Wellesley established the Fort William College at Calcutta because

Answer: D. Lord Wellesley established FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE to TRAIN BRITISH CIVILIANS for administrative purposes in India. LORD RICHARD WELLESLEY served as GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA from 1798 to 1805. He pursued an aggressive policy of subsidiary alliances (with Hyderabad, Awadh, Mysore, Maratha states) that vastly expanded Company territory. He also reformed administrative training. FOUNDING OF FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE (Calcutta, 1800): Wellesley established the college on 10 July 1800 with the OBJECTIVE OF TRAINING the Company's young CIVIL SERVANTS (writers) freshly arrived from Britain. These officers needed to be equipped with: 1. KNOWLEDGE OF INDIAN LANGUAGES (Persian, the official language of administration; Hindustani / Urdu; Bengali; Sanskrit; Arabic; in some cases Marathi, Tamil, Telugu). 2. UNDERSTANDING OF INDIAN LAWS AND CUSTOMS (Hindu and Muslim personal law, revenue practice, judicial procedure). 3. FAMILIARITY WITH INDIAN HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND CULTURE. Wellesley's vision was that ill-prepared young British officers, fresh from Britain, would otherwise rule India ineffectively or corruptly. Fort William College brought together leading Indian scholars (pandits and maulvis) and European Orientalists to translate texts and teach. LEGACY: 1. The college contributed enormously to ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP: textbooks, dictionaries, grammars, and translations of Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and modern Indian languages were produced. 2. It supported the development of MODERN BENGALI PROSE, through the work of pandits like Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, Ramram Basu, and the printer William Carey. 3. The college continued in modified forms until 1854, though its administrative training function was substantially absorbed by HAILEYBURY COLLEGE in England (established 1806) and later (after 1857) by the Indian Civil Service competitive examination in London. Why other options are WRONG: (A) The Court of Directors in London actually OPPOSED Wellesley's college, fearing duplication of Haileybury. Wellesley acted on his own initiative. (B) Reviving Oriental learning was a SIDE-EFFECT and not the principal purpose; the primary objective was administrative training. (C) Carey and the Serampore missionaries were EMPLOYED at the college as language teachers, but employing them was not the reason the college was founded. They were a useful resource recruited later. Source: NCERT Class 8 Our Pasts III; Sumit Sarkar 'Modern India 1885-1947'; Bipan Chandra et al. 'India's Struggle for Independence'.