Company rule in India refers to the rule or dominion of the
British East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the
Battle of PlasseyThe Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
, when the
Nawab of BengalThe Nawabs of Bengal were the hereditary nazims or subadars of the subah of Bengal during the Mughal rule and the de-facto rulers of the province.-History:...
surrendered his dominions to the Company, in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, or in 1772, when the Company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first
Governor-GeneralThe Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
,
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
, and became directly involved in governance. The rule lasted until 1858, when, after the
Indian rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
and consequent of the
Government of India Act 1858The Government of India Act 1858 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on August 2, 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company and the transference of its functions to the British Crown...
, the
British governmentThe India Office was a British government department created in 1858 to oversee the colonial administration of India, i.e. the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as territories in South-east and Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the east coast of Africa...
assumed the task of directly administering India in the new
British RajBritish Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
.
Expansion and territory
The English East India Company (hereafter, the Company) was founded in 1600, as The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies. It gained a foothold in India in 1612 after
MughalThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
emperor
JahangirJahangir was the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death. The name Jahangir is from Persian جهانگیر,meaning "Conqueror of the World"...
granted it the rights to establish a
factoryFactory was the English term for the trading posts system originally established by Europeans in foreign territories, first within different states of medieval Europe, and later in their colonial possessions...
, or trading post, in the port of
SuratSurat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...
on the western coast. In 1640, after receiving similar permission from the
Vijayanagara rulerThe Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...
farther south, a second factory was established in Madras on the southeastern coast. Bombay island, not far from Surat, a former Portuguese outpost gifted to
EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
as
dowryA dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
in the marriage of
Catherine of BraganzaCatherine of Braganza was a Portuguese infanta and queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles II.She married the king in 1662...
to
Charles IICharles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
, was leased by the Company in 1668. Two decades later, the Company established a presence on the eastern coast as well; far up that coast, in the
Ganges riverThe Ganges or Ganga, , is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. The river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. By discharge it...
delta, a factory was set up in Calcutta. Since, during this time other companies—established by the
PortugueseThe Portuguese Viceroyalty of India , later the Portuguese State of India , was the aggregate of Portugal's colonial holdings in India.The government started in 1505, six years after the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, with the nomination of the first Viceroy Francisco de...
,
DutchThe Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
,
FrenchThe French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies in colonial India....
, and
DanishThe Danish East India Company was a Danish chartered company.-History:It was founded in 1616, following a privilege of Danish King Christian IV....
—were similarly expanding in the region, the English Company's unremarkable beginnings on
coastal IndiaCoastal India is a geo-cultural region in the Indian Subcontinent that spans entire Coastline of India.-Region:Coastal India spans from the south west Indian coastline along the Arabian sea from the coastline of the Gulf of Kutch in its western most corner and stretches across the Gulf of Khambhat,...
offered no clues to what would become a lengthy presence on the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
.
The Company had de facto control over a few regions, but were not officially independent until after Robert Clive's victory in the 1757
Battle of PlasseyThe Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
. Another victory in the 1764
Battle of BuxarThe Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal; Shuja-ud-Daula Nawab of Awadh; and Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor...
(in
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
), further consolidated the Company's power, and forced emperor
Shah Alam IIShah Alam II , also known as Ali Gauhar, was a Mughal emperor of India. A son of Alamgir II, he was exiled to Allahabad in December 1759 by Ghazi-ud-Din, who appointed Shah Jahan III as the emperor. Later, he was nominated as the emperor by Ahmad Shah.Shah Alam II was considered the only and...
to appoint it the diwan, or revenue collector, of
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, Bihar, and
OrissaOrissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
. The Company thus became the de facto ruler of much of the
lower Gangetic plainThe Lower Gangetic plains moist deciduous forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of Bangladesh and eastern India. The ecoregion covers an area of , covering most of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, and Tripura, and extending into adjacent portions of Assam,...
. It also proceeded by degrees to expand its dominions around Bombay and Madras. The
Anglo-Mysore WarsThe Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in India over the last three decades of the 18th century between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency...
(1766–1799) and the
Anglo-Maratha WarsThe Anglo-Maratha Wars were three wars fought in India between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company:* First Anglo-Maratha War * Second Anglo-Maratha War...
(1772–1818) left it in control of much of India south of the Sutlej River.
The proliferation of the Company's power chiefly took two forms. The first of these was the outright annexation of native Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, which collectively came to comprise British India. The annexed regions included the
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
(comprising
RohilkhandRohilkhand is a region of northwestern Uttar Pradesh state of India.Rohilkhand lies on the upper Ganges alluvial plain and has an area of about 25,000 km²/10,000 square miles...
,
GorakhpurGorakhpur is a city in the eastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, near the border with Nepal. It is the administrative headquarters of Gorakhpur District and Gorakhpur Division. Gorakhpur is one of the proposed capitals of the Purvanchal state which is yet to be formed...
, and the
DoabA Doab is a term used in India and Pakistan for a "tongue" or tract of land lying between two confluent rivers...
) (1801), Delhi (1803), and
SindhSindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
(1843).
PunjabThe Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
,
North-West Frontier ProvinceKhyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...
, and
KashmirKashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
, were annexed after the
Anglo-Sikh WarsThe Second Anglo-Sikh War took place in 1848 and 1849, between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company. It resulted in the subjugation of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the East India Company.-Background...
in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the
Treaty of AmritsarThe Treaty of Amritsar was signed on March 16, 1846, to settle a dispute over territory in Kashmir after the First Sikh War with the United Kingdom, ceding some land to Maharaja Gulab Singh Dogra...
(1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of
JammuJammu , also known as Duggar, is one of the three administrative divisions within Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state in India.Jammu city is the largest city in Jammu and the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir...
, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854
BerarBerar Province, known also as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, was a province of British India. The province, formerly ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, was administered by the British after 1853, although the Nizam retained formal sovereignty over the province...
was annexed, and the state of
OudhAwadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
two years later.
The second form of asserting power involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company's
hegemonyHegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
in return for limited internal
autonomyAutonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
. Since the Company operated under financial constraints, it had to set up political underpinnings for its rule. The most important such support came from the
subsidiary allianceA subsidiary alliance is an alliance between a dominant nation and a nation that it dominates.-British policy in India:The doctrine of subsidiary alliance was introduced by Marquess Wellesley, British Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805...
s with Indian princes during the first 75 years of Company rule. In the early 19th century, the territories of these princes accounted for one-third of India. When an Indian ruler, who was able to secure his territory, wanted to enter such an alliance, the Company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect rule, which did not involve the economic costs of direct administration or the political costs of gaining the support of alien subjects. In return, the Company undertook the "defense of these subordinate allies and treated them with traditional respect and marks of honor." Subsidiary alliances created the princely states, of the Hindu
maharajaMahārāja is a Sanskrit title for a "great king" or "high king". The female equivalent title Maharani denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajamata...
s and the Muslim
nawabA Nawab or Nawaab is an honorific title given to Muslim rulers of princely states in South Asia. It is the Muslim equivalent of the term "maharaja" that was granted to Hindu rulers....
s. Prominent among the princely states were:
CochinKingdom of Cochin was a late medieval Hindu kingdom and later Princely State on the Malabar Coast, South India...
(1791),
Jaipur-History:During the British Raj, Jaipur was the capital of a princely state of the same name. Jaipur state, which existed from the twelfth century until Indian Independence in 1947, took its name from the city. It had a total area of 15,579 square miles in 1900. The maharajas of Jaipur belonged to...
(1794),
TravancoreKingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...
(1795),
Hyderabad-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...
(1798),
MysoreThe Kingdom of Mysore was a kingdom of southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. The kingdom, which was ruled by the Wodeyar family, initially served as a vassal state of the Vijayanagara Empire...
(1799),
Cis-Sutlej Hill StatesThe Cis-Sutlej states were a group of Sikh states in modern Punjab and Haryana states of northwestern India, lying between the Sutlej River on the north, the Himalayas on the east, the Yamuna River and Delhi District on the south, and Sirsa District on the west....
(1815),
Central India AgencyThe Central India Agency was a political office of the British Indian Empire, which covered the northern half of present-day Madhya Pradesh state. The Central India Agency was made up entirely of princely states, which were under native rulers...
(1819), Kutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819),
RajputanaRājputāna was the pre-1949 name of the present-day Indian state of Rājasthān, the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. George Thomas was the first in 1800 A.D., to term this region as Rajputana...
(1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).
The Governors-General
(The Governors-General (locum tenens) are not included in this table unless a major event occurred during their tenure.)
| Governor-General | Period of Tenure | Events |
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
|
20 October 1773–1 February 1785 |
Bengal famine of 1770 The Bengal famine of 1770 was a catastrophic famine between 1769 and 1773 that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India...
(1769–1773)
Rohilla WarThe First Rohilla War of 1773-1774 was a punitive campaign by Shuja-ud-Daula, Nawab of Awadh, against the Rohillas, Afghan highlanders settled in Rohilkhand, northern India...
