:Robert Clive

Early Comments

Parts of this article sounds imperialistic: ...and as a statesman, since retreat, or even delay, would have put back the civilization of India for years.

• • As with all the Empire-related articles quoting extensively from the 1911 Britannica, it editorialises in tone and in content. I intend to clean it up sometime in the immediate future.

Hornplease 07:05, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

This article needs a major rewrite, possibly from scratch. It sounds like British propaganda, talking about Indians as "natives" and using arcane objectionable terms. Not surprising, it is from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittannica, which was during the colonial times. --Ragib 29 June 2005 19:31 (UTC)

Feel free to alter the article yourself if you see any errors. Bastie 16:03, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Dispute on the Language in this Article

I thought no one would glorifies colonial past anymore. No one in right mind, writing about these events would write words like villains, Mohemmadans (condesending slangs for Muslims) etc. This certainly is a language that *no one* uses anymore.

I Agree. The reason of this "weird" language in the article is because someone grabbed the text from the 1911 Brittanica, which glorifies the "British Raj". A massive rewrite of the article is needed. --Ragib 03:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The 1911 Britannica is a historical document, which presents us with a facts colored by the spirit of the time. To judge its language by our standards is, at least, an anachronysm.

Did it occur to anyone to simply make note of the natural biases of Encyclopedia Britannica in 1911? I mean, it's not that difficult. Better yet, you could simply use an elipsis or two to cut out the more blatant editorialization.Nullius in Verba 01:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it is we today who are biased, we are against the British Empire these days it seems, and it seems as if you are considered bad for liking the Empire and recognising it's contributions...

I agree, the contributions of the British Raj was undeniable, and the PC attitudes of today's readers is sickening when you consider that it was only the British Raj that allowed India to emerge as a united nation in the first place, by which time the Raj had become obselete, leading to today's foolish derogative remarks about it. The comments made about Mohammedans and other comments like 'natives' should be seen as they are, a insight into the beliefs of a culture long since past, which inevitably had both good points and bad.

That may be correct, but we need to work on *this* article. Now, I'm not saying that the 1911 encyclopedia was by itself wrong, but using arcane language and expressions from it to build this article completely, won't be correct. The wordings like "Natives", "Mohammedans" etc. are fine when we read it in the 1911 encyclopedia, but using them here would be like perpetuating the obsolete expressions. Thanks. --Ragib 18:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree. This is not the place for a debate about the merits or otherwise of empire or rants about PC. The fact is that this article reads like it was written 100 years ago (and it pretty much was). It is in serious need of updating. I would hope to find time to contribute myself but have yet to do so. --Richard Clegg 20:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't get what you mean that 'contributions were undeniable' (since it is just an unsubstantiated proposition I can very much say that British sucked life out of people) or 'British Raj that allowed India to emerge as a united nation in the first place'. I thought that British created partition on the basis of religion: There was nothing as Pakistan before Raj. I also find is sickening that someone can a find anything good with Raj. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.56.158.35 (talk • contribs)

And that just demonstrates a lack of empathy and neutrality. There were even a (very) few good things in the African Slave Trade (although there were many, many more bad things than good) - to find sickening that people can find anything good with the Raj is to be sickened by your own lack of knowledge and empathy. As for the partition with Pakistan, it was more or less founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his demands that Muslims got equal seats to Hindus - and that the Muslim League (with him as head) would allocate the Muslim seats. (Gandhi would have gone along with the first but the second was right out.)

The myth that the British Empire "united" India for the first time has been widely discredited.

 History cannot be altered for the sake of political correctness. It would be wrong to undermine Lord Clive's contributions to the East India Company and to India.The British Empire created what we know as India aand the East India Company's role in uniting the provinces in pre-imperial India was undeniable-Guest

Complete Rewrite

I think a lot of people agree that this article needs a complete rewrite. Clive is such an important topic and his influence on Indian and British history is major but I hope none of the contributors will mind me saying that this article really needs attention badly. I don't feel enough of an expert on the subject myself but I hope nobody will be offended by my tagging it for a complete rewrite -- this is not intended to reflect on any particular contributor so far. The reasons I believe it needs a rewrite are:

• Heavy use of 1911 Britannica with inappropriate tone.
• Poor structure of page.
• Lack of appreciation of historical context from a modern perspective.

