The British Raj (rāj in Hindustani Hindustani , Hindostani or Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language that spans several closely related dialects in northern India and Pakistan. Hindustani is sometimes considered the lingua franca of India and Pakistan: राज, Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is a standardised register of Hindustani. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Arabic, Turkic, Sanskrit, and: راج, pronounced: /rɑːdʒ/, lit. "reign"[1]) is the name given to the period of British colonial rule in South Asia South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as the Indian subcontinent south of the between 1858 and 1947;[2] it can also refer to the dominion itself, and even the region under the rule.[3] The region, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, and collectively British India, were the administrative units of the British Empire in India. Together, they consisted of territory on the Indian subcontinent that was under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the directly administered by Britain,[4] as well as the princely states A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. There were as many as 568 states in India before independence.[citation needed] ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy The doctrine of paramountcy is the legal principle that reconciles contradicting or conflicting laws in a federalist state. Where both the central government and the provincial or state governments have the power to create laws in relation to the same matters, the laws of one government will be given priority over the other through the doctrine.[ of the British Crown The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties. As a constitutional monarch, the Queen is limited to non-. After 1876, the resulting political union was officially called the Indian Empire and issued passports under that name. As India, it was a founding member Between 1920 and 1946, a total of 63 countries became members of the League of Nations. The Covenant forming the League of Nations was included in the Treaty of Versailles and came into force on 10 January 1920. The League of Nations was dissolved on 18 April 1946, when its assets and responsibilities were transferred to the United Nations of the League of Nations The League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920, and the precursor to the United Nations. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing war through collective, the United Nations The United Nations Organization or simply United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of, and a member nation of the Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that started in 1904. The Winter Olympics were also in 1900 One athlete from India competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, thereby being the nation's first appearance at the modern Olympic Games. Olympic historians tend to separate Indian results from British ones despite India's lack of independence, in a similar manner to the separation of results of competitors from Australia before 1901, 1920, 1928, 1932 India competed at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, United States. The Men's Field hockey team won their second consecutive gold, and 1936 India competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule Company rule in India refers to the rule or dominion of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the Company, in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in of the British East India Company The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies, the Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria Victoria was the Queen regnant of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death. Her reign as the Queen lasted 63 years and 7 months, longer than that of any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female (and who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India Emperor/Empress of India was used as a title by the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II, and revived by the colonial British monarchs during the British Raj in India), and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned The Partition of India (Hindi: भारत का विभाजन , Urdu: ہندوستان کی تقسیم Hindustān kī Taqsīm) was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation, on 14 August 1947 and 15 August 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later into two sovereign dominion A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of semi-autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, from the late 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State. After 1948, the term was used states, the Union of India The Union of India, sometimes also known as the Dominion of India, was an independent state congruent to modern-day India that existed between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Although succeeded by the Republic of India, the term "Union of India" is still used by the Indian judicial system to refer to the Indian government (as opposed (later the Republic of India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the) and the Dominion of Pakistan The Dominion of Pakistan was a federal country in South Asia that was established in 1947 as a result of the partition of British India into two sovereign dominions: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Dominion of Pakistan, which included modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, was intended to be a homeland for the Muslims of the (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Pakistan (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the, the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh Bangladesh (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ, pronounced /bæŋgləˈdɛʃ/; Bangladesh), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Banglādeśh) is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire was made a separate colony in 1937, and became independent in 1948.
Contents |
Geographical extent
The British Indian Empire and surrounding countries in 1909The British Raj extended over all regions of present-day India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the, Pakistan Pakistan (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the, and Bangladesh Bangladesh (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ, pronounced /bæŋgləˈdɛʃ/; Bangladesh), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Banglādeśh) is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma. In addition, at various times, it included Aden Colony (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma Lower Burma is a historical region, referring to the part of Burma annexed by the British Empire after the Second Anglo-Burmese War, which took place in 1852, plus the former kingdom of Arakan and the territory of Tenasserim which the British had taken control of in 1826. Lower Burma was centred at Rangoon, and composed of all of the coast of (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma Upper Burma was a term used by the British to refer to the central and northern area of what is now the country of Myanmar . After the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, Lower Burma was annexed by the British Empire, while Upper Burma remained independent under the Kingdom of Burma until the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. Upper Burma was also (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland British Somaliland was a British protectorate in the northern part of present-day Somalia. Its territory is now Somaliland, a de facto independent republic which is recognized as a part of Somalia. For much of its existence, British Somaliland was bordered by French Somaliland, the Ogaden, and Italian Somaliland. From 1940 to 1941, it was occupied (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres north of the equator, in the Southeast Asian region of the Asian continent. It is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north, and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the Singapore Strait to its south. A (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. The Trucial States The Trucial States were a group of sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf. The sheikdoms included: of the Persian Gulf were theoretically princely states of British India Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, and collectively British India, were the administrative units of the territories of India under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the British Crown between 1612 and 1947 until 1946 and used the rupee The rupee (abbreviated as ₨, Re., Rs. (Plural) or रू.) is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Indonesia, Maldives, and formerly in Burma as their unit of currency.
Among other countries in the region, Ceylon Sri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known as Ceylon (/sɪˈlɒn/) before 1972, is an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India (now Sri Lanka Sri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known as Ceylon (/sɪˈlɒn/) before 1972, is an island country in South Asia, located about 31 kilometres (19.3 mi) off the southern coast of India), was ceded to the Britain The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927. It was formed by the merger of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, with Ireland being governed directly from Westminster through its Dublin Castle administration in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between France and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace". The consequent peace lasted only one year, and was the only period of. Ceylon was a British Crown Colony A Crown colony was a type of colonial administration of the British Empire, but not part of British India. The kingdoms of Nepal Nepal (pronounced /nəˈpal/ nə-PAHL, /-pal/ -PAWL; Nepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a himalayan country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by and Bhutan Coordinates: 27°25′01″N 90°26′06″E / 27.417°N 90.435°E The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked country in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Bhutan is, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them, and were recognized by the British as independent states.[5][6] The Kingdom of Sikkim Sikkim (Limbu: Sikkim , Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་, 'bras ljongs; Denzong; "Demojongs i.e. the Goodly Region, or Shikim, Shikimpati or Sikkim of the English and Indians....") is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayas. It is the least populous state in India and the second-smallest state after Goa. This thumb- was established as a princely state A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. There were as many as 568 states in India before independence.[citation needed] after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861. However, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined.[7] The Maldive Islands The Maldives ( /ˈmɒldaɪvz/ or /ˈmɒldiːvz/), (Dhivehi: ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ Dhivehi Raa'je) or Maldive Islands, officially Republic of Maldives, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls stretching in a north-south direction off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and Chagos were a British protectorate A protectorate, in international law, is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity. In exchange for this, the protectorate usually accepts specified obligations, which may vary greatly, depending on the real nature of their relationship. However, it retains sufficient from 1887 to 1965, but not part of British India.
