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Question 9 of 73 · Arrival of Europeans & Expansion of British Rule
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Which Mughal emperor permitted the English East India Company to set up its first permanent factory at Surat in 1613?

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Answer: Option C — Jahangir

Detailed Solution

The Mughal emperor Jahangir issued a farman permitting the English East India Company to set up a permanent factory (trading post) at Surat in 1613.

Background:

  • The English East India Company was founded by a royal charter, to trade with the East.
  • The first English ships reached Surat in 1608.
  • The Portuguese, who were already established on the western coast, opposed the English and tried to prevent them from trading.
  • Mughal officials at first hesitated to allow the English to trade, because they did not want to offend the Portuguese, whose navy controlled the seas and the pilgrim routes.

How the English got permission:

  • In 1612, an English fleet under Captain Thomas Best won a naval battle off the coast of Gujarat.
  • This impressed the Mughal authorities, who saw that the English could also protect Mughal shipping.
  • In 1613, Jahangir issued a farman allowing the English to set up a factory at Surat.
  • What was a "factory"?
  • In this period, a "factory" meant a trading post or warehouse, where the "factors" (agents) of the company lived and stored goods; it was not a place of manufacture.

Importance of Surat:

  • It was the main Mughal port on the western coast.
  • It remained the headquarters of the English Company in western India until 1687, when the headquarters moved to Bombay.

Other early English settlements:

Masulipatnam (1611): on the eastern coast, in the Golconda kingdom.

Madras (1639-40): where Fort St. George was built.

Hugli (1651): in Bengal.

Bombay (1668): received from the English Crown.

Calcutta (1690): founded by Job Charnock.

Why not the other options?

  • ✗Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb ruled at other times.

Quick tip

Remember: English factory at Surat = 1613, by Jahangir's farman (after Thomas Best's naval victory in 1612); headquarters moved to Bombay in 1687.

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Arrival of Europeans & Expansion of British Rule — Preparation

This question tests your understanding of Arrival of Europeans & Expansion of British Rule, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.

This topic covers the arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danes and French in India, the growth of the East India Company, and the battles, wars and treaties through which British power expanded, including the Battles of Plassey and Buxar, the Anglo-Mysore, Anglo-Maratha and Anglo-Sikh wars, and policies such as subsidiary alliance and the doctrine of lapse. Typical questions ask which battle was fought in which year and between whom, which treaty ended which war, and which Governor-General introduced a policy. For example, the Battle of Plassey (1757) was fought between Robert Clive and Siraj-ud-Daulah, and the Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the Company the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Practise the arrival of Europeans and expansion of British rule questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.

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