--Richard Clegg 16:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The tone of the 1911 encyclopedia is inherently POV. Clive is an important character in history, he is hated, ridiculed in India and Bangladesh, but perhaps he was the founder of the British Raj. Right now the page is a big mess, which is difficult to clean up. A rewrite from scratch with proper citations seem to be the best way. Thanks. --Ragib 18:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article as it stands must go but I agree that POV will be very tricky. I did not realise Clive was so disliked in India though I can quite understand why. I think we must be careful that this article remains an article about Clive's life and not the rights and wrongs of the Raj. He is an important historical character and deserves a better article. Unfortunately I have no reference books directly about Clive though I can find some material in recent histories of the British Empire and the East India Company (though of course I must be careful about the point of view of these). --Richard Clegg 19:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I created a temp page at Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive/temp, with blank sections. You can start working on that. --Ragib 19:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I DISAGREE. Much of what you find 'offensive' is actually your own bias, Ragib. "Native" simply means people that were 'native' to the land; i.e. inhabitants before the 'immigrants' arrived. "Mohammedan," while arcaic, means "Muslims." There is nothing derogatory about either of these terms. And, while statements supporting the 'civilizing mission' ideology need to be scaled back, they should not be done so at the expense of the historic record. For example, if we said "the British bandit Robert Clive barbarically invaded India," well that would be spinning in the other direction. Like it or no, Clive was just the top of a large bureaucracy that, without him, probably would have succeeded in the conquest of India anyway. 70.89.83.190 23:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, to begin with, I'm not terming Clive as a "Bandit" or otherwise, contrary to your fertile imagination. Rather, the patronizing, hero-worshipping tone of the article is the main thing I am against. It is not surprising to have such a tone from a 1911 encyclopedia. Of course, "Native" is an offensive term, based on the context it is used. Mohammedan is an archaic word which is no longer used. The article in its current state is unsalvagable, and it is better to write it from scratch with proper citations. I want to make one thing clear again, contrary to your "guesswork", it is not my intention to make Clive a "British Bandit". But the article in its current state is rather written from a British colonial perspective, which is not NPOV in any way. I'm biased of course, but that bias is towards having an NPOV article, not toward maligning anything. Thanks. --Ragib 23:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I must agree with Ragib. The word "native" rightly or wrongly carries a certain image for some people. This is an encyclopedia article and we must strive towards a good article which describes who Clive was and what he did without making moral judgements in either direction. Nobody is suggesting describing Clive as a bandit. If terms are archaic we must replace them with modern terms. It is this kind of conflict that I hope we can avoid with a modern rewrite of this article which is at the moment based on something written for a British encyclopedia nearly 100 years ago. --Richard Clegg 00:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

If the records of the time are sketchy as to the identity of the particualr people, perhaps it's necessary to refer to them as 'natives' - If the immigrants of a certain place have been in an area long enough and languages have mixed enough that both the first occupants and the immigrants are known as the same thing, the word 'native' might have to be used to differentiate. It should always be done with hesitation, because to refer to a people as such is to remove their name, which, in multitudes of culture from all places and all time, removes power and is derogatory. In this particular instance, I suspect the lines and sources are clear cut enough to always refer to a group by it's name, even if it's as general as 'Indian' And perhaps the authors in 1911 betrayed their own contempt because they never refer to European people as immigrants or colonists or otherwise remove their name. Another point : Compare "He is native" to "He is A native" It's like "He is gay" versus "He is A gay" - which I think is undeniably offensive. Courtesy of Gavla 06:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I actually think the article in its current form contains too much useful information to be completely re-written, so I am removing the re-write tag. The lengthy quotes from Macaulay should perhaps be cut (I will reference them and leave them for the time being) although they are classics of Historical writing. I have done my best to remove the more objectionable phrases and give a more neutral POV, but more needs to be done. Sikandarji 08:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching my mistake about Tipu Sultan, Sikandarji, well caught, it was very careless of me. I've moved the piece around so that the part about Indian history comes before Clive goes to India. I think it looks better there. I added some wiki links and more information (please try to catch anything I've got wrong). I also changed a couple of things I thought were not NPOV -- I hope you will not be offended. I think "influence" is more neutral than "interfere". --Richard Clegg 23:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that I'd rather make do with what the learned authors of the 1911 Britannica had to say than the half-baked opinions of 16-year-old high school students and net nerds with an interest in history. I really doubt that any community alteration will improve the content here. Most changes are likely to be anachronistic revisions designed to paint the british as evil imperial villains oppressing the poor natives of bongo bongo land.--Corinthian 20:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

To Do

I think there's a lot which needs doing to this article. I've made a start. Hopefully lots of others will join in. This is an important article.