(1773–1774)
First Anglo-Maratha WarThe First Anglo-Maratha War was the first of three Anglo-Maratha wars fought between the British East India Company and Maratha Empire in India. The war began with the Treaty of Surat and ended with the Treaty of Salbai.-Background:...
(1777–1783)
Chalisa famineThe Chalisa famine of 1783-84 in South Asia followed unusual El Nino events that began in 1780 and caused droughts throughout the region. Chalisa refers to the Vikram Samvat calendar year 1840...
(1783–84)
Second Anglo-Mysore WarThe Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict in Mughal India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the British East India Company. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the Franco-British conflict raging on account of the American Revolutionary War helped spark Anglo-Mysorean...
(1780–1784) |
Charles CornwallisCharles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...
|
12 September 1786–28 October 1793 |
Cornwallis Code The Cornwallis Code is a body of legislation enacted in 1793 by the East India Company to improve the governance of its territories in India. The Code was developed under the guidance of Charles, Earl Cornwallis, who served as Governor-General of India from 1786 to 1793.The code contained...
(1793)
Permanent SettlementThe Permanent Settlement — also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal — was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire Empire and the...
CochinKingdom of Cochin was a late medieval Hindu kingdom and later Princely State on the Malabar Coast, South India...
become semi-protected States under British (1791)
Third Anglo-Mysore WarThe Third Anglo-Mysore War was a war in South India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the British East India Company and its allies, including the Mahratta Empire and the Nizam of Hyderabad...
(1789–1792)
Doji bara famineThe Doji bara famine of 1791-92 in South Asia was brought on by a major El Niño event lasting from 1789 CE to 1795 CE and producing prolonged droughts...
(1791–92) |
| John Shore John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth was a British politician who served as Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797.He married Charlotte Cornish, daughter of James Cornish of Teignmouth, on 14 February 1786...
|
28 October 1793–March 1798 |
East India Company Army reorganized and down-sized.
JaipurJaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....
(1794) & TravancoreKingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...
(1795) come under British protection.
Andaman IslandsThe Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
occupied (1796)
Company took control of coastal region Ceylon from DutchThe Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(1796). |
Richard WellesleyRichard Colley Wesley, later Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, KG, PC, PC , styled Viscount Wellesley from birth until 1781, was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator....
|
18 May 1798–30 July 1805 |
NizamNizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad popularly known as Nizams of Hyderabad was a former monarchy of the Hyderabad State, now in the states of Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , and Maharashtra in India...
of Hyderabad-After Indian independence :When India gained independence in 1947 and Pakistan came into existence in 1947, the British left the local rulers of the princely states the choice of whether to join one of the new dominions or to remain independent...
becomes first State to sign Subsidiary allianceA subsidiary alliance is an alliance between a dominant nation and a nation that it dominates.-British policy in India:The doctrine of subsidiary alliance was introduced by Marquess Wellesley, British Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805...
introduced by Wellesley (1798).
Fourth Anglo-Mysore WarThe Fourth Anglo-Mysore War was a war in South India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the British East India Company under the Earl of Mornington....
(1798–1799)
Nawab of Oudh cedes GorakhpurGorakhpur division is an administrative geographical unit of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. Gorakhpur is the administrative headquarters of the division. Currently , the division consists of districts of Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deorria, and Maharajganj....
and RohilkhandBareilly division is an administrative geographical unit of Uttar Pradesh state of India. Bareilly is the administrative headquarters of the division. Currently , the division consists of districts of* Bareilly District* Badaun District...
divisions; AllahabadAllahabad district is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state of India, and Allahabad town is the district headquarters. Allahabad district is a part of Allahabad Division.As of 2011 it is the most populous district of Uttar Pradesh ....
, FatehpurFatehpur district is one of the 71 districts of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. The district covers an area of 4,152 km². The district has a population of 2,308,384 . Fatehpur city is the administrative headquarters of the district. Located on the banks of the sacred rivers Ganges and...
, CawnporeKanpur district is one of the districts of the Uttar Pradesh state of India. It is a part of Kanpur division and its district headquarters is Kanpur. Due to increase in population of Kanpur District, for proper administration it has been divided into two. The term Kanpur refers to the combination...
, EtawahEtawah district is a district in the southwestern portion of Uttar Pradesh state of India. Etawah town is the district headquarters. Etawah district is part of Kanpur Division. The district covers an area of 2311 km²...
, MainpuriMainpuri district is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state of India, and Mainpuri town is the district headquarters. Mainpuri district is a part of Agra division.-Demographics:...
, EtahEtah district is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state of India, and Etah town is the district headquarters. Etah district is a part of Aligarh Division. It is dominated by Yadavs and Rajputs.-Economy:...
districts; part of MirzapurMirzapur district is one of the 70 districts of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. The district is bounded on the north by Sant Ravidas Nagar and Varanasi districts, on the east by Chandauli district, on the south by Sonbhadra district and on the norhwest by Allahabad district. The district...
; and terai of Kumaun (Ceded Provinces, 1801)
Treaty of BasseinThe Treaty of Bassein was a pact signed on December 31, 1802 between the British East India Company and Baji Rao II, the Maratha peshwa of Pune in India after the Battle of Poona...
signed by PeshwaA Peshwa is the titular equivalent of a modern Prime Minister. Emporer Shivaji created the Peshwa designation in order to more effectively delegate administrative duties during the growth of the Maratha Empire. Prior to 1749, Peshwas held office for 8-9 years and controlled the Maratha army...
Baji Rao IIBaji Rao II was the last Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy, and governed from 1796 to 1818. His reign was marked by confrontations with the British.-Biography:...
accepting Subsidiary AllianceA subsidiary alliance is an alliance between a dominant nation and a nation that it dominates.-British policy in India:The doctrine of subsidiary alliance was introduced by Marquess Wellesley, British Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805...
Battle of DelhiThe Battle of Delhi took place on 11 September 1803 during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, between British troops under General Lake, and Marathas of Scindia's army under French General Louis Bourquin...
(1803).
Second Anglo-Maratha WarThe Second Anglo-Maratha War was the second conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India.-Background:...
(1803–1805)
Remainder of DoabA Doab is a term used in India and Pakistan for a "tongue" or tract of land lying between two confluent rivers...
and Agra divisionAgra Division is an administrative unit of Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Agra Division consists of:-*Agra District*Firozabad District*Mainpuri District*Mathura District...
, parts of BundelkhandBundelkhand anciently known as Chedi Kingdom is a geographic region of central India...
annexed from Maratha EmpireThe Maratha Empire or the Maratha Confederacy was an Indian imperial power that existed from 1674 to 1818. At its peak, the empire covered much of South Asia, encompassing a territory of over 2.8 million km²....
(1805).
Ceded and Conquered ProvincesThe Ceded and Conquered Provinces constituted a region in northern India that was ruled by the British East India Company from 1805 to 1834; it corresponded approximately—in present-day India—to all regions in Uttar Pradesh state with the exception of the Lucknow and Faizabad divisions...
established (1805) |
Charles CornwallisCharles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...
(second term) |
30 July 1805–5 October 1805 |
Financial strain in East India Company The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
after costly campaigns.
Cornwallis reappointed to bring peace, but dies in GhazipurGhazipur , or Ghazipur City, previously spelt Ghazeepore, is a city/town and a municipal corporation and headquarter of Ghazipur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Ghazipur Division and Sub-division...
. |
| George Hilario Barlow Sir George Hilario Barlow, 1st Baronet, GCB served as Acting Governor-General of India from the death of Lord Cornwallis in 1805 until the arrival of Lord Minto in 1807....
(locum tenens) |
10 October 1805–31 July 1807 |
Vellore Mutiny The Vellore Mutiny on 10 July 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century...
(July 10, 1806) |
| Lord Minto Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto PC , known as Sir Gilbert Elliott between 1777 and 1797 and as The Lord Minto between 1797 and 1813, was a Scottish politician diplomat....
|
31 July 1807–4 October 1813 |
Invasion of Java
Occupation of Mauritius |
| Marquess of Hastings Francis Edward Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings KG PC , styled The Honourable Francis Rawdon from birth until 1762 and as The Lord Rawdon between 1762 and 1783 and known as The Earl of Moira between 1793 and 1816, was an Irish-British politician and military officer who served as...
|
4 October 1813–9 January 1823 |
Anglo-Nepal War of 1814
Annexation of KumaonFor Kumaoni/Kumauni People see Kumauni PeopleKumaon or Kumaun is one of the two regions and administrative divisions of Uttarakhand, a mountainous state of northern India, the other being Garhwal. It includes the districts of Almora, Bageshwar, Champawat, Nainital, Pithoragarh, and Udham Singh Nagar...
, GarhwalGarhwal Kingdom was a princely state in north-western Uttarakhand, India, ruled by the Panwar dynasty. It was founded in 888 AD and existed until it was annexed by the Gorkhas in 1803...
, and east SikkimSikkim is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayan mountains...
.
