The British Empire in India - A multiplicity of motives underlay the British penetration into India: commerce, security, and a purported moral uplift of the people. The "expansive force" of private and company trade eventually led to the conquest or annexation of territories in which spices, cotton, and opium were produced. British investors ventured into the unfamiliar interior landscape in search of opportunities that promised substantial profits. British economic penetration was aided by Indian collaborators, such as the bankers and merchants who controlled intricate credit networks. British rule in India would have been a frustrated or half-realized dream had not Indian counterparts provided connections between rural and urban centers. External threats, both real and imagined, such as the Napoleonic Wars (1796-1815) and Russian expansion toward Afghanistan (in the 1830s), as well as the desire for internal stability, led to the annexation of more territory in India.

Political analysts in Britain wavered initially as they were uncertain of the costs or the advantages in undertaking wars in India, but by the 1810s, as the territorial aggrandizement eventually paid off, opinion in London welcomed the absorption of new areas. Occasionally the British Parliament witnessed heated debates against expansion, but arguments justifying military operations for security reasons always won over even the most vehement critics.

The British soon forgot their own rivalry with the Portuguese and the French and permitted them to stay in their coastal enclaves, which they kept even after independence in 1947 (see National Integration, this ch.). The British, however, continued to expand vigorously well into the 1850s. A number of aggressive governors-general undertook relentless campaigns against several Hindu and Muslim rulers. Among them were Richard Colley Wellesley (1798-1805), William Pitt Amherst (1823-28), George Eden (1836-42), Edward Law (1842-44), and James Andrew Brown Ramsay (1848-56; also known as the Marquess of Dalhousie). Despite desperate efforts at salvaging their tottering power and keeping the British at bay, many Hindu and Muslim rulers lost their territories: Mysore (1799, but later restored), the Maratha Confederacy (1818), and Punjab (1849). The British success in large measure was the result not only of their superiority in tactics and weapons but also of their ingenious relations with Indian rulers through the "subsidiary alliance" system, introduced in the early nineteenth century. Many rulers bartered away their real responsibilities by agreeing to uphold British paramountcy in India, while they retained a fictional sovereignty under the rubric of Pax Britannica. Later, Dalhousie espoused the "doctrine of lapse" and annexed outright the estates of deceased princes of Satara (1848), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853), Tanjore (1853), Nagpur (1854), and Oudh (1856).

European perceptions of India, and those of the British especially, shifted from unequivocal appreciation to sweeping condemnation of India's past achievements and customs. Imbued with an ethnocentric sense of superiority, British intellectuals, including Christian missionaries, spearheaded a movement that sought to bring Western intellectual and technological innovations to Indians. Interpretations of the causes of India's cultural and spiritual "backwardness" varied, as did the solutions. Many argued that it was Europe's mission to civilize India and hold it as a trust until Indians proved themselves competent for self-rule.

The British Parliament enacted a series of laws, among which the Regulating Act of 1773 stood first, to curb the company traders' unrestrained commercial activities and to bring about some order in territories under company control. Limiting the company charter to periods of twenty years, subject to review upon renewal, the 1773 act gave the British government supervisory rights over the Bengal, Bombay, and Madras presidencies. Bengal was given preeminence over the rest because of its enormous commercial vitality and because it was the seat of British power in India (at Calcutta), whose governor was elevated to the new position of governor-general. Warren Hastings was the first incumbent (1773-85). The India Act of 1784, sometimes described as the "half-loaf system," as it sought to mediate between Parliament and the company directors, enhanced Parliament's control by establishing the Board of Control, whose members were selected from the cabinet. The Charter Act of 1813 recognized British moral responsibility by introducing just and humane laws in India, foreshadowing future social legislation, and outlawing a number of traditional practices such as sati and thagi (or thugee, robbery coupled with ritual murder).

As governor-general from 1786 to 1793, Charles Cornwallis (the Marquis of Cornwallis), professionalized, bureaucratized, and Europeanized the company's administration. He also outlawed private trade by company employees, separated the commercial and administrative functions, and remunerated company servants with generous graduated salaries. Because revenue collection became the company's most essential administrative function, Cornwallis made a compact with Bengali zamindars, who were perceived as the Indian counterparts to the British landed gentry. The Permanent Settlement system, also known as the zamindari system, fixed taxes in perpetuity in return for ownership of large estates; but the state was excluded from agricultural expansion, which came under the purview of the zamindars. In Madras and Bombay, however, the ryotwari (peasant) settlement system was set in motion, in which peasant cultivators had to pay annual taxes directly to the government.

