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British Raj

"British Indian Empire" redirects here. For for the British Colonial Empire, see British Empire. India/Indian Empire British colony←
1858 – 1947 →
 
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FlagCoat of arms
Anthem
God Save The King-Emperor The British Indian Empire, 1909 Capital Calcutta (1858 - 1912)
New Delhi (1912 - 1947) Language(s) Hindustani, English, Tamil and many others Government Monarchy Emperor/Empress of India (1876-1947)  - 1858-1901 Victoria¹  - 1901-1910 Edward VII  - 1910-1936 George V  - 1936 Edward VIII  - 1936-1947 George VI Viceroy²  - 1858-1862 The Viscount Canning  - 1947 The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma Historical era New Imperialism  - Established August 2, 1858  - Disestablished August 15, 1947 Currency British Indian rupee ¹ Reigned as Empress of India from May 1, 1876, before that as Queen of the United Kingdom.
² Governor-General and Viceroy of India

History of South Asia

(Indian Subcontinent)

Stone Age70,000–3300 BCE • Mehrgarh Culture• 7000–3300 BCE Indus Valley Civilization3300–1700 BCE Late Harappan Culture1700–1300 BCE Vedic period1500–500 BCE Iron Age1200–300 BCE • Maha Janapadas• 700–300 BCE • Magadha Empire• 545 BCE - 550 • Maurya Empire• 321–184 BCE Middle Kingdoms250 BCE–1279 CE • Chola Empire• 250 BCE–1070 CE • Satavahana• 230 BCE–220 CE • Kushan Empire• 60–240 CE • Gupta Empire• 280–550 CE • Pala Empire• 750–1174 CE • Chalukya Dynasty• 543–753 CE • Rashtrakuta• 753–982 CE • Western Chalukya Empire• 973–1189 CE • Hoysala Empire1040–1346 • Kakatiya Empire1083–1323 Islamic Sultanates1206–1596 • Delhi Sultanate• 1206–1526 • Deccan Sultanates• 1490–1596 Ahom Kingdom1228–1826 Vijayanagara Empire1336–1646 Mughal Empire1526–1858 Maratha Empire1674–1818 Sikh Confederacy1716–1799 Sikh Empire1801–1849 British East India Company1757–1858 British Raj 1858–1947 Modern States1947–present Nation histories
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British Raj (rāj, lit. "reign" in Hindustani[1]) primarily refers to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947;[2] it can also refer to the region of the rule, or the period of dominion.[3] The region, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom[4] (contemporaneously, "British India") as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. 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 of the League of Nations, and a member nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (and who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India), and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh).

Contents

Geographical extent of the Raj

The British Indian Empire included the regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and, in addition, at various times, Aden (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. Among other countries in the region, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), which was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, was a British Crown Colony, but not part of British India. The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, both having fought wars with the British and subsequently signed treaties with them, were recognized by the British as independent states.[5][6] The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined.[7] The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1867 to 1965, but not part of British India.

British India and the Native States

The British Indian Empire (contemporaneously India) consisted of two divisions: British India and the Native States or Princely States. 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 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 an 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)

Suzerainty over 175 Princely States, including 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).[9] 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.[9]

Administrative Divisions of British India

The British Indian Empire and surrounding countries in 1909.
Main article: Provinces of British India

Major Provinces

At 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):[10]

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.[10]

Province of British India[10]Area (in thousands of square miles) Population (in millions of inhabitants) Chief Administrative Officer Burma170 9 Lieutenant-Governor Bengal(including present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal, Biharand Orissa) 151 75 Lieutenant-Governor Madras142 38 Governor-in-Council Bombay123 19 Governor-in-Council United Provinces(present-day Uttar Pradesh) 107 48 Lieutenant-Governor Central Provinces (including Berar)104 13 Chief Commissioner Punjab97 20 Lieutenant-Governor Assam49 6 Chief Commissioner

Minor Provinces

In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a Chief Commissioner:[11]