British India and the Native States
Main articles: British India Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, and collectively British India, were the administrative units of the territories of India under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the British Crown between 1612 and 1947 and Princely state A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. There were as many as 568 states in India before independence.[citation needed] The British Indian Empire in 1893The British Indian Empire (contemporaneously India) consisted of two divisions: British India and the Native States or Princely States A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. There were as many as 568 states in India before independence.[citation needed]. In its Interpretation Act of 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions:[8]
The expression British India shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties. As a constitutional monarch, the Queen is limited to non- dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. The expression India shall mean British India together with any territories of a Native Prince or Chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty, exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. (52 & 53 Vict. cap. 63, sec. 18)
(In general the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to also refer to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858.[9] The term has also been used to refer to the "British in India."[10])
Suzerainty over 175 Princely States, some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name of the British Crown) by central government of British India under the Viceroy; the remaining, approximately 500, states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner (as the case might have been).[11] A clear distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the courts of the Princely States existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.[11]
Major provinces
Main article: Presidencies and provinces of British IndiaAt the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does not include those of the dependent Native States):[12] During the partition of Bengal (1905–1911), a new province, Assam and East Bengal was created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became: Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.[12]
| Province of British India[12] | Area (in thousands of square miles) | Population (in millions of inhabitants) | Chief Administrative Officer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burma | 170 | 9 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Bengal (including present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa) | 151 | 75 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Madras | 142 | 38 | Governor-in-Council |
| Bombay | 123 | 19 | Governor-in-Council |
| United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand) | 107 | 48 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Central Provinces (including Berar) | 104 | 13 | Chief Commissioner |
| Punjab | 97 | 20 | Lieutenant-Governor |
| Assam | 49 | 6 | Chief Commissioner |
Minor provinces
In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a Chief Commissioner:[13]
| Minor Province[13] | Area (in thousands of square miles) | Population (in thousands of inhabitants) | Chief Administrative Officer |
|---|---|---|---|
| North West Frontier Province | 16 | 2,125 | Chief Commissioner |
| British Baluchistan (British and Administered territory) | 46 | 308 | British Political Agent in Baluchistan served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Coorg | 1.6 | 181 | British Resident in Mysore served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Ajmer-Merwara | 2.7 | 477 | British Political Agent in Rajputana served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 3 | 25 | Chief Commissioner |
Native states or Princely states
Main article: Princely stateA Princely State, also called Native State or Indian State, was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy. Military, foreign affairs, and communications power were under British control. There were 565 princely states when the Indian subcontinent became independent from Britain in August 1947.[14]
Organization
The proclamation to the "Princes, Chiefs, and People of India," issued by Queen Victoria on November 1, 1858. "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligation of duty which bind us to all our other subjects." (p. 2) An 1887 souvenir portrait of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, a full 30 years after the Great UprisingFollowing the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Act for the Better Government of India (1858) made changes in the governance of India at three levels: in the imperial government in London, in the central government in Calcutta, and in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces).[15]
In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member Council of India, whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have spent at least ten years in India and to have done so no more than ten years before.[16] Although the Secretary of State formulated the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was required in most instances to consult the Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending of Indian revenues.[15] The Act envisaged a system of "double government" in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy-making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India.[15] However, the Secretary of State also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the Council's expertise was sometimes outdated.[17] From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals served as Secretary of State for India and direct the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859–1866), Marquess of Salisbury (1874–1878) (later Prime Minister of Britain), John Morley (1905–1910) (initiator of the Minto-Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (1917–1922) (an architect of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1945–1947) (head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India). The size of the advisory Council was reduced over the next half-century, but its powers remained unchanged; in 1907, for the first time, two Indians were appointed to the Council.[18]
In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to the nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of State in London and through him to Parliament of the United Kingdom. A system of "double government" had already been in place in the East India Company rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784.[18] The Governor-General in the capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for example, were issued in the name of "Governor-General-in-Council" (i.e. the Governor-General with the advice of the Council).[18] The Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made no major changes in governance[18] However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, the Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision-making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead.[18] He therefore requested the "portfolio system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department (the "portfolio") was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single Council member.[18] Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, however, important decisions required the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence of such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act of 1861.
If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative Council—an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to a two-year term—with half the members consisting of British officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half, comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity.[19] All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in Madras and Bombay, required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London; this prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism controlled from home."[20] Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more consultation with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty, and far from representative.[21] Even so, the "tiny advances in the practise of representative government were intended to provide safety valves for the expression of public opinion which had been so badly misjudged before the rebellion." (Bayly 1990, p. 195). Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in the British parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.[22]
Although the Great Uprising of 1857 had shaken the British enterprise in India, it had not derailed it. After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indians; not just between British army officers and their Indian staff, but in civilian life as well. The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded.[23] New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. From then on, the Indian army was to remain unchanged in its organization until 1947.[24] The 1861 Census had revealed that the English population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army.[25] In 1880 the standing Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.[26]
It was also felt that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm."[23] They too were rewarded in the new British Raj, by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.[24] At the same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).[24]
Lastly, the British felt disenchanted with Indian reaction to social change. Until the rebellion, they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on suttee by Lord William Bentinck.[23] It was now felt that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily; consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in matters dealing with religion, even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows).[24]
Famines, epidemics, and public health
Main articles: Famines, epidemics, and public health in the British Raj and Timeline of major famines in India during British rule (1765 to 1947) See also: Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, Agra famine of 1837–38, Orissa Famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of 1869, Bihar famine of 1873–74, Great Famine of 1876–78, Indian famine of 1896–97, and Indian famine of 1899–1900During the British Raj, India experienced some of the worst famines ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died[27] and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.[27] Recent research, including work by Mike Davis and Amartya Sen,[28] attribute these famines directly to British policy in India.
The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[29] Deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 are estimated to have exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917.[30] The Third Pandemic of plague started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading disease to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[31] Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, was the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925, the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.
