WHI.22


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media type="custom" key="29536425" align="right" = = =Describe the Growth of the British Influence in India and the Emergence of the British Raj.=

Topics on the Page

 * The British East India Company (1600 - 1757) **
 * ** Company Rule (1757-1858) **
 * India and the British Empire **
 * The British Raj **
 * ** Indian Penal Code and LGBT Rights **
 * Women's History in India **
 * Gandhi and the Indian Independence Movement **

//Focus Question: How did the British empire expand in India?//
__**[|An interactive timeline of the British Indian History]**__



Beginnings: British East India Company 1600-1757

 * The East India Company: How A Trading Corporation Became an Imperial Ruler, BBC History Extra (January 21, 2017)**


 * The British East India Company was granted a charter from the British crown in 1600.
 * The merchants and business men that started the company aimed to end the monopoly on the Indian spice trade by other Europeans.
 * Their main competitors were the Portuguese that had been trading in the Indian ocean for almost a 100 years prior.
 * The Company slowly built up their influence and increased their trade over the next 150 years or soThey did this by working with local Indian rulers (Mughal Empire main power in India at the time), aiding one side to advance their own agenda
 * They slowly were granted land and the right to tax the people on that land
 * What they weren't given they took by force with their large private army made up of local Indians and lead by European officers.
 * The Battle of Buxar in 1765 was one a major victory for the Company, it got them the cities of Bengal and Bihar.
 * Eventually by the mid the late 1700's the Company came to control such large swaths of land that they effectively became an Imperial power in India, establishing a capital in Calcutta in 1773.



Company Rule 1757-1858

 * By this time the Company was effectively the biggest power on the Sub Continent
 * Over the this period in the Companies history it expanded its power, influcence and land holdings
 * It also increased the size of its private army of nearly 250,000 men, larger than the army of the British Crown.
 * The Fall of the company was swifter than its nearly 250 year rise
 * The Sepoy Rebellion of 1858 caused the collapse of the the Companies power in India.
 * It was started because new ammunition for their army was greased with pig and cow fat
 * India is a country made up of millions of both Hindus and Muslims
 * Hindus find cows sacred and they have a high place in their society, so much so they are not eaten.
 * Muslims find pigs unclean and not fit for human consumption
 * Both religions found this new ammunition offensive and refused to touch it.
 * The rebellion lasted barley a year but was a very intense conflict
 * The loss of control over their own armies was a signal to the British Crown and government that this private enterprise was not up to the task of maintaining Britain's dominance in India
 * The Crown stepped in and officially took over control of India in 1858, making it an official domain of the British empire, starting the period known as the British Raj.

For a quick concise video on this time period click here.

For an overview of European Imperialism in general click here.

[|Here] you can find a great resource chronicling the English perspective as the began to flip the power in India for Great Britain See [|Queen Victoria's Empire] from PBS for an overview of the British Empire in India.

For more background, see selections from //India: A Country Study// (James Heitzman & Robert L. Worden, eds., Government Printing Office for the Library of Congress, 1995). This link in very helpful and concise in its history of India, has clear table of contents as well
 * [|India]
 * [|The British Empire in India]
 * [|The British Raj, 1858-1947]

Click here to go to [|British History In-Depth: The British Presence in India in the 18th Century] from the British Broadcasting Company.

**India in the British Empire**

 * Image to the right is 'Bombay on the Malabar Coast belonging to the East India Company of England, 1754." Painting by Jan van Ryne **

===** India was a centerpiece of the vast British Empire. By 1900, noted historians William Duiker and Jackson Spielvogel, "all the societies of Africa and Asia were either under full colonial rule or, as in the case of China and the Ottoman Empire, at the point of virtual collapse" (The Essential World History, 2005, p. 435). **===

The first European power in India was the Portuguese, but they were soon superseded by the British who established trading posts in India in the 1600s.
 * In the 1700s, with the decline of the Mughal Empire, British influence became prominent.


 * Following a victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the British East India Company gained the authority to collect taxes on the lands it controlled.


 * The British East India Company continued to expand its influence and by the early 1800s the entire Indian subcontinent was under its control.

Click here for a timeline overview the history of the East India Company.

**The British Raj**
British control is often called the [|British Raj] (for Indian raja or prince). Unlike the French who favored a centralized administrative system, British rule was more decentralized. At first, the British established control through economic dominance of the East India Company, which eventually controlled all European trade with India. [|[1]] In time, India was a colony of the British government.