Minor Province[11]Area (in thousands of square miles) Population (in thousands of inhabitants) Chief Administrative Officer North West Frontier Province16 2,125 Chief Commissioner British Baluchistan (British and Administered territory)46 308 British Political Agent in Baluchistan served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner Coorg1.6 181 British Resident in Mysore served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner Ajmer-Merwara2.7 477 British Political Agent in Rajputana served as ex-officio Chief Commissioner Andaman and Nicobar Islands3 25 Chief Commissioner

The Native States

The native states included five large states that were in "direct political relations" with the Government of India. Of these, Nepal, differed from others, in that it was independent in its internal administration, but was represented internationally by the Government of India.[12]

Under suzerainty of the Central Government

Five Large States

Five large Princely States in direct political relations with the Central Government in India[12]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Nepal54,000 4 million (Hindus and Buddhists) 150 Maharaja, Rajput, Hindu 21 Resident in Nepal Hyderabad82,698 approx. 11.14 million (Hindus and Muslims) 359 Nizam, Turk, Sunni Muslim 21 Resident in Hyderabad Mysore29,444 5.53 million (mostly Hindu) 190 Maharaja, Kshattriya, Hindu 21 Resident in Mysore Baroda8,099 1.95 million (chiefly Hindu) 123 Maharaja, Maratha, Hindu 21 Resident at Baroda Kashmir and Jammu80,900 2.91 million including Gilgit, Skardu, Ladakh, and Punch (Chiefly Muslim) 87 Maharaja, Dogra Rajput, Hindu 19 (21 within Kashmir) Resident in Kashmir Total 255,141 25.54 million 909

Central India Agency

148 Princely States forming the Central India Agency[13]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Gwalior25,041 2.93 million (Chiefly Hindus) 163 Maharaja, Maratha, Hindu19 (21 within Gwalior) Residentat Gwalior Indore9,500 0.85 million (Chiefly Hindu) 72 Maharaja, Maratha, Hindu 19 (21 within Indore) Resident at Indore Bhopal6,859 0.66 million (mostly Hindu) 29 Nawab(m)/Begum(f), Afghan, Muslim19 (21 within Bhopal) Political Agent in Bhopal Rewah13,000 1.33 million (chiefly Hindu) 29 Maharaja, Baghel Rajput, Hindu 17 Political agent in Baghelkhand144 smaller and minor states 22,995 2.74 million (Chiefly Hindu) 129 Total 77,395 8.51 million 421

Rajputana Agency

20 Princely States forming the Rajputana Agency[14]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Udaipur (Mewar)12,691 1.02 million (Chiefly Hindusand Bhils) 24 Maharana, SisodiaRajput, Hindu 21 (including two guns personal to the then ruler) Resident in MewarJaipur15,579 2.66 million (Chiefly Hindu) 62 Maharaja, KachwahaRajput, Hindu 21 (including two guns personal to the then ruler) Resident at Jaipur Jodhpur (Marwar)34,963 1.94 million (mostly Hindu) 56 Maharaja, RathorRajput, Hindu 17 Resident in the Western States of RajputanaBikaner23,311 0.58 million (chiefly Hindu) 23 Maharaja, Rathor Rajput, Hindu 17 Political agent in Bikaner 16 other states 42,374 3.64 million (Chiefly Hindu) 155 Total 128,918 9.84 million 320

Baluchistan Agency

2 Princely States forming the Baluchistan Agency[15]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Kalat 71,593 0.37 million (Chiefly Sunni Muslims) 8 Khan or Wali, Brahui, Sunni Muslim 19 Political Agent in Kalat Las Bela 6,441 56 thousand (Chiefly Sunni Muslim) 2 Jam, Kureshi Arab, Sunni Muslim Political Agent in Kalat Total 78,034 0.43 million 10

Under suzerainty of a Provincial Government

Burma (52 States)