Fevers had been considered one of the leading causes of death in India in the 19th century.[32] It was Britain's Sir Ronald Ross working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta who finally proved in 1898 that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes.[33] In 1881, around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in India.[34] Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination.[35] Mass vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end of the 19th century.[36] In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox.[37] Between 1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.[38]
Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to the expediency of establishing a systematic institution in the Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives.[39] In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognized colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (others being Elphinstone College, Deccan College and Government Law College, Mumbai).
Economic impact
Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was actually raised by conservative British politician Edmund Burke who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal India. Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.[40]
P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. Marshall argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past. British control was delegated largely through regional Mughal rulers and was sustained by a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the eighteenth century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.[41] Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation, supported by many scholars in India and the West, in which the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still rejected by many historians working in India, who prefer to 'bash the British'.[42]
Timeline
| Viceroy | Period of Tenure | Events/Accomplishments |
|---|---|---|
| Charles Canning | 1 Nov 1858 21 Mar 1862 | 1858 reorganization of British Indian Army (contemporaneously and hereafter Indian Army) Construction begins (1860): University of Bombay, University of Madras, and University of Calcutta Indian Penal Code passed into law in 1860. Upper Doab famine of 1860–61 Indian Councils Act 1861 Establishment of Archaeological Survey of India in 1861 James Wilson, financial member of Council of India reorganizes customs, imposes income tax, creates paper currency. Indian Police Act of 1861, creation of Imperial Police later known as Indian Police Service. |
| Lord Elgin | 21 Mar 1862 20 Nov 1863 | Dies prematurely in Dharamsala |
| Sir John Lawrence | 12 Jan 1864 12 Jan 1869 | Anglo-Bhutan Duar War (1864–1865) Orissa famine of 1866 Rajputana famine of 1869 Creation of Department of Irrigation. Creation of Imperial Forestry Service in 1867 (now Indian Forest Service). |
| Lord Mayo | 12 Jan 1869 8 Feb 1872 | Creation of Department of Agriculture (now Ministry of Agriculture) Major extension of railways, roads, and canals Indian Councils Act of 1870 Creation of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a Chief Commissionership (1872). Assassination of Lord Mayo in the Andamans. |
| Lord Northbrook | 3 May 1872 12 Apr 1876 | Mortalities in Bihar famine of 1873–74 prevented by importation of rice from Burma. Gaikwad of Baroda dethroned for misgovernment; dominions continued to a child ruler. Indian Councils Act of 1874 Visit of the Prince of Wales, future Edward VII in 1875–76. |
| Lord Lytton | 12 Apr 1876 8 Jun 1880 | Baluchistan established as a Chief Commissionership Queen Victoria (in absentia) proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi Durbar of 1877. Great Famine of 1876–78: 5.25 million dead; reduced relief offered at expense of Rs. 8 crore. Creation of Famine Commission of 1878–80 under Sir Richard Strachey. Indian Forest Act of 1878 Second Anglo-Afghan War. |
| Lord Ripon | 8 Jun 1880 13 Dec 1884 | End of Second Anglo-Afghan War. Repeal of Vernacular Press Act of 1878. Compromise on the Ilbert Bill. Local Government Acts extend self-government from towns to country. University of Punjab established in Lahore in 1882 Famine Code promulgated in 1883 by the Government of India. Creation of the Education Commission. Creation of indigenous schools, especially for Muslims. Repeal of import duties on cotton and of most tariffs. Railway extension. |
| Lord Dufferin | 13 Dec 1884 10 Dec 1888 | Passage of Bengal Tenancy Bill Third Anglo-Burmese War. Joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission appointed for the Afghan frontier. Russian attack on Afghans at Panjdeh (1885). The Great Game in full play. Report of Public Services Commission of 1886-87, creation of Imperial Civil Service (later Indian Civil Service, and today Indian Administrative Service) University of Allahabad established in 1887 Queen Victoria's Jubilee, 1887. |
| Lord Lansdowne | 10 Dec 1888 11 Oct 1894 | Strengthening of NW Frontier defense. Creation of Imperial Service Troops consisting of regiments contributed by the princely states. Gilgit Agency leased in 1899 British Parliament passes Indian Councils Act of 1892 opening the Imperial Legislative Council to Indians. Revolution in princely state of Manipur and subsequent reinstatement of ruler. High point of The Great Game. Establishment of the Durand Line between British India and Afghanistan, Railways, roads, and irrigation works begun in Burma. Border between Burma and Siam finalized in 1893. Fall of the Rupee, resulting from the steady depreciation of silver currency worldwide (1873–93). Indian Prisons Act of 1894 |
| Lord Elgin | 11 Oct 1894 6 Jan 1899 | Reorganization of Indian Army (from Presidency System to the four Commands). Pamir agreement Russia, 1895 The Chitral Campaign (1895), the Tirah Campaign (1896–97) Indian famine of 1896–97 beginning in Bundelkhand. Bubonic plague in Bombay (1896), Bubonic plague in Calcutta (1898); riots in wake of plague prevention measures. Establishment of Provincial Legislative Councils in Burma and Punjab; the former a new Lieutenant Governorship. |
| Lord Curzon | 6 Jan 1899 18 Nov 1905 | Creation of the North West Frontier Province under a Chief Commissioner (1901). Indian famine of 1899–1900. Return of the bubonic plague, 1 million deaths Financial Reform Act of 1899; Gold Reserve Fund created for India. Punjab Land Alienation Act Inauguration of Department (now Ministry) of Commerce and Industry. Death of Queen Victoria (1901); dedication of the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta as a national gallery of Indian antiquities, art, and history. Coronation Durbar in Delhi (1903); Edward VII (in absentia) proclaimed Emperor of India. Francis Younghusband's British expedition to Tibet (1903–04) North-Western Provinces (previously Ceded and Conquered Provinces) and Oudh renamed United Provinces in 1904 Reorganization of Indian Universities Act (1904). Systemization of preservation and restoration of ancient monuments by Archaeological Survey of India with Indian Ancient Monument Preservation Act. Inauguration of agricultural banking with Cooperative Credit Societies Act of 1904 Partition of Bengal (1905); new province of East Bengal and Assam under a Lieutenant-Governor. |
| Lord Minto | 18 Nov 1905 23 Nov 1910 | Creation of the Railway Board Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 Government of India Act of 1909 (also Minto-Morley Reforms) Appointment of Indian Factories Commission in 1909. Establishment of Department of Education in 1910 (now Ministry of Education) |
| Lord Hardinge | 23 Nov 1910 4 Apr 1916 | Visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911: commemoration as Emperor and Empress of India at last Delhi Durbar King George V announces creation of new city of New Delhi to replace Calcutta as capital of India. Indian High Courts Act of 1911 Indian Factories Act of 1911 Construction of New Delhi, 1912-1929 World War I, Indian Army in: Western Front, Belgium, 1914; German East Africa (Battle of Tanga, 1914); Mesopotamian Campaign (Battle of Ctesiphon, 1915; Siege of Kut, 1915-16); Battle of Galliopoli, 1915-16 Passage of Defence of India Act 1915 |
| Lord Chelmsford | 4 Apr 1916 2 Apr 1921 | Indian Army in: Mesopotamian Campaign (Fall of Baghdad, 1917); Sinai and Palestine Campaign (Battle of Megiddo, 1918) Passage of Rowlatt Act, 1919 Government of India Act of 1919 (also Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 University of Rangoon established in 1920. |
| Lord Reading | 2 Apr 1921 3 Apr 1926 | University of Delhi established in 1922. Indian Workers Compensation Act of 1923 |
| Lord Irwin | 3 Apr 1926 18 Apr 1931 | Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926, Indian Forest Act, 1927 Appointment of Royal Commission of Indian Labour, 1929 Indian Constitutional Round Table Conferences, London, 1930-32, Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 1931. |
| Lord Willingdon | 18 Apr 1931 18 Apr 1936 | New Delhi inaugurated as capital of India, 1931. Indian Workmen's Compensation Act of 1933 Indian Factories Act of 1934 Royal Indian Air Force created in 1932. Indian Military Academy established in 1932. Government of India Act of 1935 Creation of Reserve Bank of India |
| Lord Linlithgow | 18 Apr 1936 1 Oct 1943 | Indian Payment of Wages Act of 1936
Burma administered independently after 1937 with creation of new cabinet position Secretary of State for India and Burma
Indian Provincial Elections of 1937
Cripps' mission to India, 1942.
Indian Army in Middle East Theatre of World War II (East African campaign, 1940, Anglo-Iraqi War, 1941, Syria-Lebanon campaign, 1941, Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, 1941
Indian Army in North African campaign (Operation Compass, Operation Crusader, First Battle of El Alamein, Second Battle of El Alamein) Indian Army in Battle of Hong Kong, Battle of Malaya, Battle of Singapore Burma Campaign of World War II begins in 1942. |
| Lord Wavell | 1 Oct 1943 21 Feb 1947 | Indian Army becomes, at 2.5 million men, the largest all-volunteer force in history. World War II: Burma Campaign, 1943-45 (Battle of Kohima, Battle of Imphal) Bengal famine of 1943 Indian Army in Italian campaign (Battle of Monte Cassino) British Labour Party wins UK General Election of 1945 with Clement Attlee as prime minister. 1946 Cabinet Mission to India Indian Elections of 1946. |
| Lord Mountbatten | 21 Feb 1947 15 Aug 1947 | Indian Independence Act 1947 (10 and 11 Geo VI, c. 30) of the British Parliament enacted on 18 July 1947. Radcliffe Award, August 1947 Partition of India India Office changed to Burma Office, and Secretary of State for India and Burma to Secretary of State for Burma. |
History
Main article: History of the British RajCompany rule in India
Main article: Company rule in IndiaAlthough the British East India Company had administered its factory areas in India—beginning with Surat early in the 17th century, and including by the century's end, Fort William near Calcutta, Fort St George in Madras and the Bombay Castle—its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the real beginning of the Company rule in India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), when the defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, granted the Company the Diwani ("right to collect land-revenue") in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras: the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) gave it control over most of India south of the Narmada River.
Earlier, in 1773, the British Parliament granted regulatory control over East India Company to the British government and established the post of Governor-General of India, with Warren Hastings as the first incumbent.[43] In 1784, the British Parliament passed Pitt's India Act which created a Board of Control for overseeing the administration of East India Company. Hastings was succeeded in 1784 by Lord Cornwallis, who promulgated the 'Permanent Settlement of Bengal' with the zamindars.