Neither the zamindari nor the ryotwari systems proved effective in the long run because India was integrated into an international economic and pricing system over which it had no control, while increasing numbers of people subsisted on agriculture for lack of other employment. Millions of people involved in the heavily taxed Indian textile industry also lost their markets, as they were unable to compete successfully with cheaper textiles produced in Lancashire's mills from Indian raw materials.

The British Empire in India

Beginning with the Mayor's Court, established in 1727 for civil litigation in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, justice in the interior came under the company's jurisdiction. In 1772 an elaborate judicial system, known as adalat , established civil and criminal jurisdictions along with a complex set of codes or rules of procedure and evidence. Both Hindu pandits (see Glossary) and Muslim qazis (sharia court judges) were recruited to aid the presiding judges in interpreting their customary laws, but in other instances, British common and statutory laws became applicable. In extraordinary situations where none of these systems was applicable, the judges were enjoined to adjudicate on the basis of "justice, equity, and good conscience." The legal profession provided numerous opportunities for educated and talented Indians who were unable to secure positions in the company, and, as a result, Indian lawyers later dominated nationalist politics and reform movements.

The 1850s witnessed the introduction of the three "engines of social improvement" that heightened the British illusion of permanence in India. They were the railroads, the telegraph, and the uniform postal service, inaugurated during the tenure of Dalhousie as governor-general. The first railroad lines were built in 1850 from Howrah (Haora, across the Hughli River from Calcutta) inland to the coalfields at Raniganj, Bihar, a distance of 240 kilometers. In 1851 the first electric telegraph line was laid in Bengal and soon linked Agra, Bombay, Calcutta, Lahore, Varanasi, and other cities. The three different presidency or regional postal systems merged in 1854 to facilitate uniform methods of communication at an all-India level. With uniform postal rates for letters and newspapers--one-half anna and one anna, respectively (sixteen annas equalled one rupee)--communication between the rural and the metropolitan areas became easier and faster. The increased ease of communication and the opening of highways and waterways accelerated the movement of troops, the transportation of raw materials and goods to and from the interior, and the exchange of commercial information.

The railroads did not break down the social or cultural distances between various groups but tended to create new categories in travel. Separate compartments in the trains were reserved exclusively for the ruling class, separating the educated and wealthy from ordinary people. Similarly, when the Sepoy Rebellion was quelled in 1858, a British official exclaimed that "the telegraph saved India." He envisaged, of course, that British interests in India would continue indefinitely.The British Empire in India. Data 1995. Courtesy Library of Congress.

British Imperial power in the Indian Sub Continent lasted from 1858-1947. During this time the Empire consisted of what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the disputed territory of Kashmir.

At the beginning of the 18th century most of the Mongul power that had been in Italy had disintergrated. Many of the European super powers started to come into India to trade, it was ultimately the British who ended on top and in charge on India.

This was confirmed primarily by the defeat of the Bengali army at Plassey in 1757.

India officially became part of the British Empire on August 2, 1958 when the Parliament of England passed the Government of India Act. Before this happened the East India Company had primary control over the colony. The East India Company had helped to develop many of the British interests and political power in the Indian sub-continent. On November 1, 1858 the announcement was officially proclaimed in India

India was controlled by British Viceroys, but there would still be Indian princes who would rule over the seperate states of India In the 40 years from 1858-1909 Britian worked on creating a bureaucracy in India, one that would be the largest in all of the Imperial world. In 1861 The Indian Council Act was passed in which a miniature cabinet was set up.

Under the British Empire India flourished as a center of textiles, which soon became India's number one export. The textile industry in part flourished because of the extensive railroad network the British government built. In total there ended up to be over 35,000 miles of railroad in India by the first World War. The railroads provided links to villages and other places that had never been linked before, because of this agriculture and many other industries grew rapidly.

