AARRIVING IN INDIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, the British East India Company outmaneuvered French and Dutch rivals and was there to pick up the pieces as the Mughal Empire decayed during the eighteenth century (see “What common factors led to the decline of central power in the Islamic empires in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?” in Chapter 17). By 1757 the company had gained control over much of India. During the nineteenth century the British government replaced the company, progressively unified the subcontinent, and harnessed its economy to British interests.