British Raj

The British Raj (pronounced /rách/ in Spanish; in Hindi: राज, romanized: rāj, lit. 'government', pronounced [ɾɑːdʒ]) was the colonial rule of the British Crown over the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, also known as Crown Government in India or Direct rule of India. The area under British rule that was called "British India" is currently divided between the States of Burma, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka; The States that were ruled by Indian kings under British tutelage were called Princely States. The resulting political union was also known as Indian Empire (after 1876 passports were issued under that name). India was a founding member of the League of Nations, participated in the Summer Olympics of 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932 and 1936, and in 1945 it was a founding member of the United Nations Organization in San Francisco (California).

This system of government was instituted on June 28, 1858 when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the territorial possessions of the British East India Company were transferred to the Crown, then held by Queen Victoria (who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India), until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was divided into two states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern part of which later became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). At the beginning of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already part of British India; Upper Burma was annexed in 1886 and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, achieving its own independence in 1947.

Modern estimates put the deaths caused by the British colonization of India at between 100 and 165 million, due to more frequent and deadly famines and the impoverishment of the population.

Geographical extent

The British Raj extended across almost all of present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with the exception of small possessions in other European countries, such as Goa and Pondicherry. In addition, on several occasions, it included Aden (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was separated from India and administered directly by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. The Trucial States (present-day United Arab Emirates) of the Persian Gulf and the Persian Gulf Residency States were theoretically princely states, as well as the residences and provinces of British India until 1947 and the rupee was used as its currency unit.

Among other countries in the region: Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) was ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was part of the Madras residence between 1793 and 1798. The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan engaged in several wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognized by the British as independent states. The kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the 1861 Treaty of Tumlong between Sikkim and the United Kingdom; However, the question of sovereignty remained undefined. The Maldives were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, but were not part of British India. The Kingdom of Afghanistan was a protected state under British rule from 1890 to 1919, while the Kingdom of Nepal was a protectorate from 1858 to 1923.

British India and the Princely States

India during the British Raj was composed of two types of territories: British India and the native states (or princely states). In its Interpretation Act (Act) of 1889, the British Parliament approved the following definitions in the Section 18:

(4.) The term "British India" refers to all territories and places within His Majesty's domain, which have been governed by His Majesty through the governor-general of India or through any governor or other officer subordinated to the governor-general of India.
(5) The term "India" must mean British India along with all territories belonging to any native prince, or leader under the sovereignty of His Majesty exercised through the governor-general of India, or through any governor or officer subordinated to the governor-general of India.

In general, the term "British India" (and is still used) to also refer to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. The term has also been used to refer to "British India".

The terms "Indian Empire" and "Empire of India" (like the term "British Empire") were not used in legislation. The monarch was known as the Emperor or Empress of India and the term appeared frequently in the speeches of Queen Victoria I of the United Kingdom and prorogation speeches. Passports issued by the government of British India had the words "Indian Empire" on the cover and "Empire of India" in the interior. In addition, an order of chivalry, the Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was created in 1878.

The sovereignty of more than 175 princely states, which are among the largest and most important, was exercised (on behalf of the British Crown) by the central government of British India under the viceroy; the remaining states, approximately 500, were dependent on the provincial governments of British India under a governor, lieutenant-governor, or chief commissioner (as the case may have been). A clear distinction between "dominion" and "sovereignty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India resided in the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers; These laws were consolidated in the different 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.

Major provinces

At the beginning of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered by a governor or lieutenant-governor..

During the partition of Bengal (1905-1913), the new provinces of Assam and East Bengal were created under a lieutenant governor. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

Minor provinces

In addition, there were some minor provinces that were administered by a chief commissioner:

Princely States

A princely state, also called a native state or a state of India, was a nominally sovereign entity with an indigenous Indian ruler, subject to a subsidiary alliance. There were 565 princely states when India and Pakistan became independent from the United Kingdom. of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in August 1947. The Princely States were not part of British India (i.e. the presidencies and provinces) as they were not directly under British rule.

The largest states had treaties with the United Kingdom that specified what rights princes had; In the smaller states the princes had few rights. Within the Princely States foreign relations, defense and most communications were under British control. The British also exercised general influence over the internal politics of the States, partly through the granting or denial of recognition. of individual rulers. Although there were almost 600 princely states, the vast majority were very small and were left out of the government's negotiations with the British. Approximately two hundred of the States had an area of less than 25 square kilometers (10 square miles).

Organization

Charles Wood, the first Viscount of Halifax (1800–1885), was president of the Control Board of the British East India Company (East India Company) from 1852 to 1855; he shaped educational policies in India, and was Secretary of State of India between 1859 and 1866. Charles John Canning, the last Governor General of India under the administration of the British East India Company and the first Viceroy of India under the administration of the British Crown. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, third Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Salisbury was Secretary of State of India from 1874 to 1878.

Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (usually known to the British as the Indian Mutiny), the Government of India Act of 1858 made changes to the way India was governed at three levels:

1. In the imperial government of London.
2. In the central government in Calcutta.
3. In the chairs of provincial governments (and later in the provinces).

In London, a Cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member India Council were assigned, whose members had to meet, as a precondition for their appointment, the requirements of having lived at least ten years in India and that no more than ten years had passed since then. In addition the Secretary of State formulated policy instructions to be communicated to India, and consultation of the Council was required in most cases, but especially in matters related to the expenditure of India's revenue. The Law provided for a system of "dual government" in which the Council would ideally serve as a check on excesses in imperial policy and as a body of up-to-date knowledge of India. However, the Secretary of State also had special qualities to emerge, which allowed it to make unilateral decisions, and in reality the experience of the Council was sometimes obsolete.

From 1858 to 1947, twenty-seven individuals served as Secretaries of State of India, and headed the India Office; This list includes Sir Charles Wood (1859–1866), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1874–1878), 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland), John Morley (1905–1910), founder of the Minto-Morley Reforms, E. S. Montagu (1917–1922), an architect of the Montague-Chelmsford reforms, and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1945–1947), head of the 1946 Cabinet mission to India). The size of the Advisory Council was reduced over the next half century, but its powers remained unchanged. In 1907, for the first time, two Indians were appointed members of the Council. They were K.G. Gupta and Syed Hussain Bilgrami.

In Calcutta, the governor general remained at the head of the Government of India and was later known as the Viceroy because of his secondary role as representative of the Crown to the nominally sovereign princely states; However, he became responsible for the Secretary of State in London and through him access to Parliament was gained. The "double government" It had already been in operation during the administration of the British East India Company, since the time of the Pitt India Act of 1784.

The governor-general in Calcutta, the capital, and the governor in the subordinate presidency in Madras or Bombay, were required to consult their respective advisory councils; for example the executive orders in Calcutta, were issued in the name of the "Governor General in Council" (i.e. the Governor General with the advice of the Council). The "double government" of the Company had its critics, since, from the time of the system's conception, there were intermittent disputes between the Governor-General and his Council. Despite this, the Act of 1858 did not introduce important changes in the government.

However, in the years immediately following, which were also the years of reconstruction after the rebellion, Viceroy Lord Canning found the Council's collective decision-making to be too time-consuming, especially with respect to urgent tasks of the future, so he asked the "portfolio system" the creation of an Executive Council in which the affairs of each government department (the "portfolio") were assigned to the council and became the responsibility of a single member of the council. Thus departmental decisions Routine decisions would be made exclusively by the member in charge, but major decisions would require the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence of such consent, discussion of the entire Executive Council would be required. This innovation in the government of India was enacted 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, as an extension of the Executive Council to a maximum of twelve additional members, each appointed for a two-year term, where the Half of the members consisted of British government officials (official term) with voting permission, and the other half consisted of Indians and British domiciled in India (unofficial term), who only served in an advisory capacity. All laws passed by the Legislative Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincials in Madras and Bombay, required the final approval of the Secretary of State in London. This is why Sir Charles Wood, the Second Secretary of State, described the Government of India as "a despotism controlled from home."

On the other hand, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to petitions after the rebellion of 1857, especially Sayyid Ahmad Khan's demand for more consultation with the Indians, the Indians appointed were of the land's aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty, and far from being representatives. Indian affairs also came to be examined more closely in the British Parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.

