New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS) The history of 19th-century India, as chronicled through the records of its foreign rulers, is a study in paradox. While the British East India Company (EIC) claimed to govern for the "welfare and happiness of the inhabitants", providing "new and valuable property" and administering justice, the reality inferred from the parliamentary debates in London was far darker: a system burdened by immense debt, a stifled native press, and a fundamental relationship where Indians were viewed not as fellow-subjects, but as those whom the British were "despots over".