In 1885 the first assembly of the Indian National Congress was held in India. Their was also a smaller Muslim congress which eventually turned into the Muslim League in 1906, this would ultimately lead to the creation of Pakistan. The first assembly was attended by at total of 73 representatives from all of the Indian provinces. Most were Hindu, only 2 were Muslim and there was even a smaller number of those who were of the Parsi or Jaina.

In 1905 Bengal was added to the Indian Empire. Because it was too big to be considered one province it was divided into two separate provinces primarily based on religion. Hindus were part of western Bengal's Bhadlarok region (respectable people) while the Muslim majority was created with its capital in Dacca. The British government of India clearly favored the Bhadlarok who were intellectuals over the Muslims. Because of this division, the Muslim groups began to have stong feelings of nationalism and unity.

The Indian Councils Act of 1909 under John Morley provided that the Indian councils were more of an elective principle. This simply eliminated any majorities in the legislatures.

When World War I came in 1914 India contributed many of its men to the war effort in hopes of being repayed for their help by some kind of Independence within the next couple of years after the war. By the end of the war nearly 1,000,000 troops were involved in the conflict in Europe.

In 1919, Indian troops were ordered to fire upon people holding a public demonstaration which at the time had been forbidden to Indian citizens. This event inspired Gandhi to begin his campaign for indepence through silent protests.

Gandhi was a significantly powerful man in India, known for his silent protests, he alone was one of the major factors that led to the Indian independence. This was achieved through boycotts, faith and silent protests. Gandhi did not agree in putting both religion and politics together.

During the last years of British rule in India there was a lot of conflict between Hindus and Muslim. Though a seperate electorate for Muslims had been set up in 1909 many Muslims were still feeling under represented in the Indian parliament. A number of reform acts in 1919, 1932 and 1935 had attempted to change many factors but not alot changed in the end. The reform on 1935 gave India a good amount of self-governance.

The movement for independence had many problems though as there were conflicts between the Muslim league and the Hindu dominated congress. Because of escalating violence between the two parties Lord Louis Mountbatten was sent to India in 1947 to decide on the partition of India. Hindu India would be governed by Mountbatten with Nehru as a prime minister. Pakistan was formed with the leader of the Muslim League Muhammed Ali Jinnah as the leader.

The partition caused much fleeing and mass migrations by the Muslims and Hindus to be in their respective countries.

Freedom of worship

The British followed a policy of not intervening in India's religion. This is said to have brought about many religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims.

In 1891 the Age of Consent Act was proclaimed which raised the statutary rape age for many young Indian brides from 10 years old to 12.

Once a congress was set up in India, many Muslims began to complain about being under represented in the Indian parliament. There were many fights over the accused slaughter of many cows and pigs by both groups. Cows are sacred for Hindus while pigs are sacred to Muslims. This only caused more religious tension between the two factions.

Because Muslims were a minority many Muslims started to think about having an independent nation for Muslims to live in.

On December 22, 1939 a Muslim "Day of Deliverance" was declared in which Muslims were exempt from much of the tyranny that was invoked on them by different members of congress. The Muslim League was quickly set up, and in March of 1940 in Lahore the ancient capital of Punjab they met for the first time and declared the Lahore Resolution (Pakistan Resolution), which set up the steps for an independent state to be set up in the Northern parts of India which would be Muslim in majority.

The British People in the Continent.

The British who lived in India were the elites of the country. They had the best of the world with their own private clubs and nice houses.

For the most part the British did not understand the Indian system of ways because of the lack of contact with the average Indian people.

The Results of the British In India

Western education and science as well as technology were introduced, English became a common language over the country's many languages and railroads were set up.

Indian nationalism started when the European powers started to invade and exert their influence over India.

More information under Ethno-Nationalism

Reasons for the British dominance in the Indian Sub-Continent.

Indians had just started to learn to live together and were trying to put their country together, because this system had not yet been completed many Indian rulers were much more willing to trust the British. This lead to a lot of British dominance
The British were far superior than many of their European counterparts and had control of the Indian ocean which allowed them to control the trade to and from India by sea.
Britain because of its hegemon had much more wealth to put into the country than other countries did. This created a fairly good administrative system in the country.

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