Cis-Sutlej statesThe Cis-Sutlej states were a group of Sikh states in modern Punjab and Haryana states of northwestern India, lying between the Sutlej River on the north, the Himalayas on the east, the Yamuna River and Delhi District on the south, and Sirsa District on the west....
(1815).
Third Anglo-Maratha WarThe Third Anglo-Maratha War was the final and decisive conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha territory by 110,400 British East India Company troops, the largest...
(1817–1818)
States of RajputanaThe Rajputana Agency was a political office of the British Indian Empire dealing with a collection of native states in India , under the political charge of an Agent reporting directly to the Governor-General of India and residing at Mount Abu in the Aravalli Range...
accept British suzeraintySuzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
(1817).
SingaporeThe founding of modern Singapore in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles paved the way for Singapore to become a modern port and established its status as a gateway between the Western and Eastern markets....
was founded (1818).
Cutch accepts British suzerainty (1818).
Gaikwads of BarodaBaroda State was an Indian princely state in present-day Gujarat, ruled by the Gaekwad dynasty from its formation in 1721 until 1947 when it succeed to newly formed, India. With the city of Baroda as its capital, during the British Raj it was part of the Baroda Residency...
accept British suzerainty (1819).
Central India AgencyThe Central India Agency was a political office of the British Indian Empire, which covered the northern half of present-day Madhya Pradesh state. The Central India Agency was made up entirely of princely states, which were under native rulers...
(1819). |
| Lord Amherst |
1 August 1823–13 March 1828 |
First Anglo–Burmese War (1823–1826)
Annexation of AssamAssam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
, ManipurManipur is a state in northeastern India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. Manipur is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west; it also borders Burma to the east. It covers an area of...
, ArakanRakhine State is a Burmese state. Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State in the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region in the east, the Bay of Bengal to the west, and the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh to the northwest. It is located approximately between...
, and Tenasserim from Burma |
| William Bentinck Lieutenant-General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck GCB, GCH, PC , known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman...
|
4 July 1828–20 March 1835 |
Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829 The Bengal Sati Regulation, or Regulation XVII, A. D. 1829 of the Bengal Code was a legal act promulgated in British India under East India Company rule, by the then Governor-General Lord William Bentinck, which made the practice of sati or suttee—or the immolation of a Hindu widow on the...
Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, 1836–1848
Mysore StateThe Kingdom of Mysore was a kingdom of southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. The kingdom, which was ruled by the Wodeyar family, initially served as a vassal state of the Vijayanagara Empire...
goes under British administration (1831–1881)
Bahawalpur accepts British Suzerainty (1833)
Coorg annexed (1834). |
| Lord Auckland George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, GCB, PC was a British Whig politician and colonial administrator. He was thrice First Lord of the Admiralty and also served as Governor-General of India between 1836 and 1842....
|
4 March 1836–28 February 1842 |
North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
established (1836)
Post Offices were established (1837)
Agra famine of 1837–38The Agra famine of 1837–1838 was a famine in the newly established North-Western Provinces of Company-ruled India that affected an area of and a population of 8 million people...
AdenAden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
is captured by Company (1839)
First Anglo-Afghan WarThe First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between British India and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia, and also marked one of the worst...
(1839–1842)
Massacre of Elphinstone's armyThe Massacre of Elphinstone's Army was the destruction by Afghan forces, led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, of a combined British and Indian force of the British East India Company, led by Major General William Elphinstone, in January 1842....
(1842). |
| Lord Ellenborough Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough GCB, PC was a British Tory politician. He was four times President of the Board of Control and also served as Governor-General of India between 1842 and 1844.-Background and education:...
|
28 February 1842–June 1844 |
First Anglo-Afghan WarThe First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between British India and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia, and also marked one of the worst...
(1839–1842)
Annexation of Sindh (1843)
Indian Slavery Act, 1843The Indian Slavery Act, 1843, also Act V of 1843, was an act passed in British India under East India Company rule, which outlawed many economic transactions associated with slavery.-Text of the Act: ACT No. V Of 1843...
|
Henry HardingeField Marshal Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, GCB, PC was a British field marshal and Governor-general of India.-Army career:...
|
23 July 1844–12 January 1848 |
First Anglo-Sikh WarThe First Anglo-Sikh War was fought between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company between 1845 and 1846. It resulted in partial subjugation of the Sikh kingdom.-Background and causes of the war:...
(1845–1846)
Sikhs cede Jullundur Doab, Hazara, and KashmirKashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
to the British under Treaty of LahoreThe Treaty of Lahore of March 9, 1846, was a peace treaty marking the end of the First Anglo-Sikh War. The Treaty was concluded, for the British, by the Governor-General Sir Henry Hardinge and two officers of the East India Company and, for the Sikhs, by the seven year old Maharaja Duleep Singh...
(1846)
Sale of KashmirKashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
to Gulab Singh of JammuJammu , also known as Duggar, is one of the three administrative divisions within Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state in India.Jammu city is the largest city in Jammu and the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir...
under Treaty of AmritsarThe Treaty of Amritsar was signed on March 16, 1846, to settle a dispute over territory in Kashmir after the First Sikh War with the United Kingdom, ceding some land to Maharaja Gulab Singh Dogra...
(1846). |
Marquess of DalhousieJames Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
|
12 January 1848–28 February 1856 |
Second Anglo-Sikh WarThe Second Anglo-Sikh War took place in 1848 and 1849, between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company. It resulted in the subjugation of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the East India Company.-Background...
(1848–1849)
Annexation of Punjab and North-West Frontier ProvinceKhyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...
(1849)
Construction begins on Indian RailwaysIndian Railways , abbreviated as IR , is a departmental undertaking of Government of India, which owns and operates most of India's rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India....
(1850)
Caste Disabilities Removal Act, 1850
First telegraph line laid in India (1851)
Second Anglo-Burmese WarThe Second Anglo-Burmese War was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese and the British Empire during the 19th century, with the outcome of the gradual extinction of Burmese sovereignty and independence....
(1852–1853)
Annexation of Lower BurmaLower Burma is a geographic region of Burma and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy delta , as well as coastal regions of the country ....
Great Ganges Canal opened (1854)
Annexation of SataraSatara is a city located in the Satara District of Maharashtra state of India. The town is 2320 ft. above sea-level, near the confluence of the Krishna and its tributary river Venna. The city was the capital of the Maratha empire in the 17th century, hence one of the the historical cities of...
(1848), JaipurJaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....
and SambalpurSambalpur is a city in Sambalpur district in the Indian state of Orissa.It lies at a distance of 321 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar. In the year 1876, Sambalpur was established as a municipality. It is currently the headquarters and the largest city of Sambalpur district. It is also...
(1849), NagpurNāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...
and JhansiJhansi Hindi:झाँसी, , Marathi: झाशी, is a historical city of India. Jhansi is the administrative headquarters of Jhansi District and Jhansi Division. The original walled city grew up around its stone fort, which crowns a neighboring rock. This district is on the bank of river Betwa.The National...
(1854) under Doctrine of LapseThe Doctrine of Lapse was an annexation policy purportedly devised by Lord Dalhousie, who was the Governor General for the British in India between 1848 and 1856...
.
Annexation of BerarBerar Province, known also as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, was a province of British India. The province, formerly ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, was administered by the British after 1853, although the Nizam retained formal sovereignty over the province...
(1853) and AwadhAwadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
(1856).
Postage Stamps for IndiaThis is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of India.Indian postal systems for efficient military and governmental communications had developed long before the arrival of Europeans. When the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danish and British displaced the Mughals, their postal systems...
were introduced. (1854).
Public Telegram services starts operation (1855). |
Charles CanningCharles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning KG, GCB, PC , known as The Viscount Canning from 1837 to 1859, was an English statesman and Governor-General of India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.-Background and education:...
|
28 February 1856–1 November 1858 |
Hindu Widows Remarriage Act The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, also Act XV, 1856, enacted on 25 July 1856, legalized the remarriage of Hindu widows in all jurisdictions of India under East India Company rule....
(July 25, 1856)
First Indian universitiesEducation in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Child education is compulsory. The Nalanda University was the oldest university-system of education in the world...
founded (January–September 1857)
Indian Rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
(10 May 1857–20 June 1858) largely in North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
and Oudh
Liquidation of the English East India Company under Government of India Act 1858The Government of India Act 1858 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on August 2, 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company and the transference of its functions to the British Crown...
|
Regulation of Company rule
Until Clive's victory at
PlasseyThe Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
, the East India Company territories in India, which consisted largely of the
presidencyThe word presidency is often used to describe the administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation...
towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, were governed by the mostly autonomous—and sporadically unmanageable—town councils, all composed of merchants. The councils barely had enough powers for the effective management of their local affairs, and the ensuing lack of oversight of the overall Company operations in India led to some grave abuses by Company officers or their allies. Clive's victory, and the award of the diwani of the rich region of Bengal, brought India into the public spotlight in Britain. The Company's money management practices came to be questioned, especially as it began to post net losses even as some Company servants, the "Nabobs," returned to Britain with large fortunes, which—according to rumors then current—were acquired unscrupulously. By 1772, the Company needed British government loans to stay afloat, and there was fear in London that the Company's corrupt practices could soon seep into British business and public life. The rights and duties of the British government with regards the Company's new territories came also to be examined. The British parliament then held several inquiries and in 1773, during the premiership of
Lord NorthFrederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, KG, PC , more often known by his courtesy title, Lord North, which he used from 1752 until 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence...
