Speech on East India Bill - Part C

  • Comment on Burke's oratory skill and style as found in his "Speech on East India Bill". [NU. 2016, 2019]

/Consider Burke's Speech on the East India Bill as a specimen of classical oratory.

/Describe Edmund Burke's oratory excellence.

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 the English Language. His ‘Speech on the East India Bill’ is a formal piece of oration with classical rhetoric.


Burke waged a practically life-long campaign against the injustices of British rule in India. Though he never visited India, he knew a lot about India and the East India Company. He acquired extensive and updated knowledge about India. He told the parliament about the geographical existence of India and the abuse of the East India Company’s power. To draw the attention 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.”


Burke is the poet in prose. His eloquence is remarkable and his wisdom is profound. He speaks in figures, images, symbols. His language proves that he belongs to the new romantic school of poetry. In his speech we find his passions and feelings, his personal agony and anxiety towards the tyranny of the East India Company.


Burke as an orator 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.


Skilful 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. Following examples reflect Burke's use of sharp irony and sarcasm :

"The Tartar invasion was mischievous..., 

Our conquest there, after twenty years, 

is as crude as it was the first day."


Burke uses simile, metaphor and imagery in his Speech on the East India Bill. He is very careful with his statements about how he would reform the East India Company. He compares Hastings with a ‘wolf’, a remarkable predatory image.


In conclusion, we can say that Edmund Burke is a great orator by any standard. He is a rhetorical master with excellent oratory skills. Burke establishes himself as a man with boundless knowledge. As an orator he is more remarkable for his artistic brilliance.