1. Language needs attention. There's a lot of this article expressing one or other POV. We ought to strive to state the facts and let the reader judge. This is difficult with such a controversial figure. If we say what happened and what Clive did in the most neutral language we can then people can make up their own mind.
2. Huge bodies of text. There's a huge block quote from Macaulay here, I think that is inappropriate.
3. Pictures. We need some more. Any contemporary portraits of Clive which we can scan in should be under fair use (the artist will certainly be dead).
4. References. The article is really bad here -- almost nothing is referenced.
5. Get rid of 1911 Britannica passages -- we want to lose that "This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain." tag I think.

Any other opinions? Hopefully we can work together to make this a really good article. (Having said taht, I'm going to be away for a few days but I hope to contribute more soon). --Richard Clegg 23:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a bit of a soft spot for both the 1911 Britannica and Macaulay (such portentous prose) so I can't quite bring myself to wield the knife (also we do risk losing a lot of very detailed info). However I appreciate that much of it is far from being NPOV, and given that we can't change the quotations from Macaulay (I've checked them against the original text to ensure they are accurate) they may have to be axed. Sikandarji 23:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Compeletely agree that the prose style is great -- as I suggested on my talk page, perhaps chop it down using elipsis and keep some choice phrases (that part about the Tenth Legion?) to give people a flavour of the writing? --Richard Clegg 23:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

OK -- I've pushed things further a bit more and chopped down that Macauley quote to be a bit more manageable while hopefully clarifying what actually happened. I've also tried to reorganised some of the information into a more logical order. I hope that someone knowledgeable about the history will verify my changes. Please feel to disagree with anything or make changes you prefer. --Richard Clegg 16:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Second Journey to India

OK -- I've pushed on with this and tackled the start of his second journey to India. I hope people find my language an improvement -- I've also corrected some parts which I think were incorrect (Deputy Governor, not Governor). I've tried to present the facts neutrally. My main source was John Kaey's book that I cite. Estimates of forces are contemporary and I state that they may be overestimates simply because that would be a tendancy. I have cut down the section on the Black Hole of Calcutta -- there is no need to go into how many were killed in this article since the interested reader can read the article itself. I hope what I have said about it is uncontestable (I do not have the Busteed reference). I have also removed some of the history of Calcutta (this is not the place to talk about Job Charnock, interesting as he is.

I have tried not to make statements which would either glorify or vilify Clive. (The reason I mention his refusal to take treasure after Fort St. David is that at the time and for some time afterwards, in Britain, Clive was criticised for being a profiteer and that will be addressed later in the article when I get to editing that). Please feel free to edit as you see fit. --Richard Clegg 20:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added the weasel tag .Bharatveer 09:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I presume that this is to do with a later section and not related to the earlier Second Journey to India section which has been worked on? The article is gradually being revised. I've got as far as "War with Siraj ud-Daula" though the "Early life" section also needs work. Assistance would be appreciated. --Richard Clegg 13:29, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please remove "In general, however, the state of Bengal under Clive's administration after Plassey was a wretched one, as the Company sought to extract the maximum revenue possible from the peasantry to fund military campaigns, and corruption was widespread amongst Company officials, whilst Mir Jafar was also compelled to extortions on a vast scale in order to replenish his treasury, so efficiently emptied by Clive." or cite references to prove it is true. Ditto "Macaulay's ringing endorsement of Clive seems ludicrous today, as Bengal suffered from appalling exactions and famine under his rule and that of his immediate successors; his own ambition and desire for personal gain set the tone for the administration of the province until the Permanent Settlement 30 years later, as Bengal's unhappy peasantry were bled dry by the corrupt exactions of Company Officials and Zamindars." - 86.130.233.183 19:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, the article is gradually being improved... but it is a slow process. Please do feel free to help out by making changes, particularly cited ones. On Wikipedia, anyone can be an editor. --Richard Clegg 19:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

ExpertVerify Tag

The article appears much improve, hence the new tag. Some citations would be nice and some more facts. Otherwise I see no reason for cleanup any longer

I hope you don't mind me putting the old clean-up tag back. The first half of the article has been cleaned up considerably but from "War with Siraj ud-Daula" on it needs considerable attention which I have been too busy to work on myself as yet. If you read the second half of the article you will see that it still needs an awful lot of work. --Richard Clegg 16:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Just changed it to { {Cleanup-remainder|June 2006} }. It seems more appropriate. --meatclerk 19:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ignorant and Offensive Political Correctness.