, enacted the
Regulating ActThe Regulating Act of 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain intended to overhaul the management of the East India Company's rule in India...
, which established regulations, its long title stated, "for the better Management of the Affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe"
Although Lord North himself wanted the Company's territories to be taken over by the British state, he faced determined political opposition from many quarters, including some in the City of London and the British parliament. The result was a compromise in which the Regulating Act—although implying the ultimate sovereignty of the
British CrownThe Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
over these new territories—asserted that the Company could act as a sovereign power on behalf of the Crown. It could do this while concurrently being subject to oversight and regulation by the British government and parliament. The Court of Directors of the Company were required under the Act to submit all communications regarding civil, military, and revenue matters in India for scrutiny by the British government. For the governance of the Indian territories, the act asserted the supremacy of the
Presidency of Fort William (Bengal)The Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
over those of
Fort St. George (Madras)The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
and
BombayThe Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
. It also nominated a
Governor-GeneralThe Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
(
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
) and four councilors for administering the Bengal presidency (and for overseeing the Company's operations in India). "The subordinate Presidencies were forbidden to wage war or make treaties without the previous consent of the Governor-General of Bengal in Council, except in case of imminent necessity. The Governors of these Presidencies were directed in general terms to obey the orders of the Governor-General-in-Council, and to transmit to him intelligence of all important matters." However, the imprecise wording of the Act, left it open to be variously interpreted; consequently, the administration in India continued to be hobbled by disunity between the provincial governors, between members of the Council, and between the Governor-General himself and his Council. The Regulating Act also attempted to address the prevalent corruption in India: Company servants were henceforth forbidden to engage in private trade in India or to receive "presents" from Indian nationals.
William Pitt'sWilliam Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
India Act of 1784 established a Board of Control in England both to supervise the East India Company's affairs and to prevent the Company's shareholders from interfering in the governance of India. The Board of Control consisted of six members, which included one Secretary of State from the British cabinet, as well as the
Chancellor of the ExchequerThe Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
. Around this time, there was also extensive debate in the British parliament on the issue of landed rights in Bengal, with a consensus developing in support of the view advocated by
Philip FrancisSir Philip Francis was an Irish-born British politician and pamphleteer, the possible author of the Letters of Junius, and the chief antagonist of Warren Hastings. His accusations against the latter led to the Impeachment of Warren Hastings by Parliament.-Early life:Born in Dublin, he was the only...
, a member of the Bengal council and political adversary of Warren Hastings, that all lands in Bengal should be considered the "estate and inheritance of native land-holders and families ..."
Mindful of the reports of abuse and corruption in Bengal by Company servants, the India Act itself noted numerous complaints that "'divers Rajahs, Zemindars, Polygars, Talookdars, and landholders"' had been unjustly deprived of 'their lands, jurisdictions, rights, and privileges'." At the same time the Company's directors were now leaning towards Francis's view that the land-tax in Bengal should be made fixed and permanent, setting the stage for the
Permanent SettlementThe Permanent Settlement — also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal — was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire Empire and the...
(see section Revenue settlements under the Company below). The India Act also created in each of the three presidencies a number of administrative and military posts, which included: a Governor and three Councilors, one of which was the Commander in Chief of the Presidency army. Although the supervisory powers of the Governor-General-in-Council in Bengal (over Madras and Bombay) were extended—as they were again in the Charter Act of 1793—the subordinate presidencies continued to exercise some autonomy until both the extension of British possessions into becoming contiguous and the advent of faster communications in the next century.
Still, the new Governor-General appointed in 1786, Lord Cornwallis, not only had more power than Hastings, but also had the support of a powerful British cabinet minister, Henry Dundas, who, as
Secretary of stateSecretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
for the
Home OfficeThe Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
, was in charge of the overall India policy. From 1784 onwards, the British government had the final word on all major appointments in India; a candidate's suitability for a senior position was often decided by the strength of his political connections rather than that of his administrative ability. Although this practice resulted in many Governor-General nominees being chosen from Britain's conservative landed gentry, there were some liberals as well, such as
Lord William BentinckLieutenant-General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck GCB, GCH, PC , known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman...
and Lord Dalhousie.
British political opinion was also shaped by the attempted
Impeachment of Warren HastingsThe Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...
; the trial, whose proceedings began in 1788, ended, with Hastings' acquittal, in 1795. Although the effort was chiefly coordinated by
Edmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, it also drew support from within the British government. Burke, accused Hastings not only of corruption, but—appealing to universal standards of justice—also of acting solely upon his own discretion and without concern for law and of willfully causing distress to others in India; in response, Hastings' defenders asserted that his actions were in concert with Indian customs and traditions. Although Burke's speeches at the trial drew applause and focused attention on India, Hastings was eventually acquitted, due, in part, to the revival of nationalism in Britain in the wake of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
; nonetheless, Burke's effort had the effect of creating a sense of responsibility in British public life for the Company's dominion in India.
Soon rumblings began to appear among merchants in London that the monopoly granted to the East India Company in 1600 to facilitate it to better organize against Dutch and French competition in a distant region, was no longer needed. In response, in the Charter Act of 1813, the British parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly except with regard to
teaTea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
and trade with China, opening India both to private investment and missionaries. With increased British power in India supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and parliament increased as well; by the 1820s British nationals could transact business or engage in missionary work under the protection of the Crown in the three presidencies. Finally, in Charter Act of 1833, the British parliament revoked the Company's trade license altogether, making the Company a part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of Company officers. The Charter Act of 1833 also charged the Governor-General-in-Council (to whose title was now added "of India") with the supervision of civil and military administration of the totality of India, as well the exclusive power of legislation. Since the British territories in north India had now extended up to Delhi, the Act also sanctioned the creation of a Presidency of Agra, later constituted, in 1936, as the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-Western Provinces (current-day western
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
). With the annexation of
OudhAwadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
in 1856, this territory was extended, and eventually became the
United Provinces of Agra and OudhThe United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was a province of India under the British Raj, which existed from 1902 to 1947; the official name was shortened by the Government of India Act 1935 to United Provinces, by which the province had been commonly known, and by which name it was also a province of...
. In addition, in 1854, a Lieutenant-Governor was appointed for the region of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, leaving the Governor-General to concentrate on the governance of India.
Revenue collection
In the remnant of the
MughalThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
revenue system existing in pre-1765 Bengal,
zamindarA Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...
s, or "land holders," collected revenue on behalf of the Mughal emperor, whose representative, or diwan supervised their activities. In this system, the assortment of rights associated with land were not possessed by a "land owner," but rather shared by the several parties with stake in the land, including the peasant cultivator, the zamindar, and the state. The zamindar served as an intermediary who procured
economic rentEconomic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
from the cultivator, and after withholding a percentage for his own expenses, made available the rest, as
revenueIn business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
to the state. Under the Mughal system, the land itself belonged to the state and not to the zamindar, who could transfer only his right to collect rent. On being awarded the diwani or overlordship of Bengal following the
Battle of BuxarThe Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal; Shuja-ud-Daula Nawab of Awadh; and Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor...
in 1764, the East India Company found itself short of trained administrators, especially those familiar with local custom and law; tax collection was consequently
farmed outFarming is a technique of financial management, namely the process of commuting , by its assignment by legal contract to a third party, a future uncertain revenue stream into fixed and certain periodic rents, in consideration for which commutation a discount in value received is suffered...
. This uncertain foray into land taxation by the Company, may have gravely worsened the impact of a
famine that struck Bengal in 1769-70The Bengal famine of 1770 was a catastrophic famine between 1769 and 1773 that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India...
, in which between seven and ten million people—or between a quarter and third of the presidency's population—may have died. However, the company provided little relief either through reduced taxation or by relief efforts, and the economic and cultural impact of the famine was felt decades later, even becoming, a century later, the subject of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel
AnandamathAnandamath is a Bengali novel, written by Bankim Chandra Chatterji and published in 1882. Set in the background of the Sannyasi Rebellion in the late 18th century, it is considered one of the most important novels in the history of Bengali and Indian literature...
.
In 1772, under Warren Hastings, the East India Company took over revenue collection directly in the
Bengal PresidencyThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
(then
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
), establishing a Board of Revenue with offices in Calcutta and
PatnaPaṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...
, and moving the pre-existing Mughal revenue records from
MurshidabadMurshidabad is a city in Murshidabad district of West Bengal state in India. The city of Murshidabad is located on the southern bank of the Bhagirathi, a distributary of the Ganges River. It was the capital of undivided Bengal during the Mughal rule. Nawabs of Bengal used to rule Bengal from this...
to Calcutta.