With the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, the Council of India was abolished with effect from 1 April 1937 and a modified system of government was enacted. The Secretary of State for India represented the Government of India in the United Kingdom. He was assisted by a body of advisors of 8 to 12 members, at least half of whom were required to have held office in India for a minimum of 10 years, and not to have ceased to hold office more than two years before their appointment. as advisors of that Secretary of State.

The Crown-appointed Viceroy and Governor-General of India generally served for five years, although there was no fixed term, and received an annual salary of Rs. 250,800 P. A. (£18,810 P. A.). The viceroy headed the Viceroy's Executive Council, in which each member had responsibility for a department of the central administration. From 1 April 1937, the office of Governor General in Council, in which the viceroy and governor general at the same time maintained the ability to represent the Crown in relations with the princely states of India, were replaced by the designation of "His Majesty's Representative for the exercise of the functions of the Crown in its relations with the States of India, "or " Representative of the Crown ". The Executive Council was considerably expanded during the Second World War, and by 1947 it had 14 members (secretaries), each of whom earned a salary of Rs. P66,000 (£4,950 p.a.). The departments in 1946-1947 were:

• Foreign Affairs and Relations of the National Rice
• Home and Information and Dissemination
• Food and Agriculture
• Transport and Railways
• Labour
• Industries and Supplies, Works, Mines and Energy
• Education
• Defence
• Finance
• Trade
• Communications
• Health
• Law

Until 1946, the viceroy held the Department of Foreign Affairs and National Wealth Relations, as well as the direction of the Department of Politics in his capacity as Representative of the Crown. Each department was headed by a Secretary except for the Department of Railways, which was headed by a Chief Commissioner of Railways under the advice of a Secretary.

The viceroy and governor general was also the head of India's bicameral legislature, made up of an upper house (Council of State) and a lower house (the Legislative Assembly). The viceroy was the head of the Council of State, while the Legislative Assembly, which first opened in 1921, was headed by an elected president (appointed by the viceroy from 1921-1925). The Council of State was made up of 58 members (32 elected, and 26 nominated), while the Legislative Assembly was made up of 141 members (26 appointed officials, another 13 nominated, and 102 elected). The Council of State existed for periods of five years and the Legislative Assembly for periods of three years, although they could be dissolved sooner or later by the Viceroy. The legislature of India had the power to make laws for all persons resident in British India including all British subjects resident in India and for all British Indian subjects residing outside India. With the assent of the king-emperor and after copies of the amendment bill presented to both houses of the British Parliament, the viceroy could overrule the legislator and directly enact any measure in the perceived interests of British India or those of its residents, if the need arose.

From April 1, 1936, the Government of India Act created the new provinces of Sind (separated from the Bombay Presidency) and Orissa (separated from the province of Bihar and Orissa). Burma and Aden became separate Crown Colonies under the Act of 1 April 1937, ceasing to be part of the Indian Empire. From 1937 onwards, British India was divided into 17 administrations: the three presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Bengal, and the 14 provinces of the United Provinces, Punjab, Bihar, the central provinces and Berar, Assam, the province of India. North West Frontier (NTFP), Orissa, Sindh, British Balochistan, Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, Coorg, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Panth Piploda. The presidencies and the first eight provinces were each under the administration of a governor, while the last six provinces were each under the administration of a chief commissioner. The viceroy directly regulated the chief commissioner's provinces through his respective chief commissioner, while presidencies and provinces under governors were allowed greater autonomy under the Government of India Act.

Each presidency or province was headed by a governor, either in a bicameral provincial legislature (in the presidencies, the United Provinces, Bihar and Assam) or a unicameral legislature (in the Punjab, the Central Provinces and Berar, PFNM, Orissa and Sind). The governor of each province represented the presidency or the Crown in his capacity, and was assisted by ministers appointed by the members of each provincial legislature. Each provincial legislature had a duration of five years, except in special circumstances, such as war conditions. All bills passed by the provincial legislature were signed or rejected by the governor, who could also issue proclamations or promulgate ordinances while the legislator was in recess, if necessary.

Each province or presidency was made up of several divisions, each directed by a commissioner and was subdivided into districts, which were the basic units of administration and each was directed by a collector and a magistrate or deputy judge; In 1947, British India was made up of 230 districts.

1858-1914

Aftermath of the 1857 rebellion: criticism from India, the British response.

Rani Lakshmibai, one of the leading leaders of India's 1857 rebellion, who had previously lost his kingdom as a result of the James Broun-Ramsay Doctrine Period, Dalhousie's first Marquis, Lord Dalhousie. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Anglo-Oriental Muhammedan College, later Musulman University of Aligarh, wrote one of the early criticisms, The Causes of Indian Motin.. A portrait of remembrance of Queen Victoria in 1887 as Empress of India, 30 years after the great uprising.

Although the great uprising of 1857 shook the British enterprise in India, it was not derailed. After the rebellion, the British became more discerning. Thinkers devoted themselves to the causes of the rebellion, and three main lessons emerged from it. On a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication, as well as fostering camaraderie between the British and the Indians, not only between British Army officers and their Indian staff, but between civilians as well.

The Indian army was completely reorganized: the units composed of Muslims and Brahmins from the united provinces of Agra and Oudh, which had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded. New regiments were formed, which like The Sikhs and the Baluchis were made up of Indians who, in the opinion of the British, had shown firmness. Thereafter, the Indian Army remained unchanged in its organization until 1947.

The 1861 census revealed that the English population in India was 125,945 people. Of these, only 41,862 were civilians, compared to about 84,083 officers and soldiers in the Army of Europe. In 1880, the Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 natives, and 350,000 soldiers from the Indian armies. princely.

Princes and large landowners who did not join the rebellion were also considered to have, in the words of Viceroy Lord Canning, proven to be 'breakwaters in a storm.' They too were rewarded in the new British dominion by being officially recognized in the treaties that each State signed with the Crown. At the same time, it was considered that the peasants, for whose benefit the great land reforms of the United Provinces had been carried out, They had shown disloyalty, since in many cases they fought for their former owners against the British. Consequently, there were no further land reforms for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the kingdoms of large land areas (unlike Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).

Finally, the British were disenchanted with India's reaction to social change. Until the rebellion, they had attempted this enthusiastically through social reform, such as the banning of sati by Lord William Bentinck. It was at this time that they felt that the traditions and customs of India were too strong and too deep-rooted to be changed. easily; Consequently, there were no British social interventions, especially in matters related to religion.

Demographic history

The population of the territory that became the British Raj was 100 million in 1600 and remained almost stationary until the 19th century< /span>. The population of the Raj reached 255 million according to the first census of India carried out in 1881.

Population studies of India since 1881 have focused on topics such as total population, birth and death rates, growth rates, geographical distribution, literacy, rural-urban divide, cities of around a million inhabitants, and the three cities with populations of more than eight million: Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta.

Mortality rates decreased between 1920 and 1945, mainly due to biological immunization. Other factors include rising incomes and better living conditions, improved nutrition, safer and less environmentally polluting official health policies, and improvements in medical care.

Severe overcrowding in cities caused major public health problems, as noted in an official report from 1938:: In urban and industrial areas [...] the small spaces and high values of land and the need for workers to live in the vicinity of their work [...] all tend to intensify congestion and overcrowding. The most impressive downtown homes are built close together, touching eaves to eaves, and often back to back [...] In fact, space is so valuable that, instead of streets and highways, winding paths provide the only approach to houses. Neglect of sanitation is often evidenced by piles of rotting garbage and sewage lagoons, while the absence of latrines enhances overall air and soil pollution.

Legal modernization

Singha argues that after 1857 the colonial government strengthened and expanded its infrastructure through the judicial system, legal procedures and statutes. The new legislation amalgamated the Crown and the former East India Company courts and a new penal code was introduced, as well as new codes of civil and criminal procedure, based largely on English law. From 1860 to 1880 the Raj established mandatory registration of births, deaths and marriages, as well as adoptions, property titles and wills. The goal was to create a stable and usable public registry for identity verification.

However, there was opposition from Muslims and Hindus who complained that the new census and registration procedures threatened to expose female privacy. Purdah rules prohibited women from uttering their husband's name or holding her photograph. An all-India census was carried out between 1868 and 1871, using the total number of women heading a household rather than individual names and selecting groups that Raj reformers wanted to control statistically, including those reputed to practice female infanticide, prostitutes, lepers and eunuchs.

