British India

The first Europeans to establish roots in India, since the fall of the Roman Empire was Protuguese. Led by Vascoda Gama's landing at Calicut in 1498, they established themselves along the Malabar Coast, trading with the rest of the subcontinent then. (The Portuguese retained some farms in India, as late as in 1961.)

In 1600, the British East India Company was granted the right to a monopoly on trade with India. While its primary goal was to obtain spices from Indonesia (East Indies), the necessary goods to trade for spices. The good they wanted was cotton, and they got it from India. In 1612, the English won a match against the Portuguese. Because of this victory, they were able to win the right to trade and establish factories in India from the Mughal emperor. Because the Dutch controlled the East Indies, the English focused all their attention to India. The company traded for silk, sugar and opium, among other products.

In 1664, launched by the French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French equivalent of the English East India Trading Company. The French had a few cities like Pondicherry and Chandernagore, and gradually expanded their trade. By 1740, but its sales were only half those of the English East India Company. The Danish, Austrians, Swedes, and Prussians all tried unsuccessfully to get a piece of the action in India.

The British and French Battle for Control of India (1740 - 1761 AD) :

When Frederick II of Prussia seized Silesia in 1740, France with him, the British in Austria. As a result of this, The War of Austrian Succession War, the British decided that France's power in India was too big to stand alone. After the French quickly cornered English in a naval battle, a treaty was signed trade Madras to Cape Breton in North America.

Relations between the British and French deteriorated as each became mired in local Indian politics. After the nizam, a major Mughal noble and power-broker died, the French were using this time to choose sides in a dispute about who would be Karnatic Nawab (Governor). (Karnataka was a dependancy of the nizam. The nizam chose a Nawab in 1743, but rivals for the Nawab-ate were not met. Is that clear? Good.) France chose Chanda Sahib and the Nawab Jang Salabat the nizam. The British, not to be outdone, responded by saying that Muhammad Ali (the Indian, not boxer) should Nawab.

The Nawab-ship was not so important, but it did a good excuse for a war. The British / Muhammad Ali, led by Robert Clive, gained control of Arcot (the capital of Karnataka) in 1751, and the French / Chandra Sahib was forced to encircle the 1752nd

Peace and quiet reigned for. . . four years. Then began the seven Years War in Europe in 1756, and the British and French in India was at it again. The British, with their naval superiority, won victories in Bengal, in Madras, on Pondicherry, and Wandiwash. The French surrendered the second time in the 1761st

The Rise of the British East India Company (1761 - 1857 AD) :

In 1786, Lord Cornwallis was British governor of India. He reinforced the Sepoy armies, the East India Company had raised. Also under Cornwallis and his successor Lord Wellesley, the British slowly extended their holdings. In 1813, was the monopoly of the English East India Company was broken and all British citizens were allowed to trade with India. Over the next 30 years, the British continued to acquire new land and to strengthen their grip on those already under their control.

From 1838 until 1857, but the British were weakened by the failure of their attempt to keep Russia out of Afghanistan. The defeat of the British in the first Afghan war caused the Indians to be aware that the British were not invincible. However, continued British to annex more Indian territory across the 1850th

The British also aggravated the Hindu population in India during this period. They made English instead of Persian, the official language. The prohibited suck (where Hindu widows throwing themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres) and infanticide. They also have the option of Hindu widows to remarry and sanctioned missionary activity.

Sepoy Rebellion (1857 - 1859 AD) :

The growing Indian discontent with British rule broke out on 10 march 1857th The Sepoy, who were Indians trained by the British as soldiers, have heard rumors that the cartridges for their new Enfield rifles were greased with lard and beef fat. Since the cow is sacred to Hindus, and the pig is abhorrent to Muslims, all Sepoy was shocked, and they mutinied. Although initially the mutiny was spontaneous, it quickly became more organized and Sepoy took over the cities Delhi and Kanpur.

This mutiny was brutally crushed by the British. 20. September 1857, the British recaptured Delhi and in the following months, the British recaptured Kanpur and Sepoy withstood a siege of Lucknow. The British victory was accompanied by widespread accusations, and in many cases, were unarmed Sepoy bayonetted, sown up in carcasses of pigs and cows, or fired from cannons.

The British Take Control (1859 -1885 AD) :

On 2 August 1858, adopted the British Parliament the Government of India Act. This action transferred Authority to India from East India Company to Queen Victoria. In 1876 Queen Victoria declared himself "Empress of India." In 1869 the Suez Canal was completed, reducing the time for a sea passage to India from 3 months to 3 weeks. Because of this, British women began to come to India and the British developed their own society in India, apart from the indigenous community. A second effect of the opening of the Suez Canal was that more and more British goods imported into India, which effectively destroys many Indian handicrafts. By the late nineteenth century, around 90% of the Indian population was peasants. This figure was even higher at the beginning of the century. Despite this, however, an increasing number of factories, railways, hospitals, schools, and roads were built.

The incipient Indian Nationalism (1885 - 1919 AD) :

In 1885, it was mainly Hindu Indian National Congress established with the objective to achieve national self-determination. In 1906 it was joined on stage by the Muslim League. Many Indian scientists and journalists began to call for Indians to take more pride in their own history and in their own products. The Congress consisted mainly of upper middle class Indians: lawyers, journalists, businessmen and professors. Congress was generally ignored by the British, but it quickly gained popular support among Indians.

In 1905, the British divided Bengal state. This triggered large protests and attracted many millions more people to the nationalist movement. The Muslim League, on the other hand, continued to support the British. British reform efforts were put on hold during World War I. When the war ended, India fell into a deep depression.

The End of the Empire (1919 - 1947 AD) :

Situations in India took a turn for the worse in 1919, when Britain passed Rowlatt Acts. Both Hindu and Muslim leaders protested these actions. The protests were especially hard in the state of Punjab. On 13 April 1919, around 20 thousand unarmed men, women and children gathered in a public place in Punjab's capital to protest these acts. British general R.E.H. Dyer brought 50 soldiers for a time, and out of place. Without warning, he ordered soldiers to shoot into the crowd. In the next 15 minutes, 1650 shots were fired. Around 400 people were killed and another 1,200 wounded received no medical attention. Dyer said later that if he had had more ammunition, he would have continued to fire.

This massacre caused Mahatma Gandhi and other nationalist leaders to stop all cooperation with the British. The strategy for achieving independence was to boycott all British goods, schools, courts, and elections. Despite Gandhi's efforts, however, he was unable to gain widespread Muslim support for his efforts. By early 1921, it became clear that the Hindu and Muslim groups were on separate paths. During the Second World War, while, for example, the Hindu Congress refused to support the British, war efforts were still supported by the Muslim League. In March 1914 the Muslim League called for a separate Muslim state in India. After the Second World War, the British minister of India formed a committee aimed at resolving the conflict between Congress and the Muslim League and to provide authority for India for a single Indian authorities. In 1947 the British Parliament adopted a law establishing the Hindu majority country, India and the Muslim majority country of Pakistan. At midnight on 14 August 1947, these were two independent countries, ending imperial rule in India.