In 1773, after
OudhAwadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
ceded the tributary state of Benaras, the revenue collection system was extended to the territory with a Company Resident in charge. The following year—with a view to preventing corruption—Company district collectors, who were then responsible for revenue collection for an entire district, were replaced with provincial councils at Patna, Murshidabad, and Calcutta, and with Indian collectors working within each district. The title, "collector," reflected "the centrality of land revenue collection to government in India: it was the government's primary function and it moulded the institutions and patterns of administration."
The Company inherited a revenue collection system from the Mughals in which the heaviest proportion of the tax burden fell on the cultivators, with one-third of the production reserved for imperial entitlement; this pre-colonial system became the Company revenue policy's baseline. However, there was vast variation across India in the methods by which the revenues were collected; with this complication in mind, a Committee of Circuit toured the districts of expanded Bengal presidency in order to make a five-year settlement, consisting of five-yearly inspections and temporary
tax farmingFarming is a technique of financial management, namely the process of commuting , by its assignment by legal contract to a third party, a future uncertain revenue stream into fixed and certain periodic rents, in consideration for which commutation a discount in value received is suffered...
. In their overall approach to revenue policy, Company officials were guided by two goals: first, preserving as much as possible the balance of rights and obligations that were traditionally claimed by the farmers who cultivated the land and the various intermediaries who collected tax on the state's behalf and who reserved a cut for themselves; and second, identifying those sectors of the rural economy that would maximize both revenue and security. Although their first revenue settlement turned out to be essentially the same as the more informal pre-existing Mughal one, the Company had created a foundation for the growth of both information and bureaucracy.
In 1793, the new Governor-General,
Lord CornwallisCharles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...
, promulgated the
permanent settlementThe Permanent Settlement — also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal — was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire Empire and the...
of land revenues in the presidency, the first socio-economic regulation in colonial India. It was named permanent because it fixed the land tax in perpetuity in return for landed property rights for zamindars; it simultaneously defined the nature of land ownership in the presidency, and gave individuals and families separate property rights in occupied land. Since the revenue was fixed in perpetuity, it was fixed at a high level, which in Bengal amounted to £3 million at 1789-90 prices. According to one estimate, this was 20% higher than the revenue demand before 1757. Over the next century, partly as a result of land surveys, court rulings, and property sales, the change was given practical dimension. An influence on the development of this revenue policy were the economic theories then current, which regarded agriculture as the engine of economic development, and consequently stressed the fixing of revenue demands in order to encourage growth. The expectation behind the permanent settlement was that knowledge of a fixed government demand would encourage the zamindars to increase both their average outcrop and the land under cultivation, since they would be able to retain the profits from the increased output; in addition, it was envisaged that land itself would become a marketable form of property that could be purchased, sold, or mortgaged. A feature of this economic rationale was the additional expectation that the zamindars, recognizing their own best interest, would not make unreasonable demands on the peasantry.
However, these expectations were not realized in practice, and in many regions of Bengal, the peasants bore the brunt of the increased demand, there being little protection for their traditional rights in the new legislation. Forced labor of the peasants by the zamindars became more prevalent as cash crops were cultivated to meet the Company revenue demands. Although commercialized cultivation was not new to the region, it had now penetrated deeper into village society and made it more vulnerable to market forces. The zamindars themselves were often unable to meet the increased demands that the Company had placed on them; consequently, many defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first three decades following the permanent settlement. The new owners were often
BrahminBrahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
and
KayasthaKayastha or Kayasth or Kayeth is a caste or community of Hindus originating in India. Kayastha means "scribe" in Sanskrit, and has traditionally denoted members of the writer caste....
employees of the Company who had a good grasp of the new system, and, in many cases, had prospered under it.
Since the zamindars were never able to undertake costly improvements to the land envisaged under the Permanent Settlement, some of which required the removal of the existing farmers, they soon became rentiers who lived off the rent from their tenant farmers. In many areas, especially northern Bengal, they had to increasingly share the revenue with intermediate tenure holders, called jotedars, who supervised farming in the villages. Consequently, unlike the contemporaneous Enclosure movement in Britain, agriculture in Bengal remained the province of the subsistence farming of innumerable small
paddy fieldA paddy field is a flooded parcel of arable land used for growing rice and other semiaquatic crops. Paddy fields are a typical feature of rice farming in east, south and southeast Asia. Paddies can be built into steep hillsides as terraces and adjacent to depressed or steeply sloped features such...
s.
The zamindari system was one of two principal revenue settlements undertaken by the Company in India. In southern India, Thomas Munro, who would later become Governor of
MadrasThe Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
, promoted the
ryotwariThe ryotwari system, instituted in some parts of British India, was one of the two main systems used to collect revenues from the cultivators of agricultural land. These revenues included undifferentiated land taxes and rents, collected simultaneously...
system, in which the government settled land-revenue directly with the peasant farmers, or ryots. This was, in part, a consequence of the turmoil of the
Anglo-Mysore WarsThe Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in India over the last three decades of the 18th century between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency...
, which had prevented the emergence of a class of large landowners; in addition, Munro and others felt that ryotwari was closer to traditional practice in the region and ideologically more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the lowest levels of rural society. At the heart of the ryotwari system was a particular theory of
economic rentEconomic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
—and based on
David RicardoDavid Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
's
Law of RentThe law of rent was formulated by David Ricardo around 1809, and this is the origin of the term Ricardian rent. Ricardo's formulation of the law was the first clear exposition of the source and magnitude of land rents, and is among the most important and firmly established principles of economics. ...
—promoted by utilitarian
James MillJames Mill was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was a founder of classical economics, together with David Ricardo, and the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill.-Life:Mill was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of...
who formulated the Indian revenue policy between 1819 and 1830. "He believed that the government was the ultimate lord of the soil and should not renounce its right to 'rent', i.e. the profit left over on richer soil when wages and other working expenses had been settled." Another keystone of the new system of temporary settlements was the classification of agricultural fields according to soil type and produce, with average rent rates fixed for the period of the settlement. According to Mill, taxation of land rent would promote efficient agriculture and simultaneously prevent the emergence of a "parasitic landlord class." Mill advocated ryotwari settlements which consisted of government measurement and assessment of each plot (valid for 20 or 30 years) and subsequent taxation which was dependent on the fertility of the soil. The taxed amount was nine-tenths of the "rent" in the early 19th century and gradually fell afterwards. However, in spite of the appeal of the ryotwari system's abstract principles, class hierarchies in southern Indian villages had not entirely disappeared—for example village headmen continued to hold sway—and peasant cultivators sometimes came to experience revenue demands they could not meet. In the 1850s, a scandal erupted when it was discovered that some Indian revenue agents of the Company were using torture to meet the Company's revenue demands.
Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various governments in India under Company rule. In all areas other than the
Bengal PresidencyThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
, land settlement work involved a continually repetitive process of surveying and measuring plots, assessing their quality, and recording landed rights, and constituted a large proportion of the work of Indian Civil Service officers working for the government. After the Company lost its trading rights, it became the single most important source of government revenue, roughly half of overall revenue in the middle of the 19th century; even so, between the years 1814 and 1859, the government of India ran debts in 33 years. With expanded dominion, even during non-deficit years, there was just enough money to pay the salaries of a threadbare administration, a skeleton police force, and the army.
Army and civil service
In 1772, when
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
was appointed the first Governor-General of the
Presidency of Fort WilliamThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
with capital in Calcutta, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the Presidency's army. Since the available soldiers, or
SepoyA sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
s, from Bengal—many of whom had fought against the British in the
Battle of PlasseyThe Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
—were now suspect in British eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the "major breeding ground of India's infantry in eastern
AwadhAwadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
and the lands around
Banaras-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
." The
high casteThe Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis....
rural Hindu Rajputs and Brahmins of this region (known as
purabiasPurvanchal is a geographic region of north-central India, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh state...
(
HindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, lit. "easterners")) had been recruited by
MughalThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
armies for two hundred years; the East India Company continued this practice for the next 75 years, with these soldiers comprising up to eighty per cent of the Bengal army. However, in order to avoid any friction within the ranks, the Company also took pains to adapt its military practices to their religious requirements. Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not required of them, and the army soon came to recognize Hindu festivals officially. "This encouragement of high caste ritual status, however, left the government vulnerable to protest, even mutiny, whenever the sepoys detected infringement of their prerogatives."