It became increasingly evident to officials that the traditions and customs of India were too strong and too deep-rooted to be easily changed. There were few new social interventions and especially in matters related to religion, even when the British felt that the issue was growing strongly (as in the case of the remarriage of Hindu girl widows).

Indeed, Murshid argued that the modernization of laws placed more limits on women, who remained bound by the restrictions of their religion, caste and customs, but now with an overlay of British Victorian attitudes. Their inheritance rights to own and manage property were reduced; the new English laws were considerably harsher. Court rulings reduced the rights of second wives and their children regarding inheritance. A woman had to belong to either a father or a husband to have rights.

Educational mission

Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859) presented his skeptical interpretation of English history as an upward progression that would always lead to more freedom and more progress. Macaulay was both a reformer who was involved in transforming the Indian education system. He would rely on the English language so India could join the metropolis in constant progress. Macaulay took Burke's emphasis on moral standard and implemented it in royal school reforms, giving the British Empire a profound moral mission to civilize the natives.

Yale professor Karuna Mantena argued that the civilizing mission would not last long, because benevolent reformers lost in key debates, such as those that followed the Indian rebellion of 1857, and the Governor Edward Eyre scandal., for the brutal suppression of the Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. The rhetoric continued but became an excuse for British misrule and racism. It was no longer credible that the natives could truly progress, but had to be governed with a heavy hand, and with democratic opportunities postponed indefinitely. As a result:

The central principles of liberal imperialism were challenged as various forms of rebellion, resistance and instability in the colonies, thereby precipitating a wide-ranging reassessment [...] of the "good government" equation 3. 4; with the reform of native society, which was at the center of the discourse of the liberal empire, it would be the object of growing skepticism.

The English historian Peter Cain challenged Mantena, arguing that the imperialists truly believed that British domination would bring benefits to the subjects of "ordered liberty", so that Britain could fulfill your moral duty and achieve your own greatness. Much of the debate took place in Britain itself, and the imperialists worked hard to convince the general population that the civilizing mission was already underway. This campaign served to reinforce imperial support at home, and therefore, says Cain, to reinforce the moral authority of the elite knights who ran the Empire.

Education

The British made the spread of English education a high priority. During the time of the East India Company, Thomas Babington Macaulay had made school teaching in English a priority for the Raj in his famous February minute of 1835 and managed to implement the ideas previously expressed by William Bentinck, governor general between 1828 and 1835. Bentinck favored the replacement of Persian with English as the official language, the use of English as a medium of instruction, and the formation of English-speaking Indians as teachers. He was inspired by utilitarian ideas and called for 'useful learning'. However, Bentinck's proposals were rejected by London officials.

The missionaries opened their own schools that taught Christianity and the three rules.^{[citation needed]} Bellenoit maintained that as public officials became more isolated, they resorted to To scientific racism, missionary schools adopted more Indians, and grew sympathizing in favor of Indian culture, and firmly opposed to scientific racism.

The universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were established in 1857, just before the Rebellion. By 1890 some 60,000 Indians had enrolled, mainly in the liberal arts or law.^{[citation needed]} About a third entered public administration, and another third They became lawyers. The result was a highly educated, professional state bureaucracy. In 1887 mid-level civil service positions were 21,000, 45% were held by Hindus, 7% by Muslims, 19% by Eurasians (European Indian father and mother), and the 29% by Europeans. Of the 1,000 higher-level jobs, almost all were held by Britons, usually with a degree from Oxford or Cambridge.

The government often worked with local philanthropists, opening 186 universities and colleges by 1911; 36,000 students were enrolled (more than 90% men). By 1939 the number of institutions had doubled and enrollment reached 145,000. The curriculum followed classical British standards of the type set by Oxford and Cambridge and emphasized English literature and European history. However, by the 1920s students had become adherents of Indian nationalism.

Economic history

Economic trends

The Indian economy grew at about 1% per year from 1880 to 1920, and the population also grew by 1% On average the result was, no long-term change in per capita income levels, although the cost of living had become higher. Agriculture was still dominant, with most peasants at subsistence level. Extensive irrigation systems were built, providing an impetus for the shift to cash crops^{[citation needed]} for export and for raw materials for Indian industry, especially of jute, cotton, sugar cane, coffee and tea. India's overall share of GDP fell sharply from more than 20% to less than 5% in the colonial period. Historians have bitterly divided the issues of economic history, with the Nationalist school (after Nehru) arguing that India was poorer at the end of British rule than at the beginning and that impoverishment was widespread because of the British.

Industry

The businessman Jamsetji Tata (1839-1904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India Spinning and Weaving and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian factories produced cheap coarse yarn (and subsequent cloth) with local short-staple cotton and cheap machinery imported from Britain, Tata did much better by importing expensive, long-staple cotton from Egypt. and the purchase of more complex ring screw machinery from the United States to have finer spinning that could compete with imports from Great Britain.

In the 1890s, plans were put in place to enter heavy industry using funds from India. The Raj did not provide the capital but, aware of Britain's declining position against the US and Germany in the steel industry, they wanted steel factories in India. He undertook to buy any surplus steel, otherwise Tata would not be able to sell. The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), now headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859–1932), opened its plant at Jamshedpur in Bihar in 1908. It used American, not British, technology and became the leading producer of iron and steel in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945. TISCO became India's proud symbol of technical skill, management ability, business talent., and high wages for industrial workers. The Tata family, like most of India's big businessmen, were Indian nationalists, but they did not trust the Congress because it seemed too hostile to the socialist Raj, and also provided too much support for unions.

Railway system

British India built a modern railway system at the end of the 19th century that was the fourth largest in the world. The railroads were initially privately owned and operated. It was administered by the British, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only unskilled workers were Indians.

The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide the land and guarantee an annual return of up to 5% during the early years of functioning. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the option that the government could purchase them sooner.

Two new railway companies, Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR) began in 1853 to 1854 to build and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta. The first passenger train line in northern India between Allahabad and Kanpur opened in 1859.

In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to build a network of trunk lines connecting the major regions of India. Encouraged by government assurances, investment flowed and a number of new railway companies were established, leading to the rapid expansion of the railway system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own railway systems and the network was expanded. It spread to the regions that became the modern states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The mileage of this network increased from 1,349 kilometers (838.2 miles) in 1860 to 25,495 kilometers (15,841.8 miles) in 1880, mostly radiating from within the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

Most of the railway construction was carried out by Indian companies supervised by British engineers. The system was largely built, using a gauge width, strong tracks and solid bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of railway services with diverse ownership and management, operating on extensive narrow gauge networks. In 1900, the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to manage it. During the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grain to the ports of Bombay and Karachi en route to Great Britain, Mesopotamia and East Africa. With shipments of equipment and cut parts coming from Britain, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the military; workshops were converted to artillery manufacturing; some locomotives and cars were sent to the Middle East. The railroads could barely keep up with the increased demand. Towards the end of the war, the railroads fell into disrepair from lack of maintenance and were unprofitable. In 1923, both the GIPR and the EIR were nationalized.

Headrick showed that until the 1930s, both Raj lines and private companies hired only Europeans, supervisors, civil engineers and even operating personnel such as locomotive engineers. Government Stores policies required that bids for railway contracts had to be made at the India Office in London, closing out most Indian companies. The railway companies had purchased most of their hardware and parts of Great Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO Steel was unable to obtain orders for the rails until the war emergency.

World War II severely crippled the railways, so detained material was diverted to the Middle East and railway workshops became munitions workshops. After independence in 1947, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two property lines of the erstwhile princely states of India, were merged to form a single nationalized unit called Indian Railways.

India offers the example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well-built system designed for military reasons (after the mutiny of 1857), in the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was oversized and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. However, it did capture the imagination of the Indians, who saw their railways as the symbol of an industrial modernity, but one that was not realized until after Independence. Christensen (1996), who viewed for a colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private versus public interest, concluded that railroads were a creature of the state that hindered success, because Railroad spending had to go through the same time and political budgeting process as the rest of state spending did. Railway costs, therefore, could not be adapted to the specific needs of the railways or their passengers.

