Robert Clive was The East India Company’s first governor of Bengal, victor at the battle of Plassey (episode 118)and arguably the founder of the British Empire in India.
Yet he is also a highly controversial figure, not just now but in his own day too. Accused of accumulating huge personal wealth whilst presiding over a system that ruined the Bengal economy and cost the lives of millions in a famine.
British cartoonists called him Lord Vulture and he was forced to defend himself in front a parliamentary committee.
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