{| cellpadding="3" border="1" class="wikitable"
! bgcolor="#DDDDDD" colspan="4" | East India Company armies after the Reorganization of 1796 |
| British troops | | Indian troops |
| | Bengal Presidency | Madras Presidency | Bombay Presidency |
| |
24,000 |
24,000 |
9,000 |
| 13,000 | | Total Indian troops: 57,000 |
| Grand total, British and Indian troops: 70,000 |
The Bengal army was used in military campaigns in other parts of India and abroad: to provide crucial support to a weak
MadrasThe Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
army in the
Third Anglo-Mysore WarThe Third Anglo-Mysore War was a war in South India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the British East India Company and its allies, including the Mahratta Empire and the Nizam of Hyderabad...
in 1791, and also in
JavaJava is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
and Ceylon. In contrast to the soldiers in the armies of Indian rulers, the Bengal sepoys not only received high pay, but also received it reliably, thanks in great measure to the Company's access to the vast land-revenue reserves of Bengal. Soon, bolstered both by the new musket technology and naval support, the Bengal army came to be widely regarded. The well-disciplined sepoys attired in red-coats and their British officers began to arouse "a kind of awe in their adversaries. In Maharashtra and in Java, the sepoys were regarded as the embodiment of demonic forces, sometimes of antique warrior heroes. Indian rulers adopted red serge jackets for their own forces and retainers as if to capture their magical qualities."
In 1796, under pressure from the Company's Board of Directors in London, the Indian troops were reorganized and reduced during the tenure of
John ShoreJohn Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth was a British politician who served as Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797.He married Charlotte Cornish, daughter of James Cornish of Teignmouth, on 14 February 1786...
as Governor-General. However, the closing years of the 18th century saw, with Wellesley's campaigns, a new increase in the army strength. Thus in 1806, at the time of the
Vellore MutinyThe Vellore Mutiny on 10 July 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century...
, the combined strength of the three presidencies' armies stood at 154,500, making them one of the largest
standing armiesA standing army is a professional permanent army. It is composed of full-time career soldiers and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from army reserves, who are activated only during wars or natural disasters...
in the world.
{| cellpadding="3" border="1" class="wikitable"
! bgcolor="#DDDDDD" colspan="4" | East India Company armies on the eve of the Vellore MutinyThe Vellore Mutiny on 10 July 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century...
of 1806 |
| Presidencies | British troops | Indian troops | Total |
| Bengal |
7,000 |
57,000 |
64,000 |
| Madras |
11,000 |
53,000 |
64,000 |
| Bombay |
6,500 |
20,000 |
26,500 |
| Total |
24,500 |
130,000 |
154,500 |
As the East India Company expanded its territories, it added irregular "local corps," which were not as well trained as the army. In 1846, after the
Second Anglo-Sikh WarThe Second Anglo-Sikh War took place in 1848 and 1849, between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company. It resulted in the subjugation of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the East India Company.-Background...
, a frontier brigade was raised in the
Cis-Sutlej Hill StatesThe Cis-Sutlej states were a group of Sikh states in modern Punjab and Haryana states of northwestern India, lying between the Sutlej River on the north, the Himalayas on the east, the Yamuna River and Delhi District on the south, and Sirsa District on the west....
mainly for police work; in addition, in 1849, the "Punjab Irregular Force" was added on the frontier. Two years later, this force consisted of "3 light field batteries, 5 regiments of cavalry, and 5 of infantry." The following year, "a garrison company was added, ... a sixth infantry regiment (formed from the Sind Camel Corps) in 1853, and one mountain battery in 1856." Similarly, a local force was raised after the annexation of Nagpur in 1854, and the "Oudh Irregular Force" was added after Oudh was annexed in 1856. Earlier, as a result of the treaty of 1800, the Nizam of Hyderabad had begun to maintain a contingent force of 9,000 horse and 6,000 foot which was commanded by Company officers; in 1853, after a new treaty was negotiated, this force was assigned to
BerarBerar Province, known also as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, was a province of British India. The province, formerly ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, was administered by the British after 1853, although the Nizam retained formal sovereignty over the province...
and stopped being a part of the Nizam's army.
{| cellpadding="3" border="1" class="wikitable"
! bgcolor="#DDDDDD" colspan="10" | East India Company armies on the eve of the Indian rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
|
| Presidencies | | British troops | | Indian troops |
| | Cavalry | Artillery | Infantry | Total | Cavalry | Artillery | Sappers
&
Miners | Infantry | Total |
| Bengal |
1,366 |
3,063 |
17,003 |
21,432 |
19,288 |
4,734 |
1,497 |
112,052 |
137,571 |
| Madras |
639 |
2,128 |
5,941 |
8,708 |
3,202 |
2,407 |
1,270 |
42,373 |
49,252 |
| Bombay |
681 |
1,578 |
7,101 |
9,360 |
8,433 |
1,997 |
637 |
33,861 |
44,928 |
Local forces
&
contingents |
|
|
|
|
6,796 |
2,118 |
|
23,640 |
32,554 |
" "
(unclassified) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7,756 |
| Military police |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
38,977 |
| Total |
2,686 |
6,769 |
30,045 |
39,500 |
37,719 |
11,256 |
3,404 |
211,926 |
311,038 |
| Grand Total, British and Indian troops | 350,538 |
In the
Indian Rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
almost the entire Bengal army, both regular and irregular, revolted. It has been suggested that after the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry, in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might augur. With British victories in wars or with annexation, as the extent of British jurisdiction expanded, the soldiers were now not only expected to serve in less familiar regions (such as in Burma in the Anglo-Burmese Wars in 1856), but also make do without the "foreign service," remuneration that had previously been their due, and this caused resentment in the ranks. The Bombay and Madras armies, and the Hyderabad contingent, however, remained loyal. The Punjab Irregular Force not only didn't revolt, it played an active role in suppressing the mutiny. The rebellion led to a complete reorganization of the Indian army in 1858 in the new
British RajBritish Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
.
Trade
After gaining the right to collect revenue in Bengal in 1765, the Company largely ceased importing gold and silver, which it had hitherto used to pay for goods shipped back to Britain. In addition, as under
Mughal ruleThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
, land revenue collected in the
Bengal PresidencyThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
helped finance the Company's wars in other parts of India. Consequently, in the period 1760–1800, Bengal's
money supplyIn economics, the money supply or money stock, is the total amount of money available in an economy at a specific time. There are several ways to define "money," but standard measures usually include currency in circulation and demand deposits .Money supply data are recorded and published, usually...
was greatly diminished; furthermore, the closing of some local mints and close supervision of the rest, the fixing of exchange rates, and the standardization of
coinA coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age, paradoxically, added to the economic downturn. During the period, 1780–1860, India changed from being an exporter of processed goods for which it received payment in bullion, to being an exporter of raw materials and a buyer of manufactured goods. More specifically, in the 1750s, mostly fine cotton and silk was exported from India to markets in Europe, Asia, and Africa; by the second quarter of the 19th century, raw materials, which chiefly consisted of raw cotton, opium, and indigo, accounted for most of India's exports. Also, from the late 18th century British cotton mill industry began to lobby the government to both tax Indian imports and allow them access to markets in India. Starting in the 1830s, British textiles began to appear in—and soon to inundate—the Indian markets, with the value of the textile imports growing from £5.2 million 1850 to £18.4 million in 1896. The
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
too would have a major impact on India's cotton economy: with the outbreak of the war, American cotton was no longer available to British manufacturers; consequently, demand for Indian cotton soared, and the prices soon quadrupled. This led many farmers in India to switch to cultivating cotton as a quick cash crop; however, with the end of the war in 1865, the demand plummeted again, creating another downturn in the agricultural economy.
At this time, the East India Company's trade with China began to grow as well. In the early 19th century demand for Chinese tea had greatly increased in Britain; since the money supply in India was restricted and the Company was indisposed to shipping bullion from Britain, it decided upon
opiumOpium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
, which had a large underground market in China and which was grown in many parts of India, as the most profitable form of payment. However, since the Chinese authorities had banned the importation and consumption of opium, the Company engaged them in the
First Opium WarThe First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
, and at its conclusion, under the Treaty of Nanjing, gained access to five Chinese ports,
GuangzhouGuangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
,
XiamenXiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...
,
FuzhouFuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area....
,
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, and
NingboNingbo is a seaport city of northeastern Zhejiang province, Eastern China. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, the municipality has a population of 7,605,700 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 3,089,180 in the built up area made of 6 urban districts. It lies south of the Hangzhou Bay,...
; in addition,
Hong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
was ceded to the British Crown. Towards the end of the second quarter of the 19th century, opium export constituted 40% of India's exports.
Another major, though erratic, export item was
indigo dyeIndigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
, which was extracted from
natural indigoIndigofera tinctoria bears the common name True indigo. The plant was one of the original sources of indigo dye. It has been naturalized to tropical and temperate Asia, as well as parts of Africa, but its native habitat is unknown since it has been in cultivation worldwide for many centuries. Today...
, and which came to be grown in Bengal and northern
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
. In late 17th and early 18th century Europe, blue apparel was favored as a fashion, and blue uniforms were common in the military; consequently, the demand for the dye was high. In 1788, the East India Company offered advances to ten British planters to grow indigo; however, since the new (landed) property rights defined in the
Permanent SettlementThe Permanent Settlement — also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal — was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire Empire and the...