Irrigation

British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, canals and irrigation systems, plus railways, telegraphy, roads and ports. The Ganges Canal reached 350 miles from Hardwar to Cawnpore, and supplied thousands of miles of distribution canals. In 1900 the Raj had the largest irrigation system in the world. A success story was Assam, a jungle in 1840. Which in 1900 housed 4,000,000 acres of cultivation, especially tea plantations. In total, the amount of irrigated land multiplied by a factor of eight.

Historian David Gilmour said:

By the 1870s the peasants in the districts irrigated by the Ganges Canal were visibly better fed and clothed than before; At the end of the century, the new network of canals in Punjab has continued to be the most prosperous production of the peasantry.

Policies

In the second half of the 19th century, both in the direct administration of India by the British Crown, and the Technological change, ushered in the industrial revolution, which had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Great Britain.

In fact, many of the major changes in transportation and communications (normally associated with the administration of the Crown of India) had already begun before the mutiny. Since Dalhousie had accepted the technological revolution underway in Britain, India also saw the rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals and bridges were quickly built in India and telegraphic links were also quickly established so that raw materials such as cotton from the interior of India could be transported as efficiently as possible to ports. like the one in Bombay, for later export to England.

Likewise, the materials produced from England were transported again with the same efficiency, and put up for sale in the flourishing markets of India. Massive railway projects, serious railway and government work were started, of which pensions brought large numbers of upper caste Hindus into public service for the first time. The Indian civil service was prestigious and well paid, but remained politically neutral.

British cotton imports covered 55% of the Indian market in 1875. Industrial production as it developed in European factories was unknown until the 1850s, the first cotton mills were opened in Bombay, which posed a challenge for production based on the home work or family work system.

Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; With land tax revenues at 15% of national income during the Mogul era, compared to 1% at the end of the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the town's economy increased from 44% to 54% during Mogul times by the end of the colonial period. India's GDP per capita decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 in 1857, although it later increased to $618 in 1947.

Economic impact

Historians continue to debate whether the long-term impact of British rule was to accelerate India's economic development, or to distort and retard it. In 1780, the British conservative politician Edmund Burke raised the question of India's position: he vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other senior officials had ruined India's economy and society. The Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) followed this line of attack, saying that the new economy brought by the English in the 18th century it was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of the Mughal Empire.

Ray accused the British of depleting food and money reserves and imposing high taxes that caused the terrible Bengal famine in 1770, which killed a third of Bengal's population. P. J. Marshall shows that recent studies have reinterpreted the idea that the prosperity of the previously benign Mughal administration gave way to poverty and anarchy. He argues that the British takeover made no break with the past, which largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers. and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the remainder of the 18th century. Marshall emphasizes that the British partnered with Indian bankers and created revenue through local tax administrators, and maintained the old Mughal tax rates.

Many historians agree that the East India Company inherited a system of onerous taxes that took away a third of the production of India's cultivators.

Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as foreign aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation (supported by many Indian and Western scholars) that the The British were not in complete control, but were players in what was primarily an Indian game and in which their rise to power depended on excellent cooperation with Indian elites.

Marshall admitted that much of his interpretation remains highly controversial among many historians.

1860 to 1890: New middle class, Indian National Congress

In 1880, a new middle class had emerged in India and spread throughout the country. On the other hand, there was a growing solidarity among its members, created by the "joint stimuli of encouragement and irritation. " The encouragement that this class conveyed came from their success in education and their ability to avail themselves of the advantages of education, as well as in employment in the Indian public service. It also came from the proclamation of Queen Victoria in 1858 in which she had declared: "We have united ourselves with the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligation of duty that unites us to all other matters." The Indians were especially encouraged when Canada granted them dominion status in 1867 and established a self-governing democratic constitution. Finally, encouragement came from the work of contemporary oriental scholars such as Monier Monier-Williams and Max Müller, whose works featured ancient India. as a great civilization. Irritation, by contrast, came not only from incidents of racial discrimination at the hands of the British in India, but also from government actions, such as the use of Indian troops in imperial campaigns (e.g. However, it was Viceroy Lord Ripon's partial reversal of the Ilbert Bill. (1883), a legislative measure that had proposed putting Indian judges in the Bengal Presidency on equal terms with the British, which transformed discontent into political action. On December 28, 1885, professionals and intellectuals of this educated middle class, many of the new-British universities founded in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, and familiar with the ideas of British political philosophers, especially the utilitarians set up in Bombay. The seventy men founded the Indian National Congress; Womesh Chandra Bonerjee was elected as the first president. The Commission was staffed by a Westernized elite, and no effort was made at the time to broaden the base.

During its first twenty years, Congress mainly debated British policy towards India; However, their debates created a new perspective of India that held Britain responsible for draining India's wealth. Britain did this, nationalists claimed, because of unfair trade, restriction of Indian industry, and use of Indian taxes to pay the high salaries of British civil servants in India.

1870 -1907: Social reformers, the moderates against the extremists

Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a constitutional and moderate nationalist social reformer, was elected president of the National Congress of India in 1905.

The extremist of the Bal Gangadhar Tilak Congress, speaking in 1907, when the party was divided into moderate and extremist. Sitting on the table is Aurobindo Ghosh and on his right in the chair is Lala Lajpat Rai, both of Tilak's allies.

Baring's main achievements were as an energetic reformer, who was dedicated to improving the quality of government in the British Raj. He began large-scale famine relief, reduced taxes, and overcame bureaucratic obstacles in an effort to reduce both hunger and widespread social unrest. Although appointed by a Liberal government, his policies were very similar to those of viceroys appointed by Conservative governments.

Social reform was in the air by the 1880s. For example, Pandita Ramabai, poet, Sanskrit expert, and an advocate for the emancipation of Indian women, took up the cause of widows seeking to remarry., especially of the Brahamin widows, later converted to Christianity. By 1900 reform movements had taken root in the Indian National Congress. Congress member Gokhale Gopal Krishna founded the Servants of Indian Society, which lobbied for legislative reform (for example, for a law to allow remarriage of Hindu widowed girls), and whose members took vows of poverty, He also worked in the untouchable community.

In 1905, a deep chasm opened between the moderates, led by Gokhale, who minimized public unrest, and the new "extremists" who not only advocated agitation, but also pursued the pursuit of social reform as a distraction from nationalism. Prominent among the extremists was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who tried to mobilize Indians by appealing to an explicit Hindu political identity, shown, for example, in the annual public Ganapati festivals that were inaugurated in western India.

Partition of Bengal (1905–1911)

Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement, and known as the father of the Indian riots and builder of modern India. Virret George Nathaniel Curzon (1899–1905). He promoted many reforms but his partition of Bengal in Muslim and Hindu provinces indigned the people. Sir Khawaja Salimullah, a bengali of aristocratic influence and ally of the British, who strongly favored the creation of East Bengal and Assam. Cover of an issue of a 1909 Tamil magazine "Vijaya" showing "Madre India" with its diverse progenie and war cry" Vande Mataram.

The then Viceroy, Lord Curzon (1899-1905) was unusually energetic in the pursuit of efficiency and reform. His agenda included the creation of the North West Frontier Province; small changes in public service; acceleration of secretariat operations; the creation of a gold standard to ensure a stable currency; creation of a Train Board; irrigation reform; the reduction of peasant debts; reducing the cost of telegrams; archaeological research and the preservation of antiquities; improvements in universities; police reforms; the improvement of the functions of native states; a new Department of Trade and Industry; industry promotion; revised land revenue policies; lower taxes; the creation of agricultural banks; the creation of a Department of Agriculture; sponsorship of agricultural research; the establishment of an Imperial Library; the creation of an Imperial Cadet Corps; new famine codes; and actually reduce the nuisance of smoke in Calcutta.

The problem arose for Curzon when he split the largest administrative subdivision in British India, the province of Bengal, into the Muslim-majority province of East Bengal and Assam and the Hindu-majority province of West Bengal (present-day Indian states of Bengal Western, Bihar and Odisha). Curzon's act, the partition of Bengal - which some considered administratively positive, communally burdened - sowed the seeds of division among the Indians of Bengal, who had been contemplated by the various colonial administrations since the times of William Bentinck, but never acted upon. accordingly, to transform nationalist politics into something like nothing else before it. Bengal's Hindu elite, including many who owned land in eastern Bengal that was leased to Muslim peasants, protested fervently.