52 States in Burma: all except the KarenStates were included in British India[16]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Hsipaw(Thibaw) 5,086 105,000 (Buddhist) 3 Sawbwa, Shan, Buddhist 9 Superintendent, Northern Shan StatesKengtung12,000 190,000 (Buddhist) 1 Sawbwa, Shan, Buddhist 9 Superintendent Southern Shan StatesMongnai2,717 44,000 (Buddhist) 0.5 Sawbwa, Shan, Buddhist 9 Superintendent Southern Shan States 5 KarenStates 4,830 45,795 (Buddhist and Animists) 0.5 Superintendent Southern Shan States 44 Other States 42,198 792,152 (Buddhist and Animist) 8.5 Total 67,011 1,177,987 13.5

Bengal (30 States)

30 States under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of Bengal[17]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Sikkim2,818 59,014 (chiefly Buddhist and Hindu) 1 Maharaja, Tibetan, Buddhist 15 Political Officer, Sikkim Cooch Behar1,307 566,974 (chiefly Hindu and Muslim) 24 Maharaja, Kshattriya, Brahmo 13 Commissioner of Rajshahi (ex officio Political Agent) Hill Tippera4,086 173,325 (chiefly Hindu) 7 Raja, Kshattriya, Hindu 13 Commissioner of Chittagong (ex officio Political Agent) Bhutan20,000 250,000 (Buddhist) 2 Deb Raja, Bhotia, Buddhist Commissioner of Rajshahi (ex officio Political Agent) 26 Other States 30,441 2,949,231 44 Total 58,652 3,998,544 78

Madras (5 States)

5 States under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of Madras[15]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salutefor Ruler Designation of local political officer Travancore7,091 2,952,157 (chiefly Hindu and Christian) 100 Maharaja, Kshattriya, Hindu 21 (including two guns personal to the then ruler) Resident in Travancore and Cochin Cochin1,362 812,025 (chiefly Hindu and Christian) 27 Raja, Kshattriya, Hindu 17 Resident in Travancore and Cochin Padukkottai 1,100 380,440 (Hindu) 11 Raja, Kallar, Hindu 11 Collector of Trichinopoly (ex officio Political Agent) 2 minor states 416 43,464 3 Total 9,969 4,188,086 141

Bombay (354 States)

354 states under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of Bombay[18]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salute for Ruler Designation of local political officer Kolhapur2,855 910,011 (chiefly Hindus) 48 Maharaja, Kshatriya, Hindu 19 Political Agent for Kolhapur Cutch7,616 488,022 (chiefly Hindus) 20 Maharao, JadejaRajput, Hindu 17 Political Agent in Cutch Khairpur6,050 199,313 (chiefly Muslims) 13 Mir, TalpurBaloch, Muslim 15 Political Agent for Khairpur Junagarh3,284 395,428 (chiefly Hindus) 27 Nawab, Pathan, Muslim 11 Agent to the Governor in Kathiawar Navanagar3,791 336,779 (chiefly Hindus) 31 Jam Sahib, JadejaRajput, Hindu 11 Agent to the Governor in Kathiawar 349 other states 42,165 4,579,095 281 Total 65,761 6,908,648 420

United Provinces (2 States)

Two states under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of the United Provinces[19]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salutefor Ruler Designation of local political officer Rampur899 533,212 (chiefly Hindusand Muslims) 33 Nawab, Pathan, Muslim 13 Commissionerfor Bareilly(ex officio Political Agent) Tehri (Garhwal)4,180 268,885 (chiefly Hindus) 3 Raja, KshatriyaHindu 11 Commissionerof Kumaun(ex officio Political Agent) Total 5,079 802,097 36

Central Provinces (15 States)

15 States under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of the Central Provinces[20]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salutefor Ruler Designation of local political officer Kalahandi3,745 284,465 (chiefly Hindus) 4 Raja, Kshatriya, Hindu9 Political Agent for the ChattisgarhFeudatoriesBastar13,062 306,501 (chiefly Animists) 3 Raja, Kshatriya, Hindu Political Agent for the ChattisgarhFeudatories13 other states 12,628 1,339,353 (chiefly Hindus) 16 11 Total 29,435 1,996,383 21

Punjab (34 States)

