Art and Politics: British Patronage in Delhi (1803–1857)

he British established their foothold in India after Sir Thomas Roe, the English diplomat, obtained permission to trade for the English East India Company from the Mughal emperor Jehangir (1605–1627). By end of the seventeenth century, the company had expanded its trading operations in the major coastal cities of India. The gradual weakening of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century gave the East India Company a further opportunity to expand its power and maintain its own private army. In 1765, the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II (1759–1806) was forced to give the Grant of the Dīwānī of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. However, it was in 1803 that the company became a formidable power when Shah Alam II accepted the Company’s authority in exchange for protection and maintenance. The British Residency at Delhi was established. This event completely changed the age-old political and social dynamics in Mughal Delhi. The event symbolised the shifting balance of power in Mughal politics. The real power belonged to the Company and was exercised by its residents. A substantial amount of funding was at the disposal of the British residents of Delhi who were directed by the Company’s government to maintain a splendid court of their own to rival the court of the Mughal emperor. Thus, a parallel court was set up alongside that of the Mughal. It was the Kashmiri Gate of the Shahajahanabad (the Mughal imperial city) and the area beyond it on the northern side up to the ridge that became