In the wake of the partition of Bengal, which was a strategy established by Lord Curzon to weaken the nationalist movement, Tilak encouraged the Swadeshi movement and the boycott movement. This movement consisted of a boycott of foreign products and also a social boycott of any Indian who used them. The Swadeshi movement was about the use of natively produced goods. Once foreign products were boycotted, there was a gap that had to be filled by the production of those goods in India itself. Bal Gangadhar Tilak says Swadeshi movements and boycott are two sides of the same coin. Bengal's large Hindu middle class (the bhadralok), angered by the prospect of Bengalis being outnumbered in the new province of Bengal by Biharis and Oriyas, felt that Curzon's act was punishment for their political assertiveness. Widespread protests against Curzon's decision took the predominant form of the Swadeshi ('buy India') campaign led by two-time Congress president Surendranath Banerjee, and the boycott of British products involved.

The rallying cry for both types of protest was the slogan Bande Mataram ('Greeting to the mother'), which invokes a mother goddess, which remains in various forms for Bengal, India, and the goddess Hindu Kali. Sri Aurobindo never went beyond the law when he edited the magazine Vande Mataram; that he preached independence, but within the limits of peace as far as possible. Their objective was passive resistance. Unrest spread from Calcutta to the surrounding regions of Bengal as the students returned to their towns and cities. Some engaged in theft to finance terrorist activities such as the bombing of public buildings, but the plots generally failed in the face of intense police work. The Swadeshi boycott movement cut imports of British textiles by 25%. Swadeshi fabric, although more expensive and slightly less comfortable than its Lancashire competitor, was worn as a mark of national pride by people across India.

1906–1909: Muslim League, Minto-Morley reforms

Main religions in 1909, Map of British India in 1909 showing the majority religions in each territory according to the 1901 census.

Hakim Ajmal Khan, one of the founders of the Muslim League, was elected president of the National Congress of India in 1921.

Lord Minto, the conservative viceroy. He received the Muslim delegation in June 1906. The 1909 Minto-Morley reforms defined separate constituencies for Muslims.

Hindu protests against the partition of Bengal led the Muslim elite in India to organize the India Muslim League in 1906. The League favored the partition of Bengal, as there was a Muslim majority in the eastern half. In 1905, when Tilak and Lajpat Rai attempted to rise to leadership positions in the Congress, and the Congress itself united around the symbolism of Kali, Muslim fears increased. The Muslim elite, including Dhaka Nawab Khwaja and Salimullah, hoped that a new province with a Muslim majority would directly benefit Muslims who aspired to political power.

The first steps towards self-government in British India were taken at the end of the 19th century with the appointment of Indian councilors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British later expanded participation in legislative councils with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Corporations and District Municipal Boards were created for local administration; Among them were elected members from India.

The Indian Councils Act of 1909, known as the Morley-Minto reforms (John Morley was secretary of state for India, and Minto was viceroy) - granted limited roles for Indians in central and provincial legislatures. Upper class Indians, rich landowners and businessmen were favored. The Muslim community made an independent electorate and granted dual representation. The objectives were quite conservative, but they advanced the elective principle.

The partition of Bengal was annulled in 1911 and announced at the Delhi Durbar in which King George V came in person and was crowned Emperor of India. He announced the capital, moved from Calcutta to Delhi, to a Muslim fortress. Morley was especially vigilant in crushing revolutionary groups.

1914–1947

1914–1918: World War I, Lucknow Pact

Indian nurses attending wounded soldiers with the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia during World War I. Sepoy Khudadad Khan, the first Indian to be awarded the Victoria Cross prize, the highest award of the British Empire during the war. Khan, from the Chakwal district, Punyab (today Pakistan) was fighting in the western front in 1914. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (seated on the carriage, on the right, the lower eyes, with the black flat-top hat) received a great welcome in Karachi in 1916 after his return to South African India.

The First World War would prove to be a turning point in the imperial relationship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and India. Shortly before the outbreak of war, the Government of India had indicated that they could provide two divisions plus a cavalry brigade, with an additional division in case of emergency. About 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers from the Indian Army British were part of the war, mainly in Iraq and the Middle East. Its participation had widespread cultural dissemination, with news spreading of how soldiers bravely fought and died alongside British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions such as Canada and Australia. India's international profile rose during the 1970s. 1920, as it became a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participated, under the name "Les Indes Anglaises" (British India), at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp. Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, the war led to demands for greater autonomy for Indians.

After the 1906 split between the moderates and the extremists, organized political activity by the Congress had remained fragmented until 1914, when Bal Gangadhar Tilak was released and began sounding out other Congress leaders for possible reunification. That, however, had to wait until the demise of Tilak's main moderate opponents, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Pherozeshah Mehta, in 1915, whereupon an agreement was reached so that Tilak's expelled group could re-enter the Congress.

At the 1916 Lucknow session of the Congress, Tilak's supporters were able to push through a more radical resolution calling on the British to declare that it was their "object and intention to confer... self-government on the India at an early date." Soon, other rumors began to appear in public pronouncements: in 1917, in the Imperial Legislative Council, Madan Mohan Malaviya spoke of the expectations that the war had generated in India, "I dare say that the war has set the clock fifty years forward...(the) reforms after the war will have to be such,...as will satisfy the aspirations of its (Indian) people to take his rightful part in the administration of his own country."

The 1916 Lucknow session of the Congress was also the site of an unanticipated mutual effort by the Congress and the Muslim League, the occasion for which was provided by the wartime association between Germany and Turkey. Since the Turkish sultan, or Khalifah, had also sporadically claimed guardianship of the Islamic holy sites of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, since the British and their allies were now in conflict with Turkey, doubts began to grow among some Muslims. of India on "religious neutrality" of the British, doubts that had already arisen as a result of the reunification of Bengal in 1911, a decision that was seen as ill-disposed to the Muslims.

In the Lucknow Pact, the League joined with the Congress in the proposal for greater self-government which was a campaign for Tilak and his followers; In return, the Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims in the provincial legislatures as well as the Imperial Legislative Council. In 1916, the Muslim League had anywhere between 500 and 800 members and yet did not have its largest following among the Muslims of India in recent years; In the League itself, the pact did not have unanimous support, largely after having been negotiated by a group of "party youth" Muslims of the United Provinces (UP), most prominently, two brothers and Mohammad Shaukat Ali, who had embraced the Pan Islamic cause; However, he did have the support of a young lawyer from Bombay, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who later He rose to leadership roles in both the League and the Indian independence movement. In later years, as all the ramifications of the pact unfolded, it was seen as benefiting the Muslim minority elites of provinces like UP and Bihar more than the Muslim majorities of Punjab and Bengal, however, at that time, the &# 34;Lucknow Pact', was an important milestone in the nationalist agitation and was seen by the British.

During 1916, two Home Rule Leagues were founded in the Indian National Congress by Tilak and Annie Besant, respectively, to promote home rule among Indians, and also to raise the stature of the founders within the Congress itself. Mrs. Besant, for her part, also wanted to demonstrate the superiority of this new form of organized agitation, which had achieved some success in the Irish Home Rule movement, to the political violence that intermittently plagued the subcontinent during the 1907s. - 1914. The two Leagues focused their attention on complementary geographical regions: Tilak's in western India, in the South Bombay Presidency, and Mrs. Besant's in the rest of the country, but especially in the Madras Presidency. and in regions such as Sindh and Gujarat that had until then been considered politically inactive by the Congress. Both leagues quickly acquired new members - approximately thirty thousand each in a little over a year - and began publishing low-cost newspapers. Their propaganda was also directed at political-religious posters, pamphlets and songs, and later at mass meetings, which not only attracted larger numbers than in previous sessions of the Congress, but also completely new social groups, such as non-Brahmins, merchants, farmers, students, and lower-level government workers. Although they did not reach the magnitude or character of a nationwide mass movement, the Home Rule Leagues both deepened and broadened the political agitation organized by self-government in India. British authorities reacted by imposing restrictions on the Leagues, including blocking students from meetings and banning the two leaders from traveling to certain provinces.