, didn't allow them, as Europeans, to buy agricultural land, they had to in turn offer cash advances to local peasants, and sometimes coerce them, to grow the crop. The European demand for the dye, however, proved to be unstable, and both creditors and cultivators bore the risk of the market crashes in 1827 and 1847. The peasant discontent in Bengal eventually led to the Indigo rebellion in 1859-60 and to the end of indigo production there. In
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, however, indigo production continued well into the 20th century; the centre of indigo production there, Champaran district, became the staging ground, in 1917, for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's first experiment in non-violent resistance against the
British RajBritish Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
.
Justice system
Until the British gained control of
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
in the mid-18th century, the system of justice there was presided over by the
Nawab of BengalThe Nawabs of Bengal were the hereditary nazims or subadars of the subah of Bengal during the Mughal rule and the de-facto rulers of the province.-History:...
himself, who, as the chief law officer, Nawāb Nāzim, attended to cases qualifying for
capital punishmentCapital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
in his head-quarters,
MurshidabadMurshidabad is a city in Murshidabad district of West Bengal state in India. The city of Murshidabad is located on the southern bank of the Bhagirathi, a distributary of the Ganges River. It was the capital of undivided Bengal during the Mughal rule. Nawabs of Bengal used to rule Bengal from this...
. His deputy, the Naib Nāzim, attended to the slightly less important cases. The ordinary lawsuits belonged to the jurisdiction of a hierarchy of court officials consisting of faujdārs, muhtasils, and kotwāls. In the rural areas, or the Mofussil, the
zamindarA Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...
s—the rural overlords with the hereditary right to collect rent from peasant farmers—also had the power to administer justice. This they did with little routine oversight, being required to report only their judgments in capital punishment cases to the Nawāb.
By the mid-18th century, the British too had completed a century and a half in India, and had a burgeoning presence in the three presidency towns of
MadrasChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, Bombay, and Calcutta. During this time the successive
Royal CharterA royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
s had gradually given the
East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
more power to administer justice in these towns. In the charter granted by
Charles IICharles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
in 1683, the Company was given the power to establish "courts of judicature" in locations of its choice, each court consisting of a lawyer and two merchants. This right was renewed in the subsequent charters granted by
James IIJames II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
and
William IIIWilliam III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
in 1686 and 1698 respectively. In 1726, however, the Court of Directors of the Company felt that more customary justice was necessary for European residents in the presidency towns, and petitioned the King to establish Mayor's Courts. The petition was approved and Mayor's courts, each consisting of a Mayor and nine aldermen, and each having the jurisdiction in lawsuits between Europeans, were created in Fort William (Calcutta), Madras, and Bombay. Judgments handed down by a Mayor's Court could be disputed with an appeal to the respective Presidency government and, when the amount disputed was greater than Rs. 4,000, with a further appeal to the King-in-Council. In 1753, the Mayor's courts were renewed under a revised
letters patentLetters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
; in addition,
Courts of RequestsThe Court of Requests was a minor equity court in England and Wales. Created at an unknown date, it first became a formal tribunal with some Privy Council elements under Henry VII, hearing cases from the poor and the servants of the King. It quickly became popular due to the low cost of bringing a...
for lawsuits involving amounts less than Rs. 20 were introduced. Both types of courts were regulated by the Court of Directors of the East India Company.
After its victory in the
Battle of BuxarThe Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal; Shuja-ud-Daula Nawab of Awadh; and Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor...
, the Company obtained in 1765 the Diwāni of
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, the right not only to collect revenue, but also to administer civil justice in Bengal. The administration of criminal justice, the Nizāmat or Faujdāri, however, remained with the Nawāb, and for criminal cases the prevailing
Islamic lawSharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
remained in place. However, the Company's new duties associated with the Diwāni were leased out to the Indian officials who had formerly performed them. This makeshift arrangement continued—with much accompanying disarray—until 1771, when the Court of Directors of the Company decided to obtain for the Company the jurisdiction of both criminal and civil cases.
Soon afterwards
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
arrived in Calcutta as the first Governor-General of the Company's Indian dominions and resolved to overhaul the Company's organization and in particular its judicial affairs. In the interior, or Mofussil, diwāni adālats, or a
civil courts of first instanceA trial court or court of first instance is a court in which trials take place. Such courts are said to have original jurisdiction.- In the United States :...
, were constituted in each district; these courts were presided over by European Zilā judges employed by the Company, who were assisted in the interpretation of customary Indian law by Hindu
panditsA Paṇḍit is a scholar, poet and vocalist, particularly one adept in the Sanskrit language. Typically a Saraswat Brahmin by birth, a Pandit memorizes a substantial portion of the Vedas for chanting of Hindu prayers during ritual ceremonies...
and Muslim qazis. For small claims, however, Registrars and Indian commissioners, known as Sadr Amīns and Munsifs, were appointed. These in their turn were supervised by provincial
civil courts of appealAn appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...
constituted for such purpose, each consisting of four British judges. All these were under the authority of the Sadr Diwāni Adālat, or the
Chief Civil Court of AppealsA supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
, consisting of the Governor of the Presidency and his Council, assisted by Indian officers.
Similarly for criminal cases, Mofussil nizāmat adālats, or Provincial courts of criminal judicature, were created in the interior; these again consisted of Indian court officers (pandits and qazis), who were supervised by officials of the Company. Also constituted were
Courts of circuitCircuit court is the name of court systems in several common law jurisdictions.-History:King Henry II instituted the custom of having judges ride around the countryside each year to hear appeals, rather than forcing everyone to bring their appeals to London...
with
appellate jurisdictionAppellate jurisdiction is the power of the Supreme Court to review decisions and change outcomes of decisions of lower courts. Most appellate jurisdiction is legislatively created, and may consist of appeals by leave of the appellate court or by right...
in criminal cases, which were usually presided over by the judges of the civil appellate courts. All these too were under a Sadr Nizāmat Adālat or a Chief Court of Criminal Appeal.
Around this time the business affairs of the
East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
began to draw increased scrutiny in the
House of CommonsThe House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of the Parliament of Scotland, as one of the most significant...
. After receiving a report by a committee, which condemned the Mayor's Courts, the
CrownThe Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
issued a charter for a new judicial system in the
Bengal PresidencyThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
. The British Parliament consequently enacted the Regulating Act of 1773 under which the King-in-Council created a
Supreme CourtA supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
in the Presidency town, i.e. Fort William. The tribunal consisted of one Chief Justice and three puisne judges; all four judges were to be chosen from
barristerA barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
s. The Supreme Court supplanted the Mayor's Court; however, it left the Court of Requests in place. Under the charter, the Supreme Court, moreover, had the authority to exercise all types of jurisdiction in the region of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, with the only caveat that in situations where the disputed amount was in excess of Rs. 4,000, their judgment could be appealed to the
Privy CouncilA privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
. Both the Act and the charter said nothing about the relation between the
judiciaryThe judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
(Supreme Court) and the executive branch (Governor-General); equally, they were silent on the Adālats (both Diwāni and Nizāmat) created by Warren Hastings just the year before. In the new Supreme Court, the civil and criminal cases alike were interpreted and prosecuted accorded to
English lawEnglish law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...
; in the Sadr Adālats, however, the judges and law-officers had no knowledge of English law, and were required only, by the Governor-General's order, "to proceed according to equity, justice, and good conscience, unless
HinduHindu law in its current usage refers to the system of personal laws applied to Hindus, especially in India...
or
Muhammadan lawSharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
was in point, or some Regulation expressly applied."
There was a good likelihood, therefore, that the Supreme Court and the Sadr Adālats would act in opposition to each other and, predictably, many disputes resulted. Hastings' premature attempt to appoint the Chief Justice,
Sir Elijah ImpeySir Elijah Impey was a British judge, at one time chief justice of Bengal and MP for New Romney.He was born the youngest son of Elijah Impey and his wife Martha, daughter of James Fraser and was educated at Westminster School with Warren Hastings, who was his intimate friend throughout life...
, an old schoolmate from
WinchesterWinchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, to the bench of the Sadr Diwāni Adālat, only complicated the situation further. The appointment had to be annulled in 1781 by a parliamentary intervention with the enactment of the Declaration Act. The Act exempted the Executive Branch from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It recognized the independent existence of the Sadr Adālats and all subsidiary courts of the Company.
Furthermore, it headed off future legal turf wars by prohibiting the Supreme Court any jurisdiction in matters of revenue (Diwāni) or Regulations of the Government enacted by the British Parliament. This state of affairs continued until 1797, when a new Act extended the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to the province of Benares (which had since been added to the Company's dominions) and "all places for the time being included in
BengalThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
." With the constituting of the
Ceded and Conquered ProvincesThe Ceded and Conquered Provinces constituted a region in northern India that was ruled by the British East India Company from 1805 to 1834; it corresponded approximately—in present-day India—to all regions in Uttar Pradesh state with the exception of the Lucknow and Faizabad divisions...
in 1805, the jurisdiction would extend as far west as Delhi.
In the other two presidencies,
MadrasThe Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
and
BombayThe Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
, a similar course of legal changes unfolded; there, however, the Mayor's Courts were first strengthened to
Recorder's CourtThe Recorder's Court, in Detroit, Michigan was a state court of limited jurisdiction which had, for most of its history, exclusive jurisdiction over traffic and ordinance matters, and over all felony cases committed in the City of Detroit...
s by adding a legal president to the bench. The Supreme Courts in Madras and Bombay were finally established in 1801 and 1823, respectively.
