The British Colonization of India

The discovery of India and the British colonization In 1498, Vasco da Gama successfully discovered a new sea route from Europe to India, which paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce. The next to arrive were the Dutch, the British who set up a trading post in the west coast port of Surat in 1619, and the French. The internal conflicts among Indian kingdoms gave opportunities to the European traders to gradually establish political influence and appropriate lands. Although these continental European powers controlled various coastal regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they eventually lost all their territories in India to the British islanders. In 1617, the British East India Company was given permission by Mughal Emperor Jahangir to trade in India. Gradually their increasing influence led the de-jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty free trade in Bengal in 1717. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj Ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of the Bengal province, opposed British attempts to use these permits1.The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large-scale rebellion by soldiers employed by the British East India in northern and central India against the Company's rule. The rebels were disorganized, had differing goals, and were poorly equipped, led, and trained, and had no outside support or funding. They were brutally suppressed and the British government took control of the Company and eliminated many of the grievances that caused it. The government was also determined to keep full control so that no rebellion of such size would ever happen again2. In the aftermath, all power was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown, which began to administer most of India as a number of provinces; the John Company's lands were controlled directly, while it had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India, which consisted of the Princely states ruled by local royal families. There were officially 565 princely states in 1947, but only 21 had actual state governments, and only three were large (Mysore, Hyderabad and Kashmir). They were absorbed into the independent nation in 1947-1948. The British goal was efficient administration, but Hindus were outraged at the apparent "divide and rule" strategy." When the Liberal party in Britain came to power in 1906, he was removed. The independence of India The numbers of British in India were small, yet they were able to rule two-thirds of the subcontinent directly and exercise considerable leverage over
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the princely states that accounted for the remaining one-third of the area. There were 674 of the these states in 1900, with a population of 73 million, or one person in five. In general, the princely states were strong supporters of the British regime, and the Raj left them alone. They were finally closed down in 1947-1948. The first step toward Indian self-rule was the appointment of councillors to advise the Britishviceroy, in 1861. The Gandhi-led independence movement opposed the British rule using non-violent methods like noncooperation, civil disobedience and economic resistance. These movements succeeded in bringing independence to the new dominions of India and Pakistan in 19473. The consequences of the British colonization British employed the strategy of emotional and intellectual colonization in India in order to consolidate the political colonization. It was the affinity of the elite section of the Indian society to the English culture, ideology and education, which facilitated the British to psychologically harness the nation`s mindset. Literally speaking, the British wanted the malleable Indians to learn, speak and believe English and become shadows of Englishmen. During the British occupation, India was modernized and industrialized. The British industrialists invested huge amounts of capital in the region. The British East India Company built the world's third-largest railroad network, which connected regions and enabled the country to develop a modern economy.4 The Western culture also improved the Indian culture with the development of a road network, telephone and telegraph lines, many dams and bridges and irrigation canals. Due to the Western influence, the Indian culture benefited from improved sanitation and public health. Many Western doctors emigrated to India and introduced the region to Western medicine. Furthermore, many wealthier Indians were trained and educated abroad in Western medicine and then returned to their home country to practice. Western medicine significantly reduced disease and sickness, in large part because health care became accessible. The Indian culture benefited from Western culture in the area of education too. During the British occupation, many schools and colleges were built throughout India. Literacy increased and, for the first time, the poorest classes of society had access to knowledge 5 .The presence of Western traders in India increased the demand for goods and services in India. As a result of the British living in India, Indian artisans, weavers and craftsmen were steadily employed. Although they were deprived of the full profits of their labors, these artisans and craftsman grew in numbers, and the Indian labor force
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became more skilled and handy. By the time the British left the subcontinent, a greater percentage of Indians had acquired skills to make a living. The most noticeable feature of the Indian city bourgeoisie is the stamp of the foreigner. Fourteen years after the independence, English still remains the official language of administration, big business, and higher education inIndia. No significant attempts have been made to change over, beyond pious resolutions in shiftless committees. The intellectual have largey adopted the latest British fashions not only in clothing, but also in literature and the arts. Conclusion What has been discussed in this paper so far may be said to support the theory historians sometimes expressed that India was never a nation, that Indian culture and civilizationis a by-product of foreign conquest, whether Muslim or British. If this were so, the only Indian history worth writing would be the history written by the conquerors. However, one has to study the history of the Indian subcontinent in depth and to see how Alexander the Great was drawn to the East by the fabulous wealth and the magic name of India, ignoring many European peoples. India is the country that has left a lasting imprint on those who colonized it or merely travelled trough it.