The year 1915 also saw the return of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in India. Already known in India as a result of his pro-Indian civil liberties protests in South Africa, Gandhi followed the advice of his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale and chose not to make any public pronouncements during the first year of his return, but instead He spent the year traveling, observing the country first-hand, and writing. Previously, while staying in South Africa, Gandhi, a lawyer by profession, had represented an indigenous community, which, although small, was diverse enough to be a microcosm of India itself. By addressing the challenge of maintaining this community and at the same time confronting colonial authority, he had created a technique of nonviolent resistance, which he called Satyagraha (or, The Struggle for Truth). For Gandhi, Satyagraha was different from "passive resistance", by then a familiar technique of social protest, which he considered as a practical strategy adopted by the weak against superior strength; Satyagraha, on the other hand, was for him the "last resort of those strong enough in their commitment to the truth than to submit to suffering in its cause." Ahimsa or "non-violence", which formed the underpinning of Satyagraha, came to represent the twin pillar, with Truth, of Gandhi's orthodox religious outlook on life. During the years 1907-1914, Gandhi tested the technique of Satyagraha in a series of protests in favor of the Indian community in South Africa against unjust racial laws.

Furthermore, during his stay in South Africa, in his essay, Hind Swaraj, (1909), Gandhi formulated his vision of Swaraj, or "self-government" of India on the basis of three vital ingredients: solidarity among Indians of different religions, but most of all between Hindus and Muslims; the elimination of untouchables from Indian society; and the exercise of swadeshi – the boycott of foreign manufactured goods and the revival of India's cottage industry. The first two, he felt, were essential for India to be an equal and equal society. tolerant, one in keeping with the principles of Truth and non-violence, while the latter, making Indians more self-sufficient, would break the cycle of dependency that would not only perpetrate the direction and tenor of British domination in India, but also the British commitment to it. At least until 1920, the British presence itself was not an obstacle in the conception of swaraj; of Gandhi; rather, it was the inability of the Indians to create a modern society.

1917-1919: Satyagraha, Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, Jallianwala Bagh

Gandhi made his political debut in India in 1917 in the Champaran district of Bihar, near the Nepal border, where he was invited by a group of disgruntled tenant farmers who, for many years, had been forced to plant indigo (for dyestuffs) on a portion of their land and then sell it at below-market prices to British planters who had leased the land to them. Upon arrival in the district, Gandhi joined other agitators, including a young Congress leader, Rajendra Prasad, from Bihar, who would become a loyal supporter of Gandhi and go on to play a leading role in the Indian independence movement. When Gandhi was ordered to leave by the local British authorities, he refused on moral grounds, creating the refusal of him as a form of individual Satyagraha. Soon, under pressure from the viceroy in Delhi who was anxious to maintain internal peace during wartime, the provincial government rescinded Gandhi's expulsion order, and later agreed to an official inquiry into the case. Although, the British planters eventually surrendered, they were not won over to the farmers' cause, and therefore did not produce the optimal result of a Gandhian Satyagraha that he had hoped for; Similarly, the farmers themselves, though happy with the resolution, responded enthusiastically to at least the concurrent projects of rural empowerment and education that Gandhi had inaugurated in consonance with his ideal of swaraj. The following year, Gandhi launched two more satyagrahas – both in his native Gujarat – one in the rural Kaira district where protesting land-owning farmers increased land-income and the other in the city of Ahmedabad, where workers in a textile factory Indian-owned businesses were concerned about their low wages. The satyagraha in Ahmedabad took the form of Gandhi fasting and supporting workers in a strike, which eventually led to an agreement. In Kaira, by contrast, although farmers received publicity from Gandhi's presence, the satyagraha itself, which consisted of farmers' collective decision to withhold payment, was not an immediate success, as the British authorities refused to Go backwards. The agitation in Kaira earned Gandhi another lifelong lieutenant in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who had organized the farmers, and who would also go on to play a leading role in the Indian independence movement. Champaran, Kaira, and Ahmedabad They were important milestones in the history of new methods of social protest in Gandhian India.

In 1916, faced with the 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 catastrophe in the Mesopotamian campaign, that the war would probably last Longer, the new viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, warned that the Government of India had to be more sensitive to Indian opinion. Towards the end of the year, after talks with the government in London, he suggested that the British They demonstrate their good faith - in light of the Indian war role - through a series of public actions, including awarding titles and honors to princes, granting commissions in the army to Indians, and eliminating taxes. much-maligned cotton specials - but, most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete measures. After further discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, announced the British objective of 'increasing the association of Indians in all branches of administration, and the gradual development of autonomous institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. Although the plan provides for limited self-government at first only in the provinces with India - with emphasis on the British Empire - which represented the first British proposal for any form of representative government in a non-white colony.

Previously, at the start of the First World War, the redeployment of most of the British army in India to Europe and Mesopotamia, had directed the previous viceroy, Lord Harding, to worry about the " risks involved in stripping India of troops. Revolutionary violence had already been a cause of concern in British India; Consequently, in 1915, to strengthen its powers during what was seen to be a time of greatest vulnerability, the Government of India passed the Defense of India Act, allowing it to intern politically dangerous dissidents without due process, and It adds to the power already had - under the Press Act 1910 - both to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press. It was under the Defense of India Act that the Ali brothers were imprisoned in 1916, and Annie Besant, a European woman, and normally more troublesome to imprison, in 1917. Now, as constitutional reform began to be discussed in earnest, the British began to consider how the new Indian moderates might introduce themselves into the fold of constitutional politics. and, at the same time, how the hand of established constitutionalists could be strengthened. However, since the Government of India wanted to ensure against any sabotage of the reform process by extremists, and since its reform plan was devised during a time when extremist violence had decreased as a result of greater government control, but They also began to consider how some of their rapid wartime powers could be extended into peacetime.

Consequently, in 1917, just as Edwin Montagu announced the new constitutional reforms, a commission chaired by a British judge, Mr. SAT Rowlatt, was charged with investigating "revolutionary conspiracies", with the stated objective of expanding the wartime powers of the government. The Rowlatt Committee submitted its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial insurgency: Bengal, the Bombay Presidency, and the Punjab. To combat the acts subversives in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers similar to its wartime authority, which included the possibility of trying sedition cases by a panel of three judges, and without juries, imposition of the values of suspects, government that supervises suspects' residences, and the power of provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention centers without trial.

With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By the end of 1919, 1.5 million Indians had served in the armed forces in both combat and non-combat roles, and India had lent £146 million in revenue to the war. together with disruptions in domestic and international trade had the effect of roughly doubling the overall price index in India between 1914 and 1920. Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a growing unemployment crisis, and After the war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and the provinces of Bengal, a situation that was made only worse by the monsoon of 1918–1919 and by speculation and profiteering. The global flu epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to general concerns; the former among the population who are already experiencing economic problems, and the second among public officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.

To combat what it viewed as a looming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt Committee's recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills. Although the bills were authorized for legislative consideration by Edwin Montagu, who they reluctantly made, with the accompanying statement, "I abhor the suggestion on its face of the preservation of the Defense of India Act in peacetime to the extent that Rowlatt and his friends think necessary". In the subsequent discussion and vote in the Imperial Legislative Council, all Indian members expressed their opposition to the bills. The Government of India was, however, able to use its "official majority" to guarantee the passage of notes in early 1919. However, what happened, in deference to Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first bill, which now allowed extrajudicial powers, but for a period of exactly three years and for the processing only of "anarchic and revolutionary movements", completely dropping the second modification involved in the bill of the Indian Penal Code. Even so, when the new Law was approved Rowlatt's aroused widespread outrage throughout India, and brought Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.

Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally submitted their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter. After further discussion by the Government and Parliament in Britain, and The other tour by the Franchise and Functions Commission for the purpose of identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act 1919 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms) was passed in December 1919. The new law expanded both the provincial and imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India's appeal to the "official majority" in favorable votes. Although departments such as defence, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications, and tax revenues were withheld by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments such as public health, education, land rent, local autonomy were moved to the provinces. The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas such as education, agriculture, the development of infrastructure, and local self-government became the exclusive domain of India's ministers and legislators, and ultimately India's electors, while others, such as irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of the media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council. The new law also makes it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps..

A greater number of Indians were now emancipated, although, by national vote, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate. In the provincial legislatures, the The British continued to exercise some control by allocating seats to special interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to British rule and less confrontational, were allocated more seats than their urban counterparts. Seats were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen and university graduates. The head of 'communal representation', an integral part of the Minto-Morley reforms, and more recently of the Lucknow Pact Muslim League Congress, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for Muslims, Sikhs, Christian Indians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both the Provincial and Imperial legislative councils. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most important opportunity yet for the exercise of legislative power, especially at the provincial level; However, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of 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. Their scope of implementation is satisfactory to India's political leaders, famously expressed by Annie Besant as something 'unworthy of England to offer and India to accept.'