34 states under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of the Punjab[21]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salutefor Ruler Designation of local political officer Bahawalpur15,000 720,877 (chiefly Muslims) 24 Nawab, Daudputra, Muslim 17 Political Agent for PhulkianStates and Bahawalpur Patiala5,412 1,596,692 (chiefly Hindus and Sikhs) 57 Maharaja, Sidhu Jat, Sikh 17 Political Agent for Phulkian States and Bahawalpur Nabha928 297,949 (chiefly Hindus and Sikhs) 12 Raja, Sidhu Jat, Sikh 15 (including 4 guns personal to the then ruler Political Agent for Phulkian States and Bahawalpur Jind1,259 282,003 (chiefly Hindus and Sikhs) 15 Raja, Sidhu Jat, Sikh 11 Political Agent for Phulkian States and Bahawalpur Kapurthala630 314,351 (chiefly Muslims and Hindus) 13 Raja, Ahluwalia, Sikh 11 Commissioner of the JullundurDivision (ex-officio Political Agent) Faridkot642 124,912 (Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims) 4 Raja, Barar Jat, Sikh 11 Commissioner of the Jullundur Division (ex-officio Political Agent) 28 other states 12,661 1,087,614 30 Total 36,532 4,424,398 155

Assam (26 States)

26 States under the suzerainty of the Provincial Government of Assam[22]Name of Princely State Area in Square Miles Population in 1901 Approximate Revenue of the State (in hundred thousand Rupees) Title, ethnicity, and religion of ruler Gun-Salutefor Ruler Designation of local political officer Manipur8,456 284,465 (chiefly Hindus and Animists) 4 Raja, Kshatriya, Hindu 11 Political Agent in Manipur 25 Khasi States3,900 110,519 (Khasis and Christians) 0.5 Deputy Commissioner, Khasi and Jaintia Hills Total 12,356 394,984 4.5

Organization of the British Raj

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 Uprising.

Following 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).[23]

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.[24] 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.[23] 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.[23] 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.[25] From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals would serve as Secretary of State for India and direct the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859 - 1866) , Marquess of Salisbury (1874 - 1878) (later three-time 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 would be reduced over the next half-century, but its powers would remain unchanged; in 1907, for the first time, two Indians would be appointed to the Council.[26]

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 British Parliament. 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.[26] 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).[26] The Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been been intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made no major changes in governance[26] 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.[26] 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.[26] Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, however, important decisions required the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence 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.[27] 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."[28] 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.[29] 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.[30]

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.[31] 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.[32]

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."[31] They too were rewarded in the new British Raj, by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.[32] 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).[32]

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.[31] 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).[32]

Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health

Main articles: Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British Raj, Timeline of major famines in India during British rule (1765 to 1947)‎, Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, Orissa Famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of 1869, Bihar famine of 1873–74, Great Famine of 1876–78, and Indian famine of 1896–97

