Burkes’ Speech on the East India Bill as a Specimen of Classical Oratory
Edmund
Burke is an extraordinary Irish orator, political thinker, a great humanitarian
of 18th century England. He represents the finest of the oratorical
qualities of English Language. His ‘Speech on the East India Bill’ is a formal
piece of oration with classical rhetoric and his speeches are remarkable for
their political wisdom and insight.
Burke
waged a practically life-long campaign against the injustices of British rule
in India. In his speech he launches passionate assaults on the arbitrary abuse
of power by the East India Company to the ruination of the people of India.
Though he never visited India, he
had thorough knowledge of India and the East India Company. He told the parliament that the geographical existence of India would cast light upon whether the object affected by the abuse of the East India Company’s power be of importance sufficient to justify the measure and means of reform applied to it in this bill. To draw the attention towards the right and duty of the members of parliament, Burkes’ rhetorical power is displayed in the following comments:
had thorough knowledge of India and the East India Company. He told the parliament that the geographical existence of India would cast light upon whether the object affected by the abuse of the East India Company’s power be of importance sufficient to justify the measure and means of reform applied to it in this bill. To draw the attention towards the right and duty of the members of parliament, Burkes’ rhetorical power is displayed in the following comments:
‘We
sold, I admit, all that we had to sell; that is our authority, not our control.
We had not a right to make a market of our duties’.
Poetry
is life force, the moving force of Burke's speech. In fact, he is the poet in
prose. His eloquence is remarkable and his wisdom is profound and contemplative.
He speaks in figures, images, symbols. The musical cadence of his sentences
reflects the influence of his wide reading of poetry. His passions and
feelings, his personal agony and anxiety towards the tyranny of the East India
Company finds a spontaneous expression in his speech.
Burke
is an orator of his own class. As an orator he skillfully uses various
rhetorical devices to adorn his speech. The devices like rhythm, alliteration,
assonance, consonance, repetition etc. characterize his great capacity of
oration. By attacking Hastings Burke attacks the whole East India Company with
his eloquent rhetoric.
Skillful
use of ironies and sarcasm is one of the important features of a great orator
and Burke is unique in this regard. His ‘Speech on the East India Bill’ is
replete with ironies uttered in sarcastic tone. For example when he says that
the East India Company has 60,000 armed men, it runs the commerce of ‘half the
globe’, he actually means that it is not supposed to have say so very subtle irony.
Following example reflect Burke's’ use of sharp irony and sarcasm:
‘The
natives had, however, one consolation in the ruin of their judicature: they
soon saw that it fared no better with the English government itself.’
Simile,
metaphor and imagery are also dexterously employed by Burke in his Speech on
the East India Bill. He compares Hastings with a ‘wolf’, a remarkable
predatory.
In
fine, Burke is a great orator by any standard. Burke is the greatest master in
English of the rhetoric of political wisdom.
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