British Colonial Rule Sample Essay

The British Raj ( raj. lit. “reign” in Hindi ) [ 1 ] was British regulation in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. [ 2 ] The term can besides mention to the period of rule. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The part under British control. normally calledIndia in modern-day use. included countries straight administered by the United Kingdom [ 4 ] ( contemporaneously British India ) . every bit good as the princely provinces ruled by single swayers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. The part was less normally besides called the Indian Empire by the British. [ 5 ] As “India” . it was a founding member of the League of Nations. and a take parting state in the Summer Olympics in 1900. 1920. 1928. 1932. and 1936.

The system of administration was instituted in 1858. when the regulation of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the individual of Queen Victoria [ 6 ] ( who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India ) . and lasted until 1947. when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two autonomous rule provinces. the Union of India ( subsequently the Republic of India ) and the Dominion of Pakistan ( subsequently the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. the eastern half of which. still subsequently. became the People’s Republic of Bangladesh ) .

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The budget of the Raj covered municipal personal businesss. the constabulary. the little but extremely trained Indian Civil Service that ran authorities operations. and the Indian Army. It was paid wholly by Indians through revenue enhancements. particularly on farming area and on salt. The big. well-trained Indian Army played major functions in both World Wars ; the remainder of the clip it trained to contend off a possible Russian invasion through Afghanistan. Geographical extent

The British raja extended over about all contemporary India. Pakistan. and Bangladesh. with exclusions such as Goa and Pondicherry. In add-on. at assorted times. it included Aden ( from 1858 to 1937 ) . Lower Burma ( from 1858 to 1937 ) . Upper Burma ( from 1886 to 1937 ) . British Somaliland ( briefly from 1884 to 1898 ) . and Singapore ( briefly from 1858 to 1867 ) . Burma was separated from India and straight administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independency in 1948. The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf were theoretically deluxe provinces of British India until 1946 and used the rupee as their unit of currency. Among other states in the part. Ceylon ( now Sri Lanka ) was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was a British Crown settlement but non portion of British India. The lands of Nepal and Bhutan. holding fought wars with the British. later signed pacts with them and were recognised by the British as independent provinces. The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely province after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861 ; nevertheless. the issue of sovereignty was left vague. The Maldive Islands were a British associated state from 1887 to 1965 but non portion of British India. Princely provinces

A Princely State. besides called a Native State or an Indian State. was a nominally autonomous entity with an autochthonal Indian swayer. capable to a subordinate confederation. There were 565 princely provinces when India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely provinces did non organize a portion of British India ( i. e. the presidential terms and states ) . as they were non straight under British regulation. The larger 1s had pacts with Britain that specified which rights the princes had ; in the smaller 1s the princes had few rights. Within the princely states external personal businesss. defense mechanism and most communications were under British control. The British besides exercised a general influence over the states’ internal political relations. in portion through the granting or withholding of acknowledgment of single swayers. Although there were about 600 princely provinces. the great bulk was really little and contracted out the concern of authorities to the British. Some two hundred of the provinces had an country of less than 25 square kilometers ( 10 square stat mis ) .

Aftermath of the Indian rebellion of 1857
Shaken by the events of the Indian rebellion of 1857. Britain dissolved the East India Company and transferred governing power over India to the Crown. The princely provinces were largely kept integral. though they lost their private ground forcess and were more closely watched. The all-British units were doubled in figure. After the rebellion. the British became more discreet sing rapid modernization. Much idea was devoted to the causes of the rebellion. and from it three chief lessons were drawn. At a more practical degree. it was felt that at that place needed to be more communicating and chumminess between the British and Indians—not merely between British ground forces officers and their Indian staff but in civilian life every bit good. The Indian ground forces was wholly reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. who had formed the nucleus of the rebellion. were disbanded. New regiments. like the Sikhs and Baluchis. composed of Indians who. in British appraisal. had demonstrated staunchness. were formed. The Indian units lost their heavy weapon. From so on. the Indian ground forces was to stay unchanged in its administration until 1947.

The 1861 Census had revealed that the British population in India was 125. 945. Of these lone approximately 41. 862 were civilians as compared with approximately 84. 083 European officers and work forces of the Army. In 1880. the standing Indian Army consisted of 66. 000 British soldiers. 130. 000 Natives. and 350. 000 soldiers in the deluxe ground forcess. [ 43 ] Administrative control of India came under the esteemed Indian Civil Service which had administrative control over all territories outside the deluxe provinces. At first all-British. it included increasing proportions of Indians. and totalled about 1000 work forces. They were really good organised. knowing and professional. and avoided the payoffs and inside trades that had made for great wealth among the functionaries of the defunct East India Company.