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Map of India showing British Expansion between 1805 and 1910 |
Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-General who established the Permanent Settlement in Bengal |
Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, who rapidly expanded the Company's territories with victories in the Anglo-Maratha Wars and Anglo-Mysore Wars |
At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories.[44] This was achieved either by subsidiary alliances between the Company and local rulers or by direct military annexation. The subsidiary alliances created the Princely States (or Native States) of the Hindu Maharajas and the Muslim Nawabs, prominent among which were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Kutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).[44] The annexed regions included the North Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801), Delhi (1803), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh two years later.[44]
The East India Company also signed treaties with various Afghan rulers and with Ranjit Singh of Lahore to counterbalance the Russian support of Persia's plans in western Afghanistan. In 1839, the Company's effort to more actively support Shah Shuja as Amir in Afghanistan, led to the First Afghan War (1839–42) and resulted in a military disaster for it. As the British expanded their territory in India, so did Russia in Central Asia with the taking of Bukhara and Samarkand in 1863 and 1868 respectively, and thereby setting the stage for The Great Game of Central Asia.[45]
In the Charter Act of 1813, the British parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly, opening India to both private investment and missionary work.[44] With increased British power in India, supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and Parliament increased as well; by the 1820s, British nationals could transact business under the protection of the Crown in the three Company presidencies.[44] In the Charter Act of 1833, the British parliament revoked the Company's trade license altogether, making the Company a part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of Company officers.[46]
Starting in 1772, the Company began a series of land revenue "settlements," which would create major changes in landed rights and rural economy in India. In 1793, the Governor-General Lord Cornwallis promulgated the permanent settlement in the Bengal Presidency, the first socio-economic regulation in colonial India.[47] It was named permanent because it fixed the land tax in perpetuity in return for landed property rights for a class of intermediaries called zamindars, who thereafter became owners of the land.[47] It was hoped that knowledge of a fixed government demand would encourage the zamindars to increase both their average outcrop and the land under cultivation, since they would be able to retain the profits from the increased output; in addition, the land itself would become a marketable form of property that could be purchased, sold, or mortgaged.[48] However, the zamindars themselves were often unable to meet the increased demands that the Company had placed on them; consequently, many defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first three decades following the permanent settlement.[49] In southern India, Thomas Munro, who would later become Governor of Madras, promoted the ryotwari system, in which the government settled land-revenue directly with the peasant farmers, or ryots.[48] Based on the utilitarian ideas of James Mill, who supervised the Company's land revenue policy during 1819-1830, and David Ricardo's Law of Rent, it was considered by its supporters to be both closer to traditional practice and more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the lowest levels of rural society.[48] However, in spite of the appeal of the ryotwari system's abstract principles, class hierarchies in southern Indian villages had not entirely disappeared—for example village headmen continued to hold sway—and peasant cultivators came to experience revenue demands they could not meet.[50]
Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various governments in India under Company rule.[51] In all areas other than the Bengal Presidency, land settlement work involved a continually repetitive process of surveying and measuring plots, assessing their quality, and recording landed rights, and constituted a large proportion of the work of Indian Civil Service officers working for the government.[51] After the Company lost its trading rights, it became the single most important source of government revenue, roughly half of overall revenue in the middle of the 19th century.[51] Since, in many regions, the land tax assessment could be revised, and since it was generally computed at a high level, it created lasting resentment which would later come to a head in the rebellion which rocked much of North India in 1857.[52]
Indian rebellion of 1857
Main article: Indian rebellion of 1857The rebellion began with mutinies by sepoys of the Bengal Presidency army; in 1857 the presidency consisted of present-day Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UP). However, most rebel soldiers were from the UP region, and, in particular, from Northwest Provinces (especially, Ganga-Jumna Doab) and Oudh, and many came from landowning families.[53] Within weeks of the initial mutinies—as the rebel soldiers wrested control of many urban garrisons from the British—the rebellion was joined by various discontented groups in the hinterlands, in both farmed areas and the backwoods. The latter group, forming the civilian rebellion, consisted of feudal nobility, landlords, peasants, rural merchants, and some tribal groups.[54]
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Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856, who devised the Doctrine of Lapse |
A 1912 map of the Great Uprising of 1857 showing the centres of rebellion including: Meerut, Delhi, Cawnpore (Kanpur), Lucknow, Jhansi, and Gwalior |
Lakshmibai, The Rani of Jhansi, one of the principal leaders of the rebellion who earlier had lost her kingdom as a result of the Doctrine of Lapse |
After the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites as landed gentry in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might augur.[55] Some Indian soldiers, misreading the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were persuaded that the East India Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity.[56] Changes in the terms of their professional service may also have created resentment. As the extent of British jurisdiction expanded with British victories in wars and with annexation of territory, the soldiers were now not only expected to serve in less familiar regions (such as Lower Burma after the Second Burmese War in 1852-53), but also make do without the "foreign service" remuneration that had previously been their due.[57]
The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three groups: feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which derecognised adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the British had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group; the latter, for example, was prepared to accept British paramountcy if her adopted son was recognized as the heir.[58] The second group, the taluqdars had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom too now joined the rebellion to the great dismay of the British.[59] Heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British may have resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the British, were particular objects of the rebels' animosity.[60] The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar district, a beneficiary of a British irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut where the upheaval began, stayed mostly calm throughout.[61]
Economic and political changes
A significant fact which stands out is that those parts of India which have been longest under British rule are the poorest today. Indeed some kind of chart might be drawn up to indicate the close connection between length of British rule and progressive growth of poverty. —Jawaharlal Nehru, on the economic effects of the British rule, in his book The Discovery of India, [62]
In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British crown and the technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution, had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Britain.[63] In fact many of the major changes in transport and communications (that are typically associated with Crown Rule of India) had already begun before the Mutiny. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological change then rampant in Britain, India too saw rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links equally rapidly established in order that raw materials, such as cotton, from India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England.[64] Likewise, finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.[65] However, unlike Britain itself, where the market risks for the infrastructure development were borne by private investors, in India, it was the taxpayers—primarily farmers and farm-labourers—who endured the risks, which, in the end, amounted to £50 million.[66] In spite of these costs, very little skilled employment was created for Indians. The rush of technology was also changing the agricultural economy in India: by the last decade of the 19th century, a large fraction of some raw materials—not only cotton, but also some food-grains—were being exported to faraway markets.[67] Consequently, many small farmers, dependent on the whims of those markets, lost land, animals, and equipment to money-lenders..[67] More tellingly, the latter half of the 19th century also saw an increase in the number of large-scale famines in India. Although famines were not new to the subcontinent, these were particularly severe, with tens of millions dying, and with many critics, both British and Indian, laying the blame at the doorsteps of the lumbering colonial administrations.[68]
Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; with the land tax revenue claiming 15% of India's national income during Mogul times compared with 1% at the end of the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44% during Mogul times to 54% by the end of colonial period. India's per capita GDP decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it had increased to $618 by 1947[69]
Railways
The British Indian government built the railways (after the Mutiny of 1857), for military reasons and with the hope that it would stimulate industry[citation needed]. The system was overbuilt and much too elaborate and expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried[citation needed].
Christensen (1996) looks at of colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests of the railways. He concludes that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the timely needs of the railways or their passengers.[70]
By 1920, with the fourth largest railway network in the world and a history of 60 years of its construction, only ten per cent of the "superior posts" in the Indian Railways were held by Indians.[71] The Indian railways system, by 1900, provided India with social savings of 9% of India's national income (about 1.2 billion rupees).[72]
By the 1940s, India had the fourth longest railway network in the world[citation needed]. Yet the country's industrialization was delayed until after independence in 1947 by British colonial policy. Until the 1930s, both the Indian government and the private railway companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive drivers (engineers). The government's "Stores Policy" required that bids on railway matériel be presented to the India Office in London, making it almost impossible for enterprises based in India to compete for orders. Likewise, the railway companies purchased most of their matériel in Britain, rather than in India. Although the railway maintenance workshops in India could have manufactured and repaired locomotives, the railways imported a majority of them from Britain, and the others from Germany, Belgium, and the United States. The Tata company built a steel mill in India before World War I but could not obtain orders for rails until the 1920s and 1930s.[73]
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The 1909 Map of Indian Railways, when India had the fourth largest railway network in the world. Railway construction in India began in 1853. |
"The most magnificent railway station in the world." Stereographic image of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888 |
The Agra canal (c. 1873), a year away from completion. The canal was closed to navigation in 1904 in order to increase irrigation and aid in famine-prevention. |
Beginnings of self-government
The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Municipal Corporations and District Boards were created for local administration; they included elected Indian members.
The Government of India Act of 1909 — also known as the Morley-Minto Reforms (John Morley was the secretary of state for India, and Gilbert Elliot, fourth earl of Minto, was viceroy) — gave Indians limited roles in the central and provincial legislatures, known as legislative councils. Indians had previously been appointed to legislative councils, but after the reforms some were elected to them. At the centre, the majority of council members continued to be government-appointed officials, and the viceroy was in no way responsible to the legislature. At the provincial level, the elected members, together with unofficial appointees, outnumbered the appointed officials, but responsibility of the governor to the legislature was not contemplated. Morley made it clear in introducing the legislation to the British Parliament that parliamentary self-government was not the goal of the British government.
The Morley-Minto Reforms were a milestone. Step by step, the elective principle was introduced for membership in Indian legislative councils. The "electorate" was limited, however, to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members increasingly became an "opposition" to the "official government". The Communal electorates were later extended to other communities and made a political factor of the Indian tendency toward group identification through religion.
