India had trade relations with Europe from time immemorial. During the first, second and third centuries A.D. the commercial intercourse between the East and the West became more frequent mainly through Afghanistan, Central Asia and Caspian Sea, Persia, Syria and Egypt.
Consequent upon the consequent of the above countries by the Arabs in the fifteenth century A.D. the monopoly of trade passed into the hands of the Arabs. The Europeans, therefore, wanted to find out independent sea-route to the East, especially to India.
Of all the European powers the Portuguese were the first to land in India for trading purposes. It was Vasco-da-Gama, a celebrated Portuguese navigator, who discovered a sea-route to India for the first time and landed at Calicut on the Western coast of India in A.D. 1498. Since then the Portuguese started establishing their trading centers in India at Cochin, Calicut, Cannanore, Goa, Damn and Diu.
The eastern trade gradually attracted other European merchants like the Dutch, The Danes, The English and the French. There was an internecine struggle for supremacy in India among these European companies.
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The Dutch and the Danes were ousted in the first round of the struggle and lastly the French were defeated by the English in three Carnatic Wars which ended in A.D. 1763. Thus the commercial rivalry gave rise to political struggle among the four companies which resulted in the expulsion of the Portuguese by the Dutch, the Dutch by the French and the French by the English.