 * British rule was justified in various ways.**
 * Much like its effects in North America and Native Americans, Indians were seen by the British as unsophisticated and in need of becoming more civilized.
 * The British provided a system of justice, laws, and the notion of fair play by eliminating the various traditional practices already in place.
 * Social policies were upheld in India because the British saw various religious and social practices as abhorrent and primitive. It is a common theme throughout history that Britain viewed cultures other than their own as primitive and in need of formalized government and leadership.[ 2]


 * The Raj brought many modern improvements such as railroads, telegraphs, postal service, highways, and schools, but the colonial system meant economic hardship to millions of Indians while British entrepreneurs enjoyed enormous financial gains**.
 * Systems of trade existed to provide markets for British goods, but local industries did not expand or were disbanded. England's primary mission in India was the same as in North America - extract raw materials at low cost and force the creation of a "willing" market for its manufactured goods.
 * All was ancillary to the pursuit of profit - exporting tea and importing fabrics and salt (for example). While they did leave India with some useful infrastructure, they left a very small industrial base in proportion to the population. They also left widespread consolidation of land ownership which left many millions at the complete mercy of the economic winds.


 * The British effectively controlled the sub-continent, but large portions remained under Indian administration and they ruled through a complicated network of alliances with local rulers**.
 * They established schools which trained several generations of young Indians to work in the Civil Service, modeled on the British system. Anyone who wanted to get ahead had to play by the foreigner's rules - local elites sent their children to English boarding schools where they completely internalized the notion that theirs was an inferior culture. This had a very destructive effect on the Indian psyche which outlived the Colonial era.

Click here for lesson plans about Britain's attitudes toward India.


 * [[image:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Gay_flag.svg width="75" height="46"]]The Indian Penal Code and LGBT rights during the British Raj**

The Indian Penal Code dates from 1860. Section 377 of the IPC is still in effect, and it has been used to discriminate against Indians who identify as LGBT.
 * Section 377 of the IPC criminalizes sexual acts that are "against the order of nature."

Click here to read the Indian Penal Code in its entirety.
 * Click here for a scholarly paper on the intersections between British colonialism, the Indian Penal Code, and Section 377 in particular.

[[image:resourcesforhistoryteachers/Female_Rose.png]]**Women's History in the British Empire in India**
A lot has been written and studied about women's history during the British Empire - including women in India as well as British women in both India and England.
 * From George Mason University: //"A number of British women did seek to alleviate the situation of colonized women through missionary work, education, and medicine. They called colonized women their “sisters,” in a relationship that has been characterized by Antoinette Burton as “imperial maternalism.” Attitudes towards colonized women varied, depending on the site of empire. It was not uncommon for British women to view Indian women as needing sisterly protection from child marriage and the restrictions of purdah."// [[|4]]
 * Click on the source from GMU for more info about British women and relationships with Indian women in the setting of a colonized India.

A few books written about women's roles and politics in British colonization: 1. Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India 2. [|Married to the Empire]: Gender, Politics, and Imperialism in India

Primary source of a British woman's diary entry from 1828: http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/p/102.html //"Fanny Parks wrote her diary as a record for her mother in England and included descriptions of her daily activities and her observations of Indian religion, society, and customs."//

For a video describing the role Indian women played through the time of British influence in India click here.

For more, see World History II.12
> ======
 * The colonial system was slow to change, setting the stage for the rise of nationalism as a force opposing colonialism and British rule. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885.
 * In 1915, a young western-educated lawyer, [|Mohandas Gandhi] returned to India and assumed leadership of the nationalist movement that would eventually end the Raj system with [|Indian independence] in 1947.
 * Gandhi has been an icon for peace. His practices included rebellion without violence. Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned by the British and resorted to hunger strikes as part of his civil disobedience. His final imprisonment came in 1942-44, after he had demanded total withdrawal of the British.

media type="youtube" key="tPA2X1tHSJA" width="560" height="315" A quick clip showcasing actual footage of the India Independence Movements lead by Peace Revolutionaries like Ghandi

Click here for an audio link to the video, [|Mahatma Ghandi: Pilgrim of Peace].

**Legacies**

 * A great article of how the British Raj still has influence in 21st Century India following British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010; [|found here]

**Additional Links**:
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**Sources:**
[1} Geographia Asia, (2005). A Conscise History of India. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from Geographia Asia Web site: [] [2] [] [3] For the first picture and caption: [|http://library.thinkquest.org/C006203/cgi-bin/stories.cgi?article=expansion&section=history/british&frame=parent] [4] Women in World History - http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson8/lesson8.php?s=0 [5] Indian Penal Code of 1860 - http://punjabrevenue.nic.in/crime13.htm.