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John Morley, the Secretary of State for India from 1905 to 1910, and Gladstonian Liberal. The Government of India Act of 1909, also known as the Minto-Morley Reforms allowed Indians to be elected to the Legislative Council. |
Picture post card of the Gordon Highlanders marching past King George V and Queen Mary at the Delhi Durbar on December 12, 1911, when the King was crowned Emperor of India |
Indian medical orderlies attending to wounded soldiers with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia during World War I |
World War I and its aftermath
Main article: Indian Army during World War I The 15th Sikh Regiment being given a heroes' welcome upon their arrival in Marseille, France during World War I.World War I proved to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army took part in the war and their participation had a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, and soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia, travelled to distant corners of the world both in newsprint and by the new medium of the radio.[74] India’s international profile thereby rose and continued to rise during the 1920s.[74] It was to lead, among other things, to India, under its own name, becoming a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participating, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (the British Indies), in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[75] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it led to calls for greater self-government for Indians.[74]
In 1916, the moderate nationalists demonstrated new strength with the signing of the Lucknow Pact and the founding of the Home Rule leagues. With the realization, after the disaster in the Mesopotamian campaign, that the war would likely last longer, the new Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, cautioned that the Government of India needed to be more responsive to Indian opinion.[76] Towards the end of the year, after discussions with the government in London, he suggested that the British demonstrate their good faith in light of the Indian war role through a number of public actions. The actions he suggested included awards of titles and honors to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled cotton excise duty. Most importantly, he suggested an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete steps.[76] After more discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, announced the British aim of “increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire.”[76] Although the plan envisioned limited self-government at first only in the provinces – with India emphatically within the British Empire – it represented the first British proposal for any form of representative government in a non-white colony.[76]
Earlier, at the onset of World War I, the reassignment of most of the British army in India to Europe and Mesopotamia] had led the previous Viceroy, Lord Harding, to worry about the “risks involved in denuding India of troops.”[74] Revolutionary violence had already been a concern in British India, and outlines of collaboration with Germany were being identified by British intelligence. Consequently in 1915, the Government of India passed the Defence of India Act to strengthen its powers during what it saw was a time of increased vulnerability. This act allowed it to intern politically dangerous dissidents without due process and added to the power it already had – under the 1910 Press Act – to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press.[77] Now, as constitutional reform began to be discussed in earnest, the British began to consider how new moderate Indians could be brought into the fold of constitutional politics and simultaneously, how the hand of established constitutionalists could be strengthened.[77] However, since the Government of India wanted to check the revolutionary problem, and since its reform plan was devised during a time when extremist violence had ebbed as a result of increased governmental control, it also began to consider how some of its war-time powers could be extended into peace time.[77]
Edwin Montagu, left, the Secretary of State for India, whose report led to the Government of India Act of 1919, also known as the Montford Reforms or the Montagu-Chelmsford ReformsConsequently in 1917, even as Edwin Montagu announced the new constitutional reforms, a sedition committee chaired by a British judge, Mr. S. A. T. Rowlatt, was tasked with investigating revolutionary conspiracies and the German and Bolshevik links to the violence in India,[78][79][80] with the unstated goal of extending the government's war-time powers.[76] The Rowlatt committee presented its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial insurgency: Bengal, the Bombay presidency, and the Punjab.[76] To combat subversive acts in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its war-time authority. These powers included the ability to try cases of sedition by a panel of three judges and without juries, exaction of securities from suspects, governmental overseeing of residences of suspects,[76] and the power for provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without trial.[81]
With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By year’s end 1919, 1.5 million Indians had served in the armed services in either combatant or non-combatant roles, and India had provided £146 million in revenue for the war.[82] The increased taxes coupled with disruptions in both domestic and international trade had the effect of approximately doubling the index of overall prices in India between 1914 and 1920.[82] Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a growing unemployment crisis[83] and post-war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal provinces.[83] This situation was made only worse by the failure of the 1918-19 monsoon and by profiteering and speculation.[82] The global influenza epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic woes,[83] and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.[84]
The Jallianwala Bagh couple of months after the April 1919 massacre which killed about 1,516 people[85]To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills.[81] Although the bills were authorised for legislative consideration by Edwin Montagu, they were done so unwillingly, with the accompanying declaration, “I loathe the suggestion at first sight of preserving the Defence of India Act in peace time to such an extent as Rowlatt and his friends think necessary.”[76] In the ensuing discussion and vote in the Imperial Legislative Council, all Indian members voiced opposition to the bills. The Government of India was nevertheless able to use of its "official majority" to ensure passage of the bills early in 1919.[76] However, what it passed, in deference to the Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first bill, which now allowed extrajudicial powers, but for a period of exactly three years and for the prosecution solely of “anarchical and revolutionary movements”, dropping entirely the second bill involving modification of the Indian Penal Code.[76] Even so, when it was passed the new Rowlatt Act aroused widespread indignation throughout India which finally culminated in the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre and brought Mohandas Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.[81][86]
Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[87] After more discussion by the government and parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee for the purpose of identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act of 1919 was passed in December 1919.[87] The new Act (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India’s recourse to the “official majority” in unfavorable votes.[87] Although departments like defense, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications and income tax were retained by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue and local self-government were transferred to the provinces.[87] The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council.[87] The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.
British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to the right of Mohandas Gandhi at the Second Round Table Conference in London, October 1931A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate.[87] In the provincial legislatures, the British continued to exercise some control by setting aside seats for special interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to British rule and less confrontational, were assigned more seats than their urban counterparts.[87] Seats were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, and college graduates. The principal of “communal representation”, an integral part of the Minto-Morley reforms, and more recently of the Congress-Muslim League Lucknow Pact, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial legislative councils.[87] The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen as instruments of British control.[87] Its scope was, however, unsatisfactory to the Indian political leadership, famously expressed by Annie Beasant as something "unworthy of England to offer and India to accept".[88]
In 1935, after the Round Table Conferences, the British Parliament approved the Government of India Act of 1935, which authorised the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all provinces of British India, the creation of a central government incorporating both the British provinces and the princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities.[65] At this time, it was also decided to separate Burma from British India in 1937, to form a separate crown colony. The future Constitution of independent India would owe a great deal to the text of this act.[89] The act also provided for a bicameral national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the British government. Although the national federation was never realised, nationwide elections for provincial assemblies were held in 1937. Despite initial hesitation, the Indian National Congress took part in the elections and won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India,[90] and Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. In Britain, these victories were to later turn the tide for the idea of Indian independence.[90]
World War II
Main article: India in World War II An Italian soldier surrenders to an Indian Jawan during the successful Allied campaign of Operation CrusaderWith the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India’s behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in the war effort; however, it now took the view that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress.
The British government—through its Cripps' mission—attempted to secure Indian nationalists' cooperation in the war effort in exchange for independence afterwards; however, the negotiations between them and the Congress broke down. Gandhi, subsequently, launched the “Quit India” movement in August 1942, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. Along with all other Congress leaders, Gandhi was immediately imprisoned, and the country erupted in violent demonstrations led by students and later by peasant political groups, especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. The large war-time British Army presence in India led to most of the movement being crushed in a little more than six weeks;[91] nonetheless, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal.[91] In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive, however it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943.[92]
With Congress leaders in jail, attention also turned to Subhas Bose, who had been ousted from the Congress in 1939 following differences with the more conservative high command;[93] Bose now turned to the Axis powers for help with liberating India by force.[94] With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National Army, composed largely of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured at Singapore by the Japanese. From the onset of the war, the Japanese secret service had promoted unrest in South east Asia to destabilise the British war effort,[95] and came to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India), presided by Bose.[96] Bose's effort, however, was short lived; after the reverses of 1944, the reinforced British Indian Army in 1945 first halted and then reversed the Japanese U Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. Bose's Indian National Army surrendered with the recapture of Singapore, and Bose died in a plane crash soon thereafter. The trials of the INA soldiers at Red Fort in late 1945 however caused widespread public unrest and nationalist violence in India.[97]
Independence and partition
Main article: Partition of India Map of the Indian Empire showing the prevailing majority religions of the population for different districts in 1909In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.[98] The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. These mutinies found much public support in India then gripped by the Red Fort Trials, and had the effect of spurring the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading 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 years before.[98]
Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India in which the Congress won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[99] The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaimed August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India’s prime minister.
Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, and conscious that it had neither the mandate at home, the international support, nor the reliability of native forces for continuing to control an increasingly restless India,[100][101] decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.
As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.
Many millions of Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu refugees trekked across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, massive bloodshed followed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders died in the violence.[102] On August 14, 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The following day, August 15, 1947, India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General.
See also
| British Empire portal |
- Imperialism in Asia
- Colonialism
- British Empire
- British rule in India for other periods when parts of India were under British rule.
- India Office
- Colonial India
- Historiography of the British Empire
- Indian independence movement
- List of Indian Princely States
- List of Indian Federal Legislation
- Governor-General of India
- Commander-in-Chief of India
- British Indian Army
- Indian Civil Service
- Order of the Indian Empire
- Anglo-Indian
- Anglo-Burmese people
- Macaulayism
Notes
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: from Skr. rāj: to reign, rule; cognate with L. rēx, rēg-is, OIr. rī, rīg king (see RICH).
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. "b. spec. the British dominion or rule in the Indian sub-continent (before 1947). In full, British raj.
- ^ *Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. Examples: 1955 Times 25 Aug. 9/7 It was effective against the British raj in India, and the conclusion drawn here is that the British knew that they were wrong. 1969 R. MILLAR Kut xv. 288 Sir Stanley Maude had taken command in Mesopotamia, displacing the raj of antique Indian Army commanders. 1975 H. R. ISAACS in H. M. Patel et al. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth 251 The post-independence régime in all its incarnations since the passing of the British Raj. For the latter usage, see: Google Scholar references: ("British Raj" in the primary sense of "British India," i.e. "regions of India under British rule") 1. "The important case of Islamic economics was a consciously constructed effort arising directly out of the anti-colonial struggle in the British Raj" 2 "... time" (1882: v). In keeping with the purpose of the Gazetteer (and indeed all such Gazetteers published for provinces in the British Raj), Atkinson's treatment ..." 3. "... Robert D’Arblay Gybbon-Monypenny, who had been born in the British Raj and educated at Sandhurst, afterwards seeing active service in the First World War ..." 4. "... In contrast, during the independence struggle in the British raj, the emphasis had always been on nationalism..." ("British Raj" in the second sense of "British India," i.e. "the British in India") 5. "Koch and the Europeans were entertained at clubs in the British Raj from which native Indians (called "wogs" for "worthy oriental gentleman") were excluded. ..." 6. "... prejudice and vindictiveness towards one's own race and, especially, toward someone of a different race who, as a servant in the British Raj, occupies a ..."
- ^ First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- ^ "Nepal." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
- ^ "Bhutan." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
- ^ "Sikkim." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 August 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-46212>.
- ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 59-60
- ^ 1. Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume IV, published under the authority of the Secretary of State for India-in-Council, 1909, Oxford University Press. page 5. Quote: "The history of British India falls, as observed by Sir C. P. Ilbert in his Government of India, into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century the East India Company is a trading corporation, existing on the sufferance of the native powers and in rivalry with the merchant companies of Holland and France. During the next century the Company acquires and consolidates its dominion, shares its sovereignty in increasing proportions with the Crown, and gradually loses its mercantile privileges and functions. After the mutiny of 1857 the remaining powers of the Company are transferred to the Crown, and then follows an era of peace in which India awakens to new life and progress." 2. The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the ... by Robert Harry Drayton, Statutes of the Realm - Law - 1770 Page 211 (3) "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed ..." 3. Edney, M.E. (1997) Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843, University of Chicago Press. 480 pages. ISBN 9780226184883 4. Hawes, C.J. (1996) Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833. Routledge, 217 pages. ISBN 0700704256.
- ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II 1908, p. 463,470 Quote1: "Before passing on to the political history of British India, which properly begins with the Anglo-French Wars in the Carnatic, ... (p.463)" Quote2: "The political history of the British in India begins in the eighteenth century with the French Wars in the Carnatic. (p.471)"
- ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60
- ^ a b c Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 46
- ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 56
- ^ Kashmir: The origins of the dispute, BBC News, January 16, 2002
- ^ a b c Moore 2001a, pp. 424-426
- ^ Moore 2001a, p. 424
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 96
- ^ a b c d e f Moore 2001a, p. 426
- ^ Moore 2001a, p. 426, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104
- ^ Quoted in Moore 2001a, p. 426
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 76, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104, Spear 1990, p. 149
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 72, Bayly 1990, p. 72
- ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 147
- ^ a b c d Spear 1990, pp. 147-148
- ^ European Madness and Gender in Nineteenth-century British India. Social History of Medicine 1996 9(3):357-382.
- ^ Robinson, Ronald Edward, & John Gallagher. 1968. Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday [1]
- ^ a b Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 1859847390 pg 7
- ^ Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. ISBN 0385720270 ch 7
- ^ Cholera- Biological Weapons
- ^ The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State, By G. William Beardslee
- ^ INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Plague Through History, sciencemag.org
- ^ Malaria - Medical History of British India, National Library of Scotland
- ^ "Biography of Ronald Ross". The Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1902/ross-bio.html. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
- ^ Leprosy - Medical History of British India, National Library of Scotland
- ^ Smallpox History - Other histories of smallpox in South Asia
- ^ Feature Story: Smallpox
- ^ Smallpox and Vaccination in British India During the Last Seventy Years, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1945 January; 38(3): 135–140.
- ^ Smallpox - some unknown heroes in smallpox eradication, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics
- ^ Sir JJ Group of Hospitals
- ^ Rajat Kanta Ray, "Indian Society and the Establishment of British Supremacy, 1765-1818," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 508-29
- ^ Professor Ray agrees that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators.
- ^ P.J. Marshall, "The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700-1765," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 487-507
- ^ The Regulating Act - 1773
- ^ a b c d e Ludden 2002, p. 133
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 135
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 134
- ^ a b Robb 2004, pp. 126-129
- ^ a b c Peers 2006, pp. 45-47
- ^ Tomlinson 1993, p. 43
- ^ Peers 2006, p. 47, Brown 1994, p. 65
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, p. 67
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 79
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 169-172 Bose & Jalal 2003, pp. 88-103 Quote: "The 1857 rebellion was by and large confined to northern Indian Gangetic Plain and central India.", Brown 1994, pp. 85-87, and Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100-106
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 101
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 88
- ^ Metcalf 1991, p. 48
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 171, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 90
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Brown 1994, p. 92
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 102
- ^ Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Metcalf 1991, Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 173
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 92
- ^ Nehru 1946, p. 295
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 259), (Oldenburg 2007)
- ^ (Oldenburg 2007), (Stein 2001, p. 258)
- ^ a b (Oldenburg 2007)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 258)
- ^ a b (Stein 2001, p. 260)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 260) Quote: "The British knew about Indian famines well before the East India Company assumed political responsibility for India. Peter Mundy, an early seventeenth-century Company agent, reported a devastating series of bad harvests and food shortages in Gujarat and elsewhere in western India which drove cultivators and artisans to migrate, some making their way a thousand miles to the southern tip of India, where they continue to live. Mundy described the responses of the Mughal governor of the province, ..., he noted with appreciation the free food distributions ordered by Emperor Shah Jahan."
