The EIC's Forgotten Language: Persian and Company Diplomacy

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the East India Company's reliance on Persian as the language of diplomacy and administration in India long after the Mughal Empire's decline. They discuss how Company officials like William Jones and John Richardson studied Persian, compiled dictionaries, and even attempted to standardize the language for legal and political use. The episode covers the role of Persian in the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), the establishment of Fort William College in Calcutta (1800) to train British civil servants in Persian and local languages, and the eventual decline of Persian with the rise of English and Urdu under Lord William Bentinck in the 1830s. Lucas brings in the story of Mirza Muhammad Hasan Qatil, a Persian poet who bitterly lamented the language's fading status. The conversation reveals a less-known facet of Company rule: its deep entanglement with Persianate culture, which shaped everything from legal codes to personal correspondence. #EastIndiaCompany #PersianLanguage #WilliamJones #FortWilliamCollege #TreatyOfAllahabad #MirzaMuhammadHasanQatil #CompanyDiplomacy #MughalEmpire #Urdu #LordWilliamBentinck #BengalPresidency #18thCentury #19thCentury #Linguistics #ColonialIndia #History #FexingoHistory #Podcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo