Administration and Finances of the East India Company: Ambedkar’s Critical Analysis

Abstract

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, in his dissertation Administration and Finances of the East India Company (submitted for his M.A. at Columbia University), critically examined the fiscal and administrative mechanisms of British India. He outlined the East India Company’s centralized revenue system, its dependence on land tax, opium revenue, and debt financing, and its excessive military expenditures that drained India’s resources. Ambedkar highlighted how the Company prioritized monopoly and annexation over economic development. His later analysis, The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India (1833–1919), demonstrated the chronic budgetary deficits of the colonial state, the inefficiency of revenue assignments, and the rigidities of provincial finance. Ambedkar’s reflections on fiscal federalism, centre-province relations, and taxation policy remain relevant in understanding both colonial exploitation and the post-independence challenges of Centre-State financial relations in India.