- ^ Angus Maddison, The World Economy, pages 109-112, (2001)
- ^ R. O. Christensen, "The State and Indian Railway Performance, 1870-1920" in Terri Gourvish, ed. Railways vol 1 (1996)
- ^ (Stein 2001, p. 159)
- ^ Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railroads that Made India, page 9 (2006)
- ^ Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railroads that Made India (2007)
- ^ a b c d Brown 1994, pp. 197-198
- ^ Olympic Games Antwerp 1920: Official Report, Nombre de bations representees, p. 168. Quote: "31 Nations avaient accepté l'invitation du Comité Olympique Belge: ... la Grèce - la Hollande Les Indes Anglaises - l'Italie - le Japon ..."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Brown 1994, pp. 203-204
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 201-203
- ^ Lovett 1920, p. 94, 187-191
- ^ Sarkar 1921, p. 137
- ^ Tinker 1968, p. 92
- ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 190
- ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 195-196
- ^ a b c Stein 2001, p. 304
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 208
- ^ Report of Commissioners, Vol I, New Delhi, p 105
- ^ Patil, V.S.. Subhas Chandra Bose, his contribution to Indian nationalism. Sterling Publishers, 1988.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown 1994, pp. 205-207
- ^ Chhabra 2005, p. 2
- ^ (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156)
- ^ a b (Low 1993, p. 154)
- ^ a b (Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 206-207)
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 418-420
- ^ Nehru 1942, p. 424
- ^ (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
- ^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
- ^ Lebra 1977, p. 31, (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
- ^ Chaudhuri 1953, p. 349, Sarkar 1983, p. 411,Hyam 2007, p. 115
- ^ a b (Judd 2004, pp. 172-173)
- ^ (Judd 2004, p. 172)
- ^ Hyam 2007, p. 106 Quote:By the end of 1945, he and the Commander-in-chief, General Auckinleck were advising that there was a real threat in 1946 of large scale anti-British Disorder amounting to even a well-organised rising aiming to expel the British by paralysing the administration. Quote:...it was clear to Attlee that everything depended on the spirit and reliability of the Indian Army:"Provided that they do their duty, armed insurrection in India would not be an insolube problem. If, however, the Indian Army was to go the other way, the picture would be very different... Quote:...Thus, Wavell concluded, if the army and the police "failed" Britain would be forced to go. In theory, it might be possible to revive and reinvigorate the services, and rule for another fifteent to trwenty years, but:It is a fallacy to suppose that the solution lies in trying to maintain status quo. We have no longer the resources, nor the necessary prestige or confidence in ourselves.
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 330 Quote: "India had always been a minority interest in British public life; no great body of public opinion now emerged to argue that war-weary and impoverished Britain should send troops and money to hold it against its will in an empire of doubtful value. By late 1946 both Prime Minister and Secretary of State for India recognized that neither international opinion no their own voters would stand for any reassertion of the raj, even if there had been the men, money, and administrative machinery with which to do so." Sarkar 1983, p. 418 Quote: "With a war weary army and people and a ravaged economy, Britain would have had to retreat; the Labour victory only quickened the process somewhat." Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 212 Quote: "More importantly, though victorious in war, Britain had suffered immensely in the struggle. It simply did not possess the manpower or economic resources required to coerce a restive India."
- ^ (Khosla 2001, p. 299)
References and further reading
Contemporary general textbooks
- Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004), From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi and London: Orient Longmans. Pp. xx, 548., ISBN 8125025960 .
- Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (2003), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, London and New York: Routledge, 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 304, ISBN 0415307872 .
- Brown, Judith M. (1994), Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 474, ISBN 0198731132 .
- Hyam, Ronald (2007), Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918-1968., Cambridge University Press., ISBN 0521866499 .
- Copland, Ian (2001), India 1885-1947: The Unmaking of an Empire (Seminar Studies in History Series), Harlow and London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. 160, ISBN 0582381738 .
- Judd, Dennis (2004), The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 280, ISBN 0192803581 .
- Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India, 4th edition. Routledge, Pp. xii, 448, ISBN 0415329205 .
- Ludden, David (2002), India And South Asia: A Short History, Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Pp. xii, 306, ISBN 1851682376
- Markovits, Claude (ed) (2005), A History of Modern India 1480-1950 (Anthem South Asian Studies), Anthem Press. Pp. 607, ISBN 1843311526 .
- Metcalf, Barbara; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 0521682258 .
- Peers, Douglas M. (2006), India under Colonial Rule 1700-1885, Harlow and London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. xvi, 163, ISBN 058231738 .
- Robb, Peter (2004), A History of India (Palgrave Essential Histories), Houndmills, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. xiv, 344, ISBN 0333691296 .
- Sarkar, Sumit (1983), Modern India: 1885-1947, Delhi: Macmillan India Ltd. Pp. xiv, 486, ISBN 0333904257 .
- Spear, Percival (1990), A History of India, Volume 2, New Delhi and London: Penguin Books. Pp. 298, ISBN 0140138366 .
- Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, ISBN 0195654463 .
- Wolpert, Stanley (2003), A New History of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 544, ISBN 0195166787 .
Monographs and collections
- Anderson, Clare (2007), Indian Uprising of 1857–8: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion, New York: Anthem Press, Pp. 217, ISBN 9781843312499, http://atlantis.terrassl.net/anthempress.com/product_info.php?cPath=52&products_id=293&osCsid=9a2s9o8mdu8066m551rr407123
- Ansari, Sarah (2005), Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947–1962, Oxford and London: Oxford University Press, Pp. 256, ISBN ISBN 019597834X
- Baker, David, Colonialism in an Indian Hinterland: The Central Provinces, 1820–1920, Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 374, ISBN 0195630491, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2059781?origin=JSTOR-pdf
- Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 0521386500 .
- Bayly, C. A. (2000), Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 426, ISBN 0521663601
- Brown; Louis, Wm. Roger, eds. (2001), Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 800, ISBN 0199246793
- Butalia, Urvashi (1998), The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Pp. 308, ISBN 0822324946
- Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan (1998), Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 400, ISBN 0521596920 .
- Chatterji, Joya (1993), Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 323, ISBN 0521523281 .
- Copland, Ian (2002), Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 316, ISBN 0521894360 .
- Fay, Peter W. (1993), The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press., ISBN 0472083422 .
- Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
- Gould, William (2004), Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 320, ISBN 0521830613 .
- Hyam, Ronald (2007), Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918-1968., Cambridge University Press., ISBN 0521866499. .
- Jalal, Ayesha (1993), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 334 pages, ISBN 0521458501 .
- Khan, Yasmin (2007), The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 250 pages, ISBN 0300120788
- Khosla, G. D. (2001), "Stern Reckoning", in Page, David; Inder Singh, Anita; Moon, Penderal et al., The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning, Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195658507
- Low, D. A. (1993), Eclipse of Empire, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xvi, 366, ISBN 0521457548 .
- Low, D. A. (2002), Britain and Indian Nationalism: The Imprint of Amibiguity 1929-1942, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 374, ISBN 0521892619 .
- Low, D. A., ed. (2004), Congress & the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle 1917-47, Second Edition, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xviii, 513, ISBN 0195683676 .
- Metcalf, Thomas R. (1991), The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857-1870, Riverdale Co. Pub. Pp. 352, ISBN 8185054991
- Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997), Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, Pp. 256, ISBN 0521589371
- Nehru, Jawaharlal (1946), The Discovery of India, The John Day company, OCLC 186312138
- Pandey, Gyanendra (2002), Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India, ISBN 0521002508
- Porter, Andrew, ed. (2001), Oxford History of the British Empire: Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 800, ISBN 0199246785
- Ramusack, Barbara (2004), The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 324, ISBN 0521039894
- Shaikh, Farzana (1989), Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 272., ISBN 0521363284 .
- Talbot; Singh, Gurharpal Singh, eds. (1999), Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 420, ISBN 0195790510 .
- Talbot, Ian (2002), Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 216., ISBN 0195795512 .
- Wainwright, A. Martin (1993), Inheritance of Empire: Britain, India, and the Balance of Power in Asia, 1938-55, Praeger Publishers. Pp. xvi, 256, ISBN 0275947335 .
- Wolpert, Stanley (2006), Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 272, ISBN 0195151984 .