A timeline

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Viceroy Period of Tenure Events/Accomplishments Charles Canning1 November1858–21 March18621858reorganization of British Indian Army(contemporaneously and hereafter Indian Army)
Construction begins (1860): University of Bombay, University of Madras, and University of Calcutta
Indian Penal Codepassed into law in 1860.
Indian Councils Act 1861
Establishment of Archaeological Survey of Indiain 1861
James Wilson, financial member of Council of Indiareorganizes customs, imposes income tax, creates paper currency.
Indian Police Act of 1861, creation of Indian Police Service. Lord Elgin21 March1862–20 November1863Dies prematurely in DharamsalaSir John Lawrence12 January1864–12 January1869Anglo-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 Mayo12 January1869–8 February1872Creation 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 Islandsas a Chief Commissionership(1872).
Assassination of Lord Mayo in the Andamans. Lord Northbrook3 May1872–12 April1876Mortalities in Bihar famine of 1873–74prevented 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 VIIin 1875–76. Lord Lytton12 April1876–8 June1880Baluchistanestablished as a Chief Commissionership
Queen Victoria(in absentia) proclaimed Empress of Indiaat 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 Ripon8 June1880–13 December1884End 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 Punjabestablished in Lahorein 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 Dufferin13 December1884–10 December1888Passage 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 Gamein 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 Allahabadestablished in 1887
Queen Victoria's Jubilee, 1887. Lord Lansdowne10 December1888–11 October1894Strengthening of NW Frontier defense. Creation of Imperial Service Troops consisting of regiments contributed by the princely states.
Gilgit Agencyleased in 1899
British Parliament passes Indian Councils Act of 1892 opening the Imperial Legislative Councilto Indians.
Revolution in princely stateof Manipurand subsequent reinstatement of ruler.
High point of the Great Game. Establishment of the Durand Linebetween British India and Afghanistan,
Railways, roads, and irrigation works begun in Burma. Border between Burma and Siamfinalized in 1893.
Fall of the Rupee, resulting from the steady depreciation of silver currency worldwide (1873-93).
Indian Prisons Act of 1894 Lord Elgin11 October1894–6 January1899Reorganization 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 1896–97beginning 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 Burmaand Punjab; the former a new Lieutenant Governorship. Lord Curzon6 January1899–18 November1905Creation of the North West Frontier Provinceunder a Chief Commissioner(1901).
Famine of 1899-1900, the worst yet on record.
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, Calcuttaas 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)
Reorganization of Indian Universities Act (1904).
Systemization of preservation and restoration of ancient monuments by Archaeological Survey of Indiawith 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 Assamunder a Lieutenant-Governor. Lord Minto18 November1905–23 November1910Creation 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 Educationin 1910 (now Ministry of Education) Lord Hardinge23 November1910–4 April1916Visit of King George Vand Queen Maryin 1911: commemoration as Emperor and Empress of Indiaat last Delhi Durbar
King George V announces creation of new city of New Delhito replace Calcuttaas capital of India.
Indian High Courts Act of 1911
Indian Factories Act of 1911
Construction of New Delhi, 1912-1929
World War I, Indian Armyin: 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 1915Lord Chelmsford4 April1916–2 April1921Indian Armyin: 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)
University of Rangoonestablished in 1920. Lord Reading2 April1921–3 April1926University of Delhiestablished in 1922.
Indian Workers Compensation Act of 1923 Lord Irwin3 April1926–18 April1931Indian 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 Willingdon18 April1931–18 April1936New Delhiinaugurated as capital of India, 1931.
Indian Workmen's Compensation Act of 1933
Indian Factories Act of 1934
Royal Indian Air Forcecreated in 1932.
Indian Military Academyestablished in 1932.
Government of India Act of 1935
Creation of Reserve Bank of IndiaLord Linlithgow18 April1936–1 October1943Indian Payment of Wages Act of 1936
Burmaadministered independently after 1937 with creation of new cabinet position Secretary of State for India and Burma
Indian Provincial Elections of 1937
Cripps' missionto India, 1942.
Indian Armyin 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 Wavell1 October1943–21 February1947Indian Armybecomes, 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 Armyin Italian campaign(Battle of Monte Cassino)
British Labour Partywins UK General Election of 1945with Clement Atleeas prime minister.
1946 Cabinet Mission to India
Indian Elections of 1946. Lord Mountbatten21 February1947–15 August1947Indian Independence Act 1947(10 and 11 Geo VI, c. 30) of the British Parliament enacted on 18th July 1947.
Radcliffe Award, August 1947
Partition of India
India Officechanged to Burma Office, and Secretary of State for India and Burmato Secretary of State for Burma.

History

Main article: History of the British Raj

Prelude: Company Rule in India

Main article: Company rule in India

Although 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.[33] 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 Cornwallis, who promulgated the 'Permanent Settlement of Bengal' with the zamindars.

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

Paddy fields in the Madras Presidency, ca. 1880. Two-thirds of the presidency fell under the Ryotwari land revenue system.