The British decided that both the princes and the big land-holders. by non fall ining the rebellion. had proved to be. in Lord Canning’s words. “breakwaters in a storm” . They excessively were rewarded in the new British Raj by being officially recognised in the pacts each province now signed with the Crown. At the same clip. it was felt that the provincials. for whose benefit the big land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken. had shown disloyalty. by. in many instances. contending for their former landlords against the British. Consequently. no more land reforms were implemented for the following 90 old ages: Bengal and Bihar were to stay the kingdom of big land retentions ( unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh ) . Economic history

The Indian economic system grew at about 1 % per twelvemonth from 1880 to 1920. and the population besides grew at 1 % . The consequence was. on norm. no long-run alteration in per capita income degrees. though cost of life had grown higher. Agribusiness was still dominant. with most provincials at the subsistence degree. Extensive irrigation systems were built. supplying an drift for exchanging to hard currency harvests for export and for natural stuffs for Indian industry. particularly jute. cotton. sugar cane. java and tea. India’s planetary portion of GDP fell drastically from above 20 % to less than 5 % in the colonial period. Fact besides remains that India has “third world” position after decolonising. compared to the manner its wealths and trade attracted European and Middle Eastern encroachers and bargainers in eighteenth century. Historians have been bitterly divided on issues of economic history. with the Nationalist school ( following Nehru ) reasoning that India was poorer at the terminal of British regulation than at the beginning and that poverty occurred because of the British New center category. Indian National Congress. 1860s–1890s

By 1880 a new in-between category had arisen in India and spread thinly across the state. Furthermore. there was a turning solidarity among its members. created by the “joint stimulation of encouragement and annoyance. ” The encouragement felt by this category came from its success in instruction and its ability to avail itself of the benefits of that instruction such as employment in the Indian Civil Service. It came excessively from Queen Victoria’s announcement of 1858 in which she had declared. “We clasp ourselves bound to the indigens of our Indian districts by the same duty of responsibility which bind us to all our other topics. ” Indians were particularly encouraged when Canada was granted rule position in 1867 and established an independent democratic fundamental law.

Last. the encouragement came from the work of contemporary Oriental bookmans like Monier Monier-Williams andMax Muller. who in their plants had been showing ancient India as a great civilization. Irritation. on the other manus. came non merely from incidents of racial favoritism at the custodies of the British in India. but besides from governmental actions like the usage of Indian military personnels in imperial runs ( e. g. in the Second Anglo-Afghan War ) and the efforts to command the common imperativeness ( e. g. in the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 ) . It was. nevertheless. Viceroy Lord Ripon’s partial reversal of the Ilbert Bill ( 1883 ) . a legislative step that had proposed seting Indian Judgess in the Bengal Presidency on equal terms with British 1s. that transformed the discontent into political action.

On 28 December 1885. professionals and intellectuals from this middle-class—many educated at the new British-founded universities in Bombay. Calcutta. and Madras. and familiar with the thoughts of British political philosophers. particularly the utilitarians assembled in Bombay. The 70 work forces founded the Indian National Congress ; Womesh Chandra Bonerjee was elected the first president. The rank comprised a westernised elite. and no attempt was made at this clip to broaden the base. During its first 20 old ages. the Congress chiefly debated British policy toward India ; nevertheless. its arguments created a new Indian mentality that held Great Britain responsible for run outing India of its wealth. Britain did this. the patriots claimed. by unjust trade. by the restraint on autochthonal Indian industry. and by the usage of Indian revenue enhancements to pay the high wages of the British civil retainers in India.

History 1914–1947
First World War
The First World War would turn out to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. Some 1. 4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army took portion in the war. chiefly in Iraq and the Middle East. Their engagement had wider cultural radioactive dust as intelligence spread how courageously soldiers fought and died aboard British soldiers. every bit good as soldiers from rules like Canada and Australia. ] India’s international profile rose during the 1920s. as it became a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participated. under the name. “Les Indes Anglaises” ( British India ) . in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. Back in India. particularly among the leaders of the Indian National Congress. the war led to calls for greater self-determination for Indians.

