I have recently moved to Singapore where I am surrounded by the remnants of Britain's colonial past. From decidedly British road names to statues of Sir Stamford Raffles, the impact of the company seems pervasive. My knowledge of our colonial past is limited at best; there seems to be a huge gap between the vaguely jingoistic love of empire that is popular back home and what I have read in books like Orientalism by Edward Said.
who has it right?
The most serious mark on the East India Company is the Bengal Famine of 1770, that saw the deaths of 10 million people. The EIC had raised revenue demands over the previous years, and perhaps more importantly did not show leniency during a bad harvest. A traditional King may have forgiven taxes in a harvest, but the EIC did not. Moreover, in some places, trade monopolies raised prices, and EIC agents forced farmers to farm indigo instead of rice. Famine relief was minimal at best, and one third of the population died.
That said, the Famine must be understood in the context of a series of famibes that killed vast numbers of Indians the 18th century. Several other famines killed upwards of ten million people at this time, and the old Indian states often provided minimal relief just as the British.
As the other comment mentions, the Bengal famine was one of the many so- called man- made famines that came about due to the company's policies. Weather of course, was the final trigger, but the company's policies had left the local farmers (which was most of the population in those times), with very little stockpiled food. Actual destruction of food crops to comply the local farmers into growing opium and indigo plants, then buying them at an unsustainable cheap rate is what placed the dominoes for the Bengal famine, and many other.
Other atrocities include bonded slavery; the British slavery abolition act of 1833 did not "extend to any of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company, or to the Island of Ceylon, or to the Island of Saint Helena.", in order to reap free labour from EIC colonies.
In addition to that, the many wars EIC fought with the local kingdoms to slowly take over South Asia, general maltreatment of the locals by EIC officers, et cetera has made East India Company rather...bad in eyes of its former colonies.