The Amritsar Massacre or "Amritsar massacre", took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in the predominantly Sikh northern city of Amritsar. After several days of unrest Brigadier General Reginald E.H. Dyer banned public gatherings and Sunday 13 April 1919 fifty soldiers of the British Indian Army under Dyer began shooting at an unarmed gathering of thousands of men, women and children without warning. Death estimates vary widely, with the Government of India reporting 379 dead, 1,100 injured. The Indian National Congress estimates three times the death toll. Dyer was retired from service, but became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the Raj. Historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.

1920: Lack of cooperation, Khilafat, Simon Commission, Jinnah's fourteen points

Mahatma Gandhi with Dr. Annie Besant en route a meeting in Madras in September 1921. Previously on Madurai, on September 21, 1921, Gandhi first adopted the cap as a symbol of his identification with India's poverty. Photograph of the staff and students of the National College, Lahore, founded in 1921 by Lala Lajpat Rai by students preparing for the non-cooperation movement. Standing, the fourth from the right, is the revolutionary future Bhagat Singh.

In 1920, after the British government refused to back down, Gandhi began his campaign of non-cooperation, which led many Indians to return British awards and honors, to resign from public service, and again to boycott British products. Furthermore, Gandhi reorganized the Congress, transforming it into a mass movement and opening its members to even the poorest Indians. Although Gandhi stopped the non-cooperation movement in 1922 after the violent incident at Chauri chaura, the movement revived again in the mid-1920s.

The visit in 1928 of the British Simon Commission, charged with the institution of constitutional reform in India, led to widespread protests throughout the country. Previously, in 1925, non-violent Congress protests had resumed too, this time in Gujarat, and led by Patel, who organized farmers to refuse to pay higher land taxes; The success of this protest, the Bardoli Satyagraha, brought Gandhi back into the fold of active politics.

1929-1937: from the CID, Government of India Act

The British PM Ramsay MacDonald on Gandhi's right at the 2nd Round Table Conference. First floor, fourth left, is B. R. Ambedkar representing the "Dalit." A cover of the first day issued on April 1, 1937 commemorating the separation of Burma from the British Indian Empire.

At its annual meeting in Lahore, the Indian National Congress, under President Jawaharlal Nehru, issued a demand for Purna Swaraj (Hindi: "complete independence), or Purna Swarajya. The statement was prepared by the Congress Working Committee, which included Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Gandhi subsequently led an expanded civil disobedience movement, culminating in 1930 with the Salt Satyagraha, in which thousands of Indians challenged the salt tax by marching to the sea and making their own salt by evaporating seawater.. Although many, including Gandhi, were arrested, the British government finally relented, and in 1931 Gandhi traveled to London to negotiate new reform at round tables.

Locally, British control was based on the Indian civil service, but it faced increasing difficulties. Fewer and fewer young people in Britain were interested in joining, and continuing distrust of Indians resulted in a declining base in terms of quality and quantity. By 1945 Indians were numerically dominant in the ICS and loyalist issue was divided between Empire and Independence. The finances of the Raj depended on land taxes, and these became a problem in the 1930s. Epstein argues that after 1919 it became more and more difficult to collect income from the land. The Raj's suppression of civil disobedience after 1934 temporarily increased the power of the revenue agents, but after 1937 they were forced by new Congress-controlled provincial governments to return confiscated lands. Again, the outbreak of war strengthened them, in the face of the Quit India movement the tax collectors had to rely on military force and by direct British control 1946-1947 they quickly disappeared in much of the countryside.

In 1935, after the Round Tables, Parliament passed the Government of India Act of 1935, which authorized the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all the provinces of British India, creating a central government incorporating both the British provinces and princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities. The future Constitution of independent India is based on this act. However, it divides the electorate into 19 religious and social categories, for example, Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, the depressed classes, landowners, merchants and industry, the Europeans, the Anglo-Indians, etc., each of them was given separate representation in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. A voter can cast a vote only for candidates in their own category.

In the 1937 elections the Congress won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India. Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. The widespread voter support for the Indian National Congress surprised Raj officials, who had previously viewed the Congress as a small, elitist body.

1938-1941: World War II, the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League

A. K. Fazlul Huq, known as Sher-e-Bangla or Bengal Tiger, was the prime minister of Bengala electo, party leader Krishak Praj (K. P.P.) and an important ally of the Muslim League. Chaudhari Khaliquzzaman (left) the signing of Resolution 1940 of Lahore of the Muslim League with Jinnah (right) presides, and Liaquat Ali Khan (center) Just arrived Indian troops at the dock in Singapore, November 1941 Troops of the Indian army sij in action during the Crusader operation in the East Desert Campaign in North Africa in November and December 1941.

While the Muslim League was a small elite group in 1927 with only 1,300 members, it grew rapidly once it became an organization that reached out to the masses, reaching 500,000 members in Bengal in 1944, 200,000 in the Punjab, and hundreds of thousands elsewhere. Jinnah was now in a position to negotiate with the British from a position of power. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on behalf of India without consulting its leaders, leading provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, on the other hand, with the support of Britain in the war, maintained its control of the government in three main provinces, Bengal, Sind and the Punjab.

Jinnah was repeatedly warned that Muslims would be treated unfairly in an independent Congress-dominated India. On 24 March 1940 in Lahore, the League passed the 'Lahore Resolution', demanding that 'Areas in which Muslims are numerically majority such as in the eastern parts of North India - Western, must be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units must be autonomous and sovereign. Although there were other important national Muslim politicians, such as Congress leader Ab'ul Kalam Azad, and influential regional Muslim politicians, such as AK Fazlul Huq of the leftist Praja Krishak Party in Bengal, Sikander Hyat Khan of the landlord-dominated Punjab Unionist Party, and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan of the pro-Khidmatgar Khudai Congress (popularly, "red shirts") in the North West Frontier Province, the British, over the next six years, were increasingly to see the League as the main representative of Muslim India.

The Congress was secular and as strong an opposition as any religious state. It insisted that there was a natural unity of India, and repeatedly accused the British of 'divide and conquer' tactics. 34;, based on which led the Muslims to consider themselves as foreigners from the Hindus. Jinnah rejected the idea of a united India, emphasizing that religious communities were more basic than artificial nationalism. He proclaimed the two-nation theory, stating in Lahore on March 22, 1940:

"Islam and Hinduism... are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and different social orders, and it is a dream that Hindus and Muslims can never evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of an Indian nation has problems and will lead India to destruction if we are not able to review our notions in time. Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literate, they neither marry nor intercede together and, in fact, they belong to two different civilizations that are based primarily on ideas and conceptions in conflict. Their aspect of life and life are different... for yoke together two of these nations in one state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and the final destruction of any kind of tissue that can be built so that the government of that state."

While the ordinary Indian Army in 1939 included some 220,000 native soldiers, it expanded tenfold during the war and small naval and air force units were created. More than two million Indians volunteered for military service in the British Army. They played an important role in numerous campaigns, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. Casualties were moderate (in world war terms), with 24,000 dead; 64,000 injured; 12,000 missing (probably dead), and 60,000 captured in Singapore in 1942.

London paid most of the cost of the Indian army, which had the effect of erasing India's national debt. The war ended with a surplus of £1.3 billion. Furthermore, heavy British spending on munitions produced in India (such as uniforms, rifles, machine guns, field artillery, and ammunition) led to a rapid expansion of industrial production, such as textiles (up 16%), steel (up 18%), chemicals (up to 30%). Small warships were built, and an aircraft factory opened in Bangalore. The rail system, with 700,000 employees, was taxed to the limit as transportation demand skyrocketed.

1942-1945: The Cripps Mission, INA

The British government sent the Cripps mission in 1942 to secure Indian nationalists' cooperation in the war effort in exchange for a promise of independence as soon as the war was over. Senior officials in Britain, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, did not support the Cripps Mission and negotiations with Congress soon broke down.