With the terminal of World War I. there was besides a alteration in the economic clime. By year’s terminal 1919. 1. 5 million Indians had served in the armed services in either battler or non-combatant functions. and India had provided ?146 million in gross for the war. The increased revenue enhancements coupled with breaks in both domestic and international trade had the consequence of about duplicating the index of overall monetary values in India between 1914 and 1920. Returning war veterans. particularly in the Punjab. created a turning unemployment crisis. and post-war rising prices led to nutrient public violences in Bombay. Madras. and Bengal provinces. ] a state of affairs that was made merely worse by the failure of the 1918–19 monsoon and by profiteering and guess. The planetary grippe epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general heebie-jeebiess ; the former among the population already sing economic sufferings. and the latter among authorities functionaries. fearing a similar revolution in India. Demand for complete independency. Salt March: 1929–1931

At midnight on 31 December 1929. during its one-year session in Lahore. the Indian National Congress. under the presidential term of Jawaharlal Nehru. raised the flag of independent India for the first clip. and afterwards issued a demand for Purna Swaraj ( Sanskrit: “complete independence” ) . which Nehru was to subsequently mention to as “a rendezvous with fate. ” The declaration was drafted by theCongress Working Committee. which included Gandhi. Nehru. Patel. and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Gandhi later led an expanded motion of civil noncompliance. climaxing in 1930 with the Salt Satyagraha. in which 1000s of Indians defied the revenue enhancement on salt. by processing to the sea and doing their ain salt by vaporizing saltwater. Although. many. including Gandhi. were arrested. the British authorities finally gave in. and in 1931 Gandhi travelled to London to negociate new reform at the Round Table Conferences. In local footings British control rested on the Indian Civil Service. but it faced turning troubles.

Fewer and fewer immature work forces in Britain were interested in fall ining. and the go oning misgiving of Indians resulted in a worsening base in footings of quality and measure. By 1945 Indians were numerically dominant in the ICS and at issue was loyal divided between the Empire and independency. [ 113 ] The fundss of the Raj depended on land revenue enhancements. and these became debatable in the 1930s. Epstein argues that after 1919 it became harder and harder to roll up the land gross. The Raj’s suppression of civil noncompliance after 1934 temporarily increased the power of the gross agents but after 1937 they were forced by the new Congress-controlled provincial authoritiess to manus back confiscated land. Again the eruption of war strengthened them. in the face of the Quit India motion the gross aggregators had to trust on military force and by 1946–47 direct British control was quickly vanishing in much of the countryside. Government of India Act: 1931–1937

In 1935. after the Round Table Conferences. Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1935. which authorised the constitution of independent legislative assemblies in all states of British India. the creative activity of a cardinal authorities integrating both the British states and the princely provinces. and the protection of Muslim minorities. The future Constitution of independent India was based on this act. However. it divided the electorate into 19 spiritual and societal classs. e. g. . Moslems. Sikhs. Indian Christians. Depressed Classes. Landholders. Commerce and Industry. Europeans. Anglo-Indians. etc. . each of which was given separate representation in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. A elector could project a ballot merely for campaigners in his ain class. The 1935 Act provided for more liberty for Indian states. with the end of chilling off nationalist sentiment. The act provided for a national parliament and an executive subdivision under the horizon of the British authorities. but the swayers of the deluxe provinces managed to barricade its execution. These provinces remained under the full control of their familial swayers. with no popular authorities.

To fix for elections Congress built up its grass roots rank from 473. 000 in 1935 to 4. 5 million in 1939. In the 1937 elections Congress won triumphs in seven of the 11 states of British India. Congress authoritiess. with broad powers. were formed in these states. The widespread elector support for the Indian National Congress surprised Raj functionaries. who antecedently had seen the Congress as a little elitist organic structure. World War II. Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution: 1938–1941 While the Muslim League was a little elite group in 1927 with lone 1300 members. it grew quickly once it became an administration that reached out to the multitudes. making 500. 000 members in Bengal in 1944. 200. 000 in Punjab. and 100s of 1000s elsewhere. Jinnah now was good positioned to negociate with the British from a place of power. With the eruption of World War II in 1939. the vicereine. Lord Linlithgow. declared war on India’s behalf without confer withing Indian leaders. taking the Congress provincial ministries to vacate in protest. The Muslim League. in contrast. supported Britain in the war attempt and maintained its control of the authorities in three major states. Bengal. Sind and the Punjab. Jinnah repeatedly warned that Muslims would be below the belt treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress.

On 24 March 1940 in Lahore. the League passed the “Lahore Resolution” . demanding that. “the countries in which the Muslims are numerically in bulk as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to represent independent provinces in which the component units shall be independent and autonomous. ” Although there were other of import national Muslim politicians such as Congress leader Ab’ul Kalam Azad. and influential regional Muslim politicians such as A. K. Fazlul Huq of the left-of-center Krishak Praja Party in Bengal. Sikander Hyat Khan of the landlord-dominated Punjab Unionist Party. and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan of the pro-CongressKhudai Khidmatgar ( popularly. “red shirts” ) in the North West Frontier Province. the British. over the following six old ages. were to progressively see the League as the chief representative of Muslim India.

