Lot of History
for understanding Current affairs !!
The Battle of Buxar was
fought in Oct 1764, between the forces under the command of the British East
India Company, led by Hector Munro, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, Nawab
of Bengal; the Nawab of Awadh Shuja-ud-Daula; and the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam
II accompanied by Raja Balwant Singh of Kashi. The battle was fought at Buxar,
a "small fortified town" within the territory of Bihar, located on
the banks of the Ganga river. It was a decisive
victory for the British East India Company. The war was brought to an end by
the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765.
In Schools, for sure, we
read British History and the Governors. The
Governor-General of India (1773-1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and
Governor-General of India, was the representative of the monarch of the United
Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1947. The office was created in 1773, with the title
of Governor-general of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct
control only over Fort William, but supervised other East India Company
officials in India. Complete authority over all of India was granted in 1833,
and the official came to be known as the "governor-general of India".
In 1858, as a consequence of the Indian Rebellion the previous year, the
territories and assets of the East India Company came under the direct control
of the British Crown.
Hastings arrived in Madras
shortly after the end of the First Anglo-Mysore War of 1767–1769, during which
the forces of Hyder Ali had threatened the capture of the city. The Treaty of
Madras (4 April 1769) which ended the war failed to settle the dispute and
three further Anglo-Mysore Wars followed (1780–1799). During his time at Madras
Hastings initiated reforms of trading practices which cut out the use of
middlemen and benefited both the Company and the Indian labourers, but otherwise
the period was relatively uneventful for him. In 1771
he was appointed to be Governor of Calcutta, the most important of the
Presidencies. Hastings became the choice to be the first
Governor General. While Governor, Hastings launched a major crackdown on
bandits operating in Bengal, which proved largely successful. He also faced the
severe Bengal Famine, which resulted in between two and ten million deaths.
Warren Hastings FRS (1732
– 1818), an English statesman, was the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort
William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and thereby the
first de facto Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785. He is credited
along with Robert Clive for laying the foundation of the British Empire in
India. In 1787, he was
accused of corruption and impeached, but after a long trial he was acquitted in
1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.
The impeachment of Warren
Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal, was attempted between 1787 and
1795 in the Parliament of Great Britain. Hastings was accused of misconduct
during his time in Calcutta, particularly relating to mismanagement and
personal corruption. The impeachment prosecution was led by Edmund Burke and
became a wider debate about the role of the East India Company and the
expanding empire in India. The trial became a debate between two radically
opposed visions of empire—one represented by Hastings, based on ideas of
absolute power and conquest in pursuit of the exclusive national interests of
the colonizer, versus one represented by Burke, of sovereignty based on a
recognition of the rights of the colonized. The trial did not sit continuously
and the case dragged on for seven years. When the eventual verdict was given
Hastings was overwhelmingly acquitted.
Now to the
present, the first day of former US president Donald Trump's impeachment trial
in the Senate revolved around the constitutionality of the case before the
Upper chamber voted 56-44 in favour of the trial. House impeachment managers
made their case for an impeachment trial, rejecting the argument of Trump’s
defence team that a president cannot be tried after he or she has left the
office. Trump, 74, is accused of
inciting the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, threatening democracy in the
country. The incident left five people dead, including a police official.
Warren Hastings, the
former governor-general of the British colony of Bengal, was at the centre of
the argument by prosecutors while debating the constitutionality of impeachment
trial. The lead House impeachment manager, Representative Jamie Raskin,
highlighted that the framers of the American Constitution borrowed the idea of
this institution from Britain. Allegations of corruption and misconduct were
rampant during Hastings’ term in Bengal and after he returned to England, the
former official was impeached by British House of Commons over mismanagement
and corruption. Raskin said that every single impeachment of a
British government official that occurred during the lifetime of the framers of
the Constitution concerned a former official. The lead House impeachment manager argued that
Hastings’ case played a key role in the adoption of “the high crimes and
misdemeanours standard” since it was the only specific impeachment case
discussed at the convention. He further stated that not a single framer raised
a concern when Hastings impeachment was held up as a model for writing the
American Constitution.
Hastings was financially ruined by the impeachment and was left with debts of £70,000. Unlike many other Indian officials he had not amassed a large fortune while in India and he had to fund his legal defence, which had cost an estimated £71,000, out of his own funds. Hastings appealed to the British government for financial assistance and was eventually compensated by the East India Company with a loan of £50,000 and a pension of £4,000 a year.
President Donald Trump's
Senate impeachment trial took a dramatic turn Saturday morning when House
managers moved to call GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler for testimony about her
stunning claims about what Trump said his supporters were ransacking the
Capitol. The move prevailed on a procedural vote – with five Republicans voting
to hear from the Republican lawmakers. The
move immediately threw the trial's schedule into doubt, with some lawmakers
predicting it would wrap up Saturday.
Finally, United
States Senate acquitted former president Donald J Trump on the charges of
inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Following four days of the
impeachment trial, the 100-member Senate voted to impeach Trump by 57-43 votes,
10 votes short of the two-thirds needed for conviction.
Interesting !
14.2.2021.
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