British ruled India for more than 200 years the British Empire included territories of modern-day India Pakistan Bangladesh and parts of Myanmar but how did they become so powerful despite having a handful of soldiers compared to Indian rulers it all started in 1600 ad when the Queen of England Elizabeth the first issued a charter to the East India Company which authorized it to be the sole Corporation to have trading rights in the eastern part of the world including India the company ships first reached India at the sea port of Surat they were mainly interested in buying Indian spices cotton and silk Fabrics at a cheap price that could be sold at a higher value in Britain and large sums of profit could be accumulated when the company started trading in India most of the Indian territories fell into the mugul empire the company officials persuaded the then mugul Emperor jahangir to grant them the trading rights in India soon after this they started building warehouses across the country mainly at the sea ports to store the goods that were needed to be shipped to Britain in 1651 the company established its first factory in Bengal and soon gained privilege to trade without paying any duties to the state on the orders of mugal emperor orang the company used to buy all the goods in exchange of gold and silver that they used to import from Britain to avoid this form of exchange they started looking for other sources of revenue so that they don't need to import such valuables from Britain some of the company officials started trading privately for personal games meanwhile the mugul rule started weakening specifically after the death of Emperor orang Z this made the local rulers of mugal sultanat more powerful and they started working independently in 1756 navab siraju doah was appointed as the new ruler of Bengal who became quite suspicious of the conduct of British officials in the company he felt that the state is losing a lot of its Revenue due to their malpractices when the company started increasing its military strength at Fort William in Kolkata which was built for trade purposes the navab saw it as a threat and ordered his troops to seize all the operating points of East India Company in Bengal to counter this situation one of the company officials named Robert Clive who was posted in Madras was sent to Bengal with a group of soldiers soon after their arrival the Battle of plasi was fought on 23rd June 1757 between the naab and Company forces the company of officials formed alliances with some of the military commanders of the nawab Like Me zafur by promising him the position of naab after siraju doa's defeat as a result of this the soldiers under these commanders did not take part in the attacks which led to the defeat of sirud DOA although the nawab's Army was much larger in number compared to the British army after the battle muzafer was made the navab of Bengal but the company gained a lot of power a huge fine was paid by the state to the company to compensate for expenditure in war also the company secured rights to collect taxes from some of the districts of the state which added as a source of Revenue the Battle of plasy enabled the East India Company to rise from a mere commercial Enterprise to an important political figure which marked the beginning of British Empire in India