Cripps Mission. Quit India Resolution: 1942–1945
The British authorities sent the Cripps’ mission in 1942 to procure Indian nationalists’ cooperation in the war attempt in exchange for a promise of independency every bit shortly as the war ended. Top functionaries in Britain. most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill. did non back up the Cripps Mission and dialogues with the Congress shortly broke down.

Women’s emanation in Bombay during the “Quit India” motion. 1942 Congress in July 1942 launched the “Quit India” motion in demanding the immediate backdown of the British from India or face countrywide civil noncompliance. On 8 August the Raj arrested all national. provincial and local Congress leaders. keeping 10s of 1000s of them until 1945. The state erupted in violent presentations led by pupils and subsequently by peasant political groups. particularly in Eastern United Provinces. Bihar. and western Bengal. The big war-time British Army presence crushed the motion in a little more than six hebdomads ; [ 133 ] however. a part of the motion formed for a clip an belowground probationary authorities on the boundary line with Nepal. [ 133 ] In other parts of India. the motion was less self-generated and the protest less intensive. nevertheless it lasted periodically into the summer of 1943. It did non decelerate down the British war attempt or recruiting for the ground forces. Elections. Cabinet Mission. Direct Action Day: 1946

In January 1946. a figure of mutinies broke out in the armed services. get downing with that of RAF military mans frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain. [ 135 ] The mutinies came to a caput with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946. followed by others in Calcutta. Madras. and Karachi. Although the mutinies were quickly suppressed. they had the consequence of spurring the new Labour authorities in Britain to action. and taking to the Cabinet Mission to India led by the Secretary of State for India. Lord Pethick Lawrence. and including Sir Stafford Cripps. who had visited four old ages earlier. Besides in early 1946. new elections were called in India. Earlier. at the terminal of the war in 1945. the colonial authorities had announced the public test of three senior officers of Bose’s defeated Indian National Army who stood accused of lese majesty.

Now as the tests began. the Congress leading. although ambivalent towards the INA. take to support the accused officers. The subsequent strong beliefs of the officers. the public call against the strong beliefs. and the eventual remittal of the sentences. created positive propaganda for the Congress. which merely helped in the party’s subsequent electoral triumphs in eight of the 11 states. The dialogues between the Congress and the Muslim League. nevertheless. stumbled over the issue of the divider. Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946. Direct Action Day. with the declared end of foregrounding. peacefully. the demand for a Muslim fatherland in British India. The undermentioned twenty-four hours Hindu-Muslim public violences broke out in Calcutta and rapidly distribute throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the class of events. in September. a Congress-led interim authorities was installed. with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India’s premier curate The Plan for Partition: 1947

Subsequently that twelvemonth. the Labour authorities in Britain. its treasury exhausted by the late concluded World War II. and witting that it had neither the authorization at place. the international support. nor the dependability of native forces for go oning to command an progressively ungratified India. [ 139 ] [ 140 ] decided to stop British regulation of India. and in early 1947 Britain announced its purpose of reassigning power no subsequently than June 1948. As independency approached. the force between Hindus and Muslims in the states of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British ground forces unprepared for the possible for increased force. the new vicereine. Louis Mountbatten. advanced the day of the month for the transportation of power. leting less than six months for a reciprocally agreed program for independency.

In June 1947. the patriot leaders. including Sardar Patel. Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress. Jinnah stand foring the Muslim League. B. R. Ambedkar stand foring the Untouchable community. and Master Tara Singh stand foring the Sikhs. agreed to a divider of the state along spiritual lines in blunt resistance to Gandhi’s positions. The preponderantly Hindu and Sikh countries were assigned to the new India and preponderantly Muslim countries to the new state of Pakistan ; the program included a divider of the Muslim-majority states of Punjab and Bengal. Violence. Partition. Independence: 1947

On 14 August 1947. the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being. with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The undermentioned twenty-four hours. 15 August 1947. India. now a smaller Union of India. became an independent state with official ceremonials taking topographic point in New Delhi. and with Jawaharlal Nehru presuming the office of the premier curate. and the vicereine. Louis Mountbatten. remaining on as its first Governor General. The great bulk of Indians remained in topographic point with independency. but in boundary line countries 1000000s of people ( Muslim. Sikh. and Hindu ) relocated across the freshly drawn boundary lines. In Punjab. where the new boundary line lines divided the Sikh parts in half. there was much bloodshed ; in Bengal and Bihar. where Gandhi’s presence assuaged communal piques. the force was more limited. In all. someplace between 250. 000 and 500. 000 people on both sides of the new boundary lines. both among the refugee and resident populations of the three religions. died in the force.

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