Articles in journals or collections
- Banthia, Jayant; Dyson, Tim (1999), "Smallpox in Nineteenth-Century India", Population and Development Review 25 (4): 649–689, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199912%2925%3A4%3C649%3ASINI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Brown, Judith M. (2001), "India", in Brown, Judith M.; Louis, Wm. Roger, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 421–446, ISBN 0199246793
- Caldwell, John C (1998), "Malthus and the Less Developed World: The Pivotal Role of India", Population and Development Review 24 (4): 675–696, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28199812%2924%3A4%3C675%3AMATLDW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-%23
- Derbyshire, I. D. (1987), "Economic Change and the Railways in North India, 1860-1914", Population Studies 21 (3): 521–545, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281987%2921%3A3%3C521%3AECATRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
- Drayton, Richard (2001), "Science, Medicine, and the British Empire", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 264–276, ISBN 0199246807
- Dyson, Tim (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part I", Population Studies 45 (1): 5–25, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-4728%28199103%2945%3A1%3C5%3AOTDOSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V
- Dyson, Tim (1991), "On the Demography of South Asian Famines: Part II", Population Studies 45 (2): 279–297, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-4728%28199107%2945%3A2%3C279%3AOTDOSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
- Frykenberg, Robert E. (2001), "India to 1858", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 194–213, ISBN 0199246807
- Gilmartin, David (1994), "Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin", The Journal of Asian Studies 53 (4): 1127–1149, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9118%28199411%2953%3A4%3C1127%3ASEAISC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
- Goswami, Manu (1998), "From Swadeshi to Swaraj: Nation, Economy, Territory in Colonial South Asia, 1870 to 1907", Comparative Studies in Society and History 40 (4): 609–636, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-4175%28199810%2940%3A4%3C609%3AFSTSNE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q
- Harnetty, Peter (1991), "'Deindustrialization' Revisited: The Handloom Weavers of the Central Provinces of India, c. 1800-1947", Modern Asian Studies 25 (3): 455–510, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199107%2925%3A3%3C455%3A%27RTHWO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5
- Heuman, Gad (2001), "Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Abolition", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 315–326, ISBN 0199246807
- Klein, Ira (1988), "Plague, Policy and Popular Unrest in British India", Modern Asian Studies 22 (4): 723–755, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281988%2922%3A4%3C723%3APPAPUI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
- Klein, Ira (2000), "Materialism, Mutiny and Modernization in British India", Modern Asian Studies 34 (3): 545–580, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28200007%2934%3A3%3C545%3AMMAMIB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I
- Kubicek, Robert (2001), "British Expansion, Empire, and Technological Change", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 247–269, ISBN 0199246785
- Moore, Robin J. (2001a), "Imperial India, 1858-1914", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 422–446, ISBN 0199246785
- Moore, Robin J. (2001b), "India in the 1940s", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 231–242, ISBN 0199246807
- Raj, Kapil (2000), "Colonial Encounters and the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities: Great Britain and India, 1760-1850", Osiris, 2nd Series 15 (Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise): 119–134, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0369-7827%282000%292%3A15%3C119%3ACEATFO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9
- Ray, Rajat Kanta (1995), "Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination: The Rise of the Bazaar, 1800-1914", Modern Asian Studies 29 (3): 449–554, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199507%2929%3A3%3C449%3AACITAO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J
- Raychaudhuri, Tapan (2001), "India, 1858 to the 1930s", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 214–230, ISBN 0199246807
- Robb, Peter (1997), "The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s", Modern Asian Studies 31 (2): 245–283, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%28199705%2931%3A2%3C245%3ATCSACO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Roy, Tirthankar (2002), "Economic History and Modern India: Redefining the Link", The Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (3): 109–130, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28200222%2916%3A3%3C109%3AEHAMIR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
- Simmons, Colin (1985), "'De-Industrialization', Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c. 1850-1947", Modern Asian Studies 19 (3): 593–622, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281985%2919%3A3%3C593%3A%27IATIE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
- Talbot, Ian (2001), "Pakistan's Emergence", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 253–263, ISBN 0199246807
- Tinker, Hugh (1968), India in the First World War and after. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1918-19: From War to Peace. (Oct., 1968), pp. 89-107, Sage Publications, ISSN: 00220094 .
- Tomlinson, B. R. (2001), "Economics and Empire: The Periphery and the Imperial Economy", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 53–74, ISBN 0199246785
- Washbrook, D. A. (2001), "India, 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism", in Porter, Andrew, Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 395–421, ISBN 0199246785
- Watts, Sheldon (1999), "British Development Policies and Malaria in India 1897-c. 1929", Past and Present (165): 141–181, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-2746%28199911%290%3A165%3C141%3ABDPAMI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
- Wylie, Diana (2001), "Disease, Diet, and Gender: Late Twentieth Century Perspectives on Empire", in Winks, Robin, Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 277–289, ISBN 0199246807
Classic histories and gazetteers
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II (1908), The Indian Empire, Historical, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxxv, 1 map, 573.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III (1907), The Indian Empire, Economic (Chapter X: Famine, pp. 475–502, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxxvi, 1 map, 520.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV (1907), The Indian Empire, Administrative, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. Pp. xxx, 1 map, 552.
- Lovett, Sir Verney (1920), A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement, New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, ISBN 81-7536-249-9
- Majumdar, R. C.; Raychaudhuri, H. C.; Datta, Kalikinkar (1950), An Advanced History of India, London: Macmillan and Company Limited. 2nd edition. Pp. xiii, 1122, 7 maps, 5 coloured maps. .
- Smith, Vincent A. (1921), India in the British Period: Being Part III of the Oxford History of India, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 2nd edition. Pp. xxiv, 316 (469-784) .
Tertiary sources
- Oldenburg, Philip (2007), ""India: Movement for Freedom"", Encarta Encyclopedia . Archived 2009-10-31.
- Wolpert, Stanley (2007), "India: British Imperial Power 1858-1947 (Indian nationalism and the British response, 1885-1920; Prelude to Independence, 1920-1947)", Encyclopædia Britannica .
Related reading
- Bairoch, Paul, Economics and World History, University of Chicago Press, 1995
- Bhatia, B. M., Famines in India: A study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India with Special Reference to Food Problem, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 1985
- Bowle, John, The Imperial Achievement, Secker & Warburg, London, 1974, ISBN 978-0316104098
- Chapman, Pat Taste of the Raj, Hodder & Stoughton, London — ISBN 0340680350 (1997)
- Coates, Tim, (series editor), The Amritsar Massacre 1919 - General Dyer in the Punjab (Official Reports, including Dyer's Testimonies), Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) 1925, abridged edition, 2000, ISBN 0-11-702412-0
- Davis, Mike, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World 2001, ISBN 1-85984-739-0
- Dutt, Romesh C. Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land Assessments in India, first published 1900, 2005 edition by Adamant Media Corporation, Elibron Classics Series, ISBN 1-4021-5115-2
- Dutt, Romesh C. The Economic History of India under early British Rule, first published 1902, 2001 edition by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-24493-5
- Forbes, Rosita, India of the Princes', London, 1939
- Forrest, G. W., CIE, (editor), Selections from The State Papers of the Governors-General of India - Warren Hastings (2 vols), Blackwell's, Oxford, 1910
- James, Lawrence, Raj - The Making and Unmaking of British India, London, 1997, ISBN 0-316-64072-7
- Keay, John, The Honourable Company - A History of the English East India Company, HarperCollins, London, 1991, ISBN 0-00-217515-0
- Moorhouse, Geoffrey, India Britannica, Book Club Associates, UK, 1983
- Morris, Jan, with Simon Winchester, Stones of Empire - The Buildings of the Raj, Oxford University Press, 1st edition 1983 (paperback edition 1986, ISBN 0-19-282036-2
- Sen, Amartya, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982
- Srivastava, H.C., The History of Indian Famines from 1858-1918, Sri Ram Mehra and Co., Agra, 1968
- Voelcker, John Augustus, Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture, Indian Government publication, Calcutta, 2nd edition, 1897.
- Woodroffe, Sir John, Is India Civilized - Essays on Indian Culture, Madras, 1919.
External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: British India |
- British India Website
- The British Crown's consolidation of India
- The New Student's Reference Work/India (1914)
- Images of Empire Library, Bristol, UK
- October Offer regarding India’s constitution, of His Majesty's Government 18 October 1939
- August Offer regarding India’s constitution, of His Majesty's Government 8 August 1940
- British Ruled India (1757-1947) Bibliography of Books Articles and Dissertations Concentrating on 1914-1947
Categories: Former countries in Asia | Former monarchies of Asia | States and territories established in 1858 | 1947 disestablishments | British rule in India | History of Pakistan
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England's Museum of the British Empire & Commonwealth, in Bristol, now has a permanent section devoted to film clips and interviews titled The Partap Sharma Archive on the . British Raj. . His voice is well-known to cinema, ...
Q. Whom did the British refer to as a "nabob" during the Raj days?
Asked by Ashoke S - Thu Nov 23 09:20:06 2006 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Nawab is an Urdu language term meaning viceroy or provincial governor of a province or region of the Mughal empire. After the fall of the Mugual Empire, the term become 'Nabob' for the British to prononnuce easily. There has been so many names Anglicised in India, during the British Raj. Hope this information helps you.
Answered by radiance - Thu Nov 23 09:37:40 2006