At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories.[34] 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).[34] 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.[34]

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.[35]

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.[34] 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.[34] 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.[36]

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.[37] 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.[37] 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.[38] 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.[39] 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.[38] 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.[38] 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.[40]

Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various governments in India under Company rule.[41] 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.[41] 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.[41] 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.[42]

Indian Rebellion of 1857

Main article: Indian Rebellion of 1857

The 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 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.[43] 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.[44]

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.

Mortar damage to Kashmiri Gate, Delhi, 1858

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.[45] 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.[46] 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.[47]

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.[48] 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.[49] 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.[50] 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.[51]

Effects on economy

"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[52]

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 Great Britain.[53] 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 Great 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.[54] Likewise, finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.[55] 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.[56] In spite of these costs, very little skilled employment was created for Indians. 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.[57]

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.[58] Consequently, many small farmers, dependent on the whims of those markets, lost land, animals, and equipment to money-lenders.[58]. 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,[59] and with many critics, both British and Indian, laying the blame at the doorsteps of the lumbering colonial administrations.[58]

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.

Lord Ripon, the Liberal Viceroy of India, who instituted the Famine Code

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.

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.

Sepoy Khudadad Khan, the first Indian to be awarded the Victoria Cross, the British Empire's highest war-time medal for gallantry. Khan, who hailed from Chakwal District, Punjab, in present-day Pakistan, died in 1971.

World War I and its aftermath

World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army would take part in the war and their participation would have a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia, would travel to distant corners of the world both in newsprint and by the new medium of the radio.[60] India’s international profile would thereby rise and would continue to rise during the 1920s.[60] 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.[61] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians.[60]

In 1916, in the face of new strength demonstrated by the nationalists with the signing of the Lucknow Pact and the founding of the Home Rule leagues, and 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.[62] 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, including awards of titles and honors to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled cotton excise duty, but most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete steps.[62] 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.”[62] 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.[62]

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.”[60] Revolutionary violence had already been a concern in British India; consequently in 1915, to strengthen its powers during what it saw was a time of increased vulnerability, the Government of India passed the Defence of India Act, which allowed it to intern politically dangerous dissidents without due process and added to the power it already had – under the 1910 Press Act – both to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press.[63] 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.[63] However, since the Government of India wanted to ensure against any sabotage of the reform process by extremists,[citation needed] 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.[63]

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 Reforms.

Consequently 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,[64][65][66] with the unstated goal of extending the government's war-time powers.[62] The Rowlatt committee presented its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial insurgency: Bengal, the Bombay presidency, and the Punjab.[62] To combat subversive acts in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its war-time authority, which 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,[62] and the power for provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without trial.[67]

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.[68] 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.[68] Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a growing unemployment crisis[69] and post-war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal provinces,[69] a situation that was made only worse by the failure of the 1918-19 monsoon and by profiteering and speculation.[68] The global influenza epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic woes,[69] and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.[70]

To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills.[67] 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.”[62] 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.[62] However, what it passed, in deference to the Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first bill, which now allowed extra-judicial 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.[62] Even so, when it was passed the new Rowlatt Act aroused widespread indignation throughout India and brought Mohandas Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.[67]

Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[71] 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 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919.[71] The new Act enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India’s recourse to the “official majority” in unfavorable votes.[71] 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.[71] 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.[71] The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.

A 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.[71] 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.[71] 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.[71] 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.[71]

1930s: Government of India Act (1935)

British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to the right of Mahatma Gandhi at the Second Round Table Conference in London, October 1931.

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.[55] The future Constitution of independent India would owe a great deal to the text of this act.[72] 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 Congress took part in the elections and won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India,[73] and Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. In Great Britain, these victories were to later turn the tide for the idea of Indian independence.[73]

World War II

With 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;[74] nonetheless, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal.[74] In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive, however it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943.[75]

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;[76] Bose now turned to the Axis powers for help with liberating India by force.[77] 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,[78] 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.[79] 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.[80]

Post-war developments: Transfer of Power

1909 Prevailing Religions, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing majority religions of the population for different districts. Map of India and Pakistan as envisaged in the Partition Plan Viceroy Louis Mountbatten eleven days before the Transfer of Power.

