Correct Option: A

The British-administered territories in India were expanded in three successive waves. The first wave (A.D. 1757-66) brought under [direct] British rule Bengal, Bihar, and the Northern Circars along the north-west shore of the Bay of Bengal; the second (A.D. 1790-1818) brought the Carnatic, the Upper Ganges Basin, and the Western Deccan; the third (A.D. 1843-9) brought the Indus Basin. In the Battle of Plassey, a British army of 2800 British soldiers and sepoys routed a Bengali army of 100,000 men. Clive’s victories over the Bengalis and French made the British East Indies Company a major power in India, able to install its own candidate on the Mughal throne and claim the wealthy province of Bengal for itself. British power, plus the fact that their “honourable masters” in England were 7000 miles and nine months travel away, left India wide open to exploitation by the company and its employees.