The Congress launched the "Quit India" in July 1942 to demand immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face civil disobedience throughout the country. On August 8 the Raj arrested all national, provincial and local Congress leaders, holding tens of thousands of them until 1945. 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 wartime presence of the British Army crushed the movement in a little over six weeks; however, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal. Elsewhere in India The movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intense, however, it continued sporadically into the summer of 1943. It did not slow down the British war effort or recruitment for the army.

Previously, Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been leader of the younger and more radical wing of the Indian National Congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, had become president of the Congress, 1938-1939. However, was expelled from Congress in 1939 after differences with the high command, and subsequently placed under house arrest by the British before escaping India in early 1941. He returned to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for help. in obtaining the independence of India by force.

With the support of Japan, he organized the Indian National Army, composed largely of Indian soldiers from the British Indian Army that had been captured by the Japanese at the Battle of Singapore. As the war turned against them, the Japanese came to support a series of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, in addition, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, chaired by Bose.

Bose's effort, however, was short-lived. In 1945 the British Army first stopped and then reversed the Japanese T-Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma campaign. Bose's Indian National Army was driven across the Malay Peninsula, and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose died shortly after from third-degree burns he received after attempting to escape on an overloaded Japanese plane that crashed in Taiwan, which many Indians believe did not happen. Although Bose was unsuccessful, he aroused patriotic feelings in the India.

1946: Elections, Cabinet mission, Direct Action Day

In January 1946, a series of mutinies broke out in the armed forces, beginning with RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.

The mutinies came to a head with the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. Although the riots were quickly suppressed, they had the effect of spurring the new Labor government in Britain into 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 earlier.

Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India. Earlier, at the end of the war in 1945, the colonial government had announced the public trial of the three senior officers of Bose's defeated Indian National Army, who were accused of treason. Now, as rehearsals began, the congressional leadership, although ambivalent toward the INA, chose to defend the accused agents. The subsequent convictions of the officers, the public outcry against the convictions, and the eventual remission of the sentences, created positive propaganda for the Congress, which only aided in the party's subsequent electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces. Negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, ran into the problem of partition. Jinnah proclaimed August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated objective of calmly highlighting the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The next day riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout British India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, an interim government led by the Congress was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister of united India.

1947: Planning the partition

Later that year, the British government, exhausted by the efforts of the recently concluded Second World War, and aware that it lacked authority in Britain, international support, and had no confidence in the native forces to continue with control of an India where unrest was growing decided to end his rule in India.

At the end of 1945, and the Commander-in-Chief of India, General Auckinleck advised that there was a real threat in 1946 of the large-scale anti-British disorder of even an upward organized asset with the aim of expelling the British to paralyze the administration.

...It was clear to Attlee that everything depended on the spirit and reliability of the Indian Army:

"As long as they fulfill their duty, armed insurrection in India would not be an insoluble problem. If, however, the Indian army was to go reverse, the image would be very different... Therefore, Wavell concluded, if the army and police "failed" Britain would be forced to go. In theory, it could be possible to revive and revitalize services, and govern for another fifteen to twenty years, but:

It is a mistake to assume that the solution lies in trying to maintain the status quo. We no longer have the resources, nor the prestige or the necessary self-confidence. He decided to end British domination of India in early 1947 and Britain announced its intention to transfer power before June 1948.

As independence approached, violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, brought forward the date for the transfer of power, offering less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, nationalist leaders, including Sardar Patel, Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah on behalf of the Muslim League, BR Ambedkar on behalf of the untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh on behalf of the Sikhs, agreed a partition of the country along religious lines in stark contrast to Gandhi's ideas. Predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new nation of 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.

1947: Violence, partition and independence

On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) came into force, when Muhammad Ali Jinnah was sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi. The next day, August 15, 1947, India, the Union of India, (later the Republic of India) was born with official ceremonies in New Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of Prime Minister, and the Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, remaining as its first governor general. Since then, every August 14 is commemorated as the Independence Day of Pakistan and every August 15 as the Independence Day of India.

The vast majority of Indians remained in their place independently, but in the border areas millions of people (Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus) were relocated along the newly drawn borders. In the Punjab, where new boundary lines divide the Sikh regions in half, there was much bloodshed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence had calmed communal spirits, violence was more limited. In total, between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders, including both refugee populations and residents of the three religions, died in the violence. Other estimates of the number of deaths are as high as 1,500,000.[2]

Ideological impact

Since India has maintained such central British institutions as parliamentary governments, one person, one vote, and the rule of law through non-partisan courts. It retained some of the institutional arrangements of the Raj, such as district administration, universities and stock exchanges. An important change was the rejection of separate princely states. Metcalf shows that over two centuries, British intellectuals and Indian scholars made achieving peace, unity and good government in India their highest priority.

Many competing methods were offered to reach the goal. For example, Cornwallis recommends turning the Bengali Zamindar on the class of English landlords who controlled local affairs in England. Munro proposed dealing directly with the peasants. Sir William Jones and the Orientalists promoted Sanskrit, while Macaulay promoted the English language. Zinkin argues that in the long run, what matters most about the legacy of the Raj is the British political ideologies that Indians took over after 1947, especially the belief in unity, democracy, the rule of law, and a certain equality beyond caste and creed. Zinkin sees this not only in the Congress party, but also among Hindu nationalists in the Bharatiya Janata Party, which specifically emphasizes Hindu traditions.

Famines, epidemics, public health

According to Angus Maddison, "The British contributed to public health by introducing smallpox vaccination, establishing Western medicine and training modern doctors, by killing rats, and establishing of quarantine procedures. As a result, the death rate fell and India's population grew by 1947 by sometimes more than two years and by half its size by 1757.

growth of the population worsened the difficult situation of the peasantry. As a result of peace and improved sanitation and salu, the Indian population rose from perhaps 100 million in 1700 to 300 million in 1920. While promoting agricultural productivity, the British also provided economic incentives to have more children to help in the fields. Despite a similar increase in population occurred in Europe, at the same time the growing number could be absorbed by industrialization or emigration to the Americas and Australia. India enjoyed an industrial revolution and did not have an increase in food cultivation. On the other hand, the owners of India had a share in the trading crop system and discouraged innovation. As a result, population figures far exceeded the amount of food and land available, the creation of extreme poverty and widespread hunger.

20x20x

During the British Raj, India experienced some of the worst famines ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876-1878, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and the Indian Famine of 1899. -1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died. Recent research, including the work of Mike Davis and Amartya Sen, argues that famines in India became more serious British policy in India. The El Niño event caused the 1876-1878 Indian famine.

Having been criticized for the poorly botched relief effort during the Orissa famine of 1866, British authorities soon began discussing famine policy, and in early 1868 Sir William Muir, lieutenant-governor of the northwestern provinces, issued an order declaring that famous:

"... District each officer will be held personally responsible for the fact that the deaths did not occur from hunger that could have been avoided by any effort or willingness of his or her subordinates."

The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread throughout India in the 1820s. Ten thousand British soldiers and countless Indians died during the pandemic. Estimated deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 exceeded 15 million. Another 23 million people died between 1865 and 1917. The third plague pandemic began in China in the mid-19th century., the disease spread to all inhabited continents and killed 10 million people in India alone. Waldemar Haffkine, who worked primarily in India, became the first microbiologist to develop and deploy vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925 the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.

Fevers listed as one of the main causes of death in India in the 19th century. The British Sir Ronald Ross, working at the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta, finally demonstrated in 1898 that mosquitoes transmit malaria, while working at the Deccan in Secunderabad, where the Center for Tropical and Communicable Diseases is now named in his honour.

In 1881, around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for the forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in India. Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to spread vaccination against smallpox. Mass vaccination in India led to a significant decline in smallpox mortality in the late 19th century. In 1849, nearly 13% of all deaths were due to Calcutta smallpox.

Sir Robert Grant turned his attention to the establishment of a systematic institution in Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives. In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four universities recognized for courses leading to degrees. (along with Elphinstone College, Deccan College and the law university, Mumbai).

The life expectancy of Indians decreased from 26.7 years in 1880 to 21.9 years in 1910.

Provinces of British India

At the time of independence, British India consisted of the following provinces:

• Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri
• Andaman and Nicobar
• Assam
• Baluchistan
• Bengala
• Bihar
• Bombay
• Central and Berar Provincicas
• Delhi
• Madras
• Northwest border
• Panth-Piploda
• Orissa
• British Punyab
• Sindh
• United States (Agra and Oudh)