In 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.[81] 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. Although the mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they found much public support in India 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.[81]

Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India in which the Congress won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[82] The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. 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 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.[83] 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

Notes

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: from Skr. rāj: to reign, rule; cognate with L. rēx, rēg-is, OIr. rī, rīg king (see RICH).
  2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. "b. spec. the British dominion or rule in the Indian sub-continent (before 1947). In full, British raj.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  5. ^ "Nepal." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
  6. ^ "Bhutan." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
  7. ^ "Sikkim." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 Aug. 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-46212>.
  8. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 59-60
  9. ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60
  10. ^ a b c Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 46
  11. ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 56
  12. ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 92
  13. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 93
  14. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 94-95
  15. ^ a b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 96
  16. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 101
  17. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 98
  18. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 97
  19. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 99
  20. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 102
  21. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 100
  22. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 103
  23. ^ a b c Moore 2001a, pp. 424-426
  24. ^ Moore 2001a, p. 424
  25. ^ Brown 1994, p. 96
  26. ^ a b c d e f Moore 2001a, p. 426
  27. ^ Moore 2001a, p. 426, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104
  28. ^ Quoted in Moore 2001a, p. 426
  29. ^ Peers 2006, p. 76, Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104, Spear 1990, p. 149
  30. ^ Peers 2006, p. 72, Bayly 1990, p. 72
  31. ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 147
  32. ^ a b c d Spear 1990, pp. 147-148
  33. ^ The Regulating Act - 1773
  34. ^ a b c d e Ludden 2002, p. 133
  35. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 135
  36. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 134
  37. ^ a b Robb 2004, pp. 126-129
  38. ^ a b c Peers 2006, pp. 45-47
  39. ^ Tomlinson 1993, p. 43
  40. ^ Peers 2006, p. 47, Brown 1994, p. 65
  41. ^ a b c Brown 1994, p. 67
  42. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 79
  43. ^ 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
  44. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 101
  45. ^ Brown 1994, p. 88
  46. ^ Metcalf 1991, p. 48
  47. ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 171, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 90
  48. ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172, Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Brown 1994, p. 92
  49. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 102
  50. ^ Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91, Metcalf 1991, Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 173
  51. ^ Brown 1994, p. 92
  52. ^ Nehru 1946, p. 295
  53. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 259), (Oldenburg 2007)
  54. ^ (Oldenburg 2007), (Stein 2001, p. 258)
  55. ^ a b (Oldenburg 2007)
  56. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 258)
  57. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 159)
  58. ^ a b c (Stein 2001, p. 260)
  59. ^ (Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 117)
  60. ^ a b c d Brown 1994, pp. 197-198
  61. ^ 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 ..."
  62. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Brown 1994, pp. 203-204
  63. ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 201-203
  64. ^ Lovett 1920, p. 94, 187-191
  65. ^ Sarkar 1921, p. 137
  66. ^ Tinker 1968, p. 92
  67. ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 190
  68. ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 195-196
  69. ^ a b c Stein 2001, p. 304
  70. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 208
  71. ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown 1994, pp. 205-207
  72. ^ (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156)
  73. ^ a b (Low 1993, p. 154)
  74. ^ a b (Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 206-207)
  75. ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 418-420
  76. ^ Nehru 1942, p. 424
  77. ^ (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
  78. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
  79. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 31, (Low 1993, pp. 31-31)
  80. ^ Chaudhuri 1953, p. 349, Sarkar 1983, p. 411,Hyam 2007, p. 115
  81. ^ a b (Judd 2004, pp. 172-173)
  82. ^ (Judd 2004, p. 172)
  83. ^ (Khosla 2001, p. 299)

References

Contemporary General Histories

Monographs and Collections

Articles in Journals or Collections

Classic Histories and Gazetteers

  • 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. xxx, 1 map, 552.
  • 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.; H. C. Raychaudhuri & Kalikinkar Datta (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

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-13: 978-0316104098
  • 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.

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11 Occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War of April-June 1982.

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