'Parts of this article sounds imperialistic: '...and as a statesman, since retreat, or even delay, would have put back the civilization of India for years;'since it is just an unsubstantiated proposition I can very much say that British sucked life out of people';'I also find is sickening that someone can a find anything good with Raj'

I think I can probably find something good about the raj, how about this? Without the British Empire, the modern Indian nation would very likely not exist; the area probably would have been subjugated by a Japanese dictatorship since 1940, and it is incredibly likely that democracy would not flourish there. What is more, had the British not colonised India, the French or Portuguese would have, in which case, the attainment of Indian independence would probably have been an even bloodier affair than it was in Indochina, and Angola! In summary, India, and the numerous gangs of politically correct (and usually historically incorrect) thugs have a few quite significant things to thank Great Britain and Her Empire for, along with men like Robert Clive, and the Duke of Wellington(regardless of their motives), who made the aforementioned possible.

Comment added by User:DHR1815

I think it a waste of everyone's time to get into the pros and cons of the British empire here -- we should just try to get a factually correct and NPOV article about Clive himself. Parts of this article (particularly the later part) are archaic and misleading. --Richard Clegg 20:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Even to his contemporaries Clive was a very controversial figure. This is not just a matter of retrospective political correctness. Sikandarji 21:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

This is absolutely true and the article should certainly reflect this status. While, at the time, some admired him as a great general others saw him as greedy or corrupt. However, assertions about this should be well-sourced. Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to work on this article lately.--Richard Clegg 10:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Political correctness,these days looks like anything that contradicts the "white man's burden" is PC. Robert Clive ruined a once thriving Bengal economy and lead to the 1770-1773 famine of Bengal. I DO NOT see how Clive can be viewed as positive by anyone. On the contrary it was the loot from the colonies primarily India (India,Pakistan and Bangladesh) that transformed Britain from a poor third world country to a leading power,how is that for un-PC. Non-PC can cut both ways. We have nothing to thank the British Empire for, other than looting us dry. Any case even if Japan had annexed India in 1940,5 years of Japanese domination would be nowhere as destructive as 200 years of British misrule. I can even argue in a non-PC manner that the present immigrants from South Asia and Carribean give Britain a moral compass that it lacks. So please quit trying to argue as to the greatness of British Rule

First, prove that Bengal was thriving, and give a citation for a reputable source. Second, offer some evidence that "loot" transformed Britain. As for the accusation of "looting dry" this is simply rhetoric, not an honest, historically based attempt to discuss the issue. I won't waste time on the idiocy of arguing about a hypothetical 5 years of Japanese rule. As for Britain's moral compass, your claims are far more racist than anything said about Clive.

Free Spirit of Mankind

A person who conspirated in a very evil manner to ruin the independence of a great nation of old heritage and wisdom should not be considered a great man under any pre-text. That should be the spirit of mankind in thr 21st century.

freemind

That's all very pretty to think, but it's not history. It seems to me that this entire thread of conversation is positively *laced* with bias and self-interest. This article is not about the British Raj; nor is it about the 21st Century POV; nor is it about the "spirit of mankind," whatever the crap that means. The article is about Robert Clive, and I would submit that reliable historical sources about Robert Clive ought to be relied upon (whatever their biases) before, and if necessary to the exclusion of, Wikipedia participants who cannot provide comparable or superior sources. At any rate, the article-less brand of English people are using in this thread is so abominable as to be incomprehensible in some instances; I suggest you deal with that issue before you consider rewriting anything. In conclusion: get over yourselves, folks. This preoccupation with ego-political bickering is a major reason Wikipedia is disregarded -and when regarded, disrespected- by historians, teachers and intelligent people everywhere. -Maalox

I'm sorry to say that even after the huge efforts all of the above contributors put into this article it is still largely incomprehensible to a first time reader like myself. I very much agree with Richard Clegg that this should be a concise record of what Clive did and why any of it was important. Instead this is a rambling incoherent list of events and trivia associated with Clive. Well over half the content is unnecessary, it tells me almost nothing about the man himself or why he is considered controversial. It looks as if you are all doing a good job, but there is a long way to go. -Timeandaplace 15:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

A different perspective

If anyone is interested, kindly read this article of mine written sometime ago: Robert Clive: His compulsions. You may follow this link: [1]

I have not had the time to read the article here, nor the debate. May be I will come later when I have time. I came to collect some details; incidently I saw the debate here. --Ved from Victoria Institutions 15:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)