Madras PresidencyThe Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
was also unusual in being the first to rely on village headmen and panchāyats for cases involving small claims. This judicial system in the three presidencies was to survive the Company's rule, the next major change coming only in 1861.
Education
Education of Indians had become a topic of interest among East India Company officials from the outset of the Company's rule in Bengal. In the last two decades of the 18th century and the first decade of the nineteenth, Company officials pursued a policy of conciliation towards the native culture of its new dominion, especially in relation to education policy. During the 19th century, the Indian literacy rates were rumoured to be less than half of post independence levels which were 18.33% in 1951. The policy was pursued in the aid of three goals: "to sponsor Indians in their own culture, to advance knowledge of India, and to employ that knowledge in government."
The first goal was supported by some administrators, such as
Warren HastingsWarren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...
, who envisaged the Company as the successor of a great Empire, and saw the support of vernacular learning as only befitting that role. In 1781, Hastings founded the
Madrasa 'AliyaAliah University, is an autonomous university, as well as a minority institute whose goal is the overall educational improvement of Muslims, in Kolkata, India. It was founded in 2007, when the Aliah University Act XXVII was passed by the West Bengal Legislative Assembly...
, an institution in Calcutta for the study of
ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
languages, and
Islamic LawIslamic law can refer to:*Sharia: The code of conduct enjoined upon Muslims in the Quran*Fiqh: Muslim jurisprudence...
. A few decades later a related perspective appeared among the governed population, one that was expressed by the conservative Bengali reformer Radhakanta Deb as the "duty of the Rulers of Countries to preserve and Customs and the religions of their subjects."
The second goal was motivated in part by concern among some Company officials about being seen as foreign rulers. They argued that the Company should try to win over its subjects by outdoing the region's previous rulers in the support of indigenous learning. Guided by this belief, the Benares Sanskrit College was founded in
Varanasi-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
in 1791 during the administration of Lord Cornwallis. The promotion of knowledge of Asia had attracted scholars as well to the Company's service. Earlier, in 1784, the
Asiatick SocietyThe Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert Chambers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the Fort William in Calcutta, then capital of the British Raj, to enhance and further the cause of Oriental research. At the time of...
had been founded in Calcutta by
William JonesSir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
, a puisne judge in the newly established
Supreme CourtA supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
of
BengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
. Soon, Jones was to advance his famous thesis on the common origin of
Indo-European languagesThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
.
The third related goal grew out of the philosophy then current among some Company officials that they would themselves become better administrators if they were better versed in the languages and cultures of India. It led in 1800 to the founding of the College of Fort William, in Calcutta by
Lord WellesleyRichard Colley Wesley, later Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, KG, PC, PC , styled Viscount Wellesley from birth until 1781, was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator....
, the then Governor-General. The College was later to play an important role both in the development of
modern Indian languagesThe languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...
and in the
Bengal RenaissanceThe Bengal Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the region of Bengal in Undivided India during the period of British rule...
. Advocates of these related goals were termed, "
OrientalistsOriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
." Many leading Company officials, such as Thomas Munro and Montstuart Elphinstone, were influenced by the Orientalist ethos and felt that the Company's government in India should be responsive to Indian expectations. The Orientalist ethos would prevail in education policy well into the 1820s, and was reflected in the founding of the
Poona Sanskrit CollegeDeccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute is a post-graduate institute of Archeology and Linguistics in Pune, India.Established October 6, 1821, Deccan College is one of the oldest institutions of modern learning in India...
in
PunePune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
in 1821 and the
Calcutta Sanskrit CollegeSanskrit College is a specialized state-government administered liberal arts college offering an undergraduate degree in Sanskrit language, Pali language, linguistics, and ancient Indian and world history. It is one of the affiliated colleges of the University of Calcutta. Founded on 1 January...
in 1824.
The Orientalists were, however, soon opposed by advocates of an approach that has been termed Anglicist. The Anglicists supported instruction in the
English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in order to impart to Indians what they considered modern Western knowledge. Prominent among them were
evangelicalsEvangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
who, after 1813—when the Company's territories were opened to
Christian missionariesChristian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
—were interested in spreading Christian belief; they also believed in using theology to promote liberal social reform, such as the
abolition of slaveryAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. Among them was
Charles GrantCharles Grant was a British politician influential in Indian and domestic affairs who, motivated by his evangelical Christianity, championed the causes of social reform and Christian mission, particularly in India...
, the Chairman of the East India Company. Grant supported state-sponsored education in India 20 years before a similar system was set up in Britain. Among Grant's close evangelical friends were
William WilberforceWilliam Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
, a prominent abolitionist and member of the British Parliament, and
Sir John ShoreJohn Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth was a British politician who served as Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797.He married Charlotte Cornish, daughter of James Cornish of Teignmouth, on 14 February 1786...
, the Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797. During this period, many Scottish Presbyterian missionaries also supported the British rulers in their efforts to spread English education and established many reputed colleges like Scottish Church College (1830),
Wilson CollegeThe Wilson College, set up in 1832 in Mumbai, is one of India’s oldest colleges, with its foundation preceding that of the University of Mumbai by 25 years...
(1832),
Madras Christian CollegeThe Madras Christian College, commonly known as MCC, is a liberal arts and sciences college in Madras , India. Founded in 1837, MCC is one of Asia's oldest extant colleges. Currently, the college is affiliated to the University of Madras, but functions as an autonomous institution from its campus...
(1837) and
Elphinstone CollegeElphinstone College is an institution of higher education affiliated to the University of Mumbai. Established in 1856, it is one of the oldest colleges of the University of Mumbai. It was exalted as a prestigious seat of learning during the British Raj and is generally observed for its vibrant alumni...
(1856).
However, the Anglicists also included utilitarians, led by
James MillJames Mill was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was a founder of classical economics, together with David Ricardo, and the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill.-Life:Mill was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of...
, who had begun to play an important role in fashioning Company policy. The utilitarians believed in the moral worth of an education that aided the good of society and promoted instruction in useful knowledge. Such useful instruction to Indians had the added consequence of making them more suitable for the Company's burgeoning bureaucracy. By the early 1830s, the Anglicists had the upper hand in devising education policy in India. Many utilitarian ideas were employed in Thomas Babbington Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education of 1835. The Minute, which later aroused great controversy, was to influence education policy in India well into the next century.
Since English was increasingly being employed as the language of instruction,
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
was abolished as the official language of the Company's administration and courts by 1837. However, bilingual educations was proving to be popular as well, and some institutions such as the Poona Sanskrit College commenced teaching both Sanskrit and English. Charles Grant's son,
Sir Robert GrantSir Robert Grant GCH was a British lawyer and politician.He was born in India, the son of Charles Grant, chairman of the Directors of the Honourable East India Company, and younger brother of Charles Grant, later Lord Glenelg. Returning home with their father in 1790, the two brothers were entered...
, who in 1834 was appointed Governor of the
Bombay PresidencyThe Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
, played an influential role in the planning of the first medical college in Bombay, which after his unexpected death was named Grant Medical College when it was established in 1845. During 1852–1853 some citizens of Bombay sent petitions to the British Parliament in support of both establishing and adequately funding university education in India. The petitions resulted in the Education Dispatch of July 1854 sent by
Sir Charles WoodCharles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax GCB PC , known as Sir Charles Wood, 3rd Bt between 1846 and 1866, was a British Whig politician and Member of Parliament. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1846 to 1852....
, the
President of the Board of ControlThe President of the Board of Control was a British government official in the late 18th and early 19th century responsible for overseeing the British East India Company and generally serving as the chief official in London responsible for Indian affairs. The position was frequently a cabinet...
of the East India Company, the chief official on Indian affairs in the British government, to
Lord DalhousieJames Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
, the then Governor-General of India. The dispatch outlined a broad plan of state-sponsored education for India, which included:
- Establishing a Department of Public Instruction in each presidency or province of British India.
- Establishing universities modeled on the University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
(as primarily examining institutions for students studying in affiliated colleges) in each of the Presidency towns (i.e. MadrasChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, BombayMumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, and Calcutta)
- Establishing teachers-training schools for all levels of instruction
- Maintaining existing Government colleges and high-schools and increasing their number when necessary.
- Vastly increasing vernacular schools for elementary education.
- Introducing a system of grants-in-aid for private schools.
The Department of Public Instruction was in place by 1855. In January 1857, the
University of CalcuttaThe University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
was established, followed by the University of Bombay in June, 1857, and the
University of MadrasThe University of Madras is a public research university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the three oldest universities in India...
in September 1857. The University of Bombay, for example, consisted of three affiliated institutions: the
Elphinstone InstitutionElphinstone College is an institution of higher education affiliated to the University of Mumbai. Established in 1856, it is one of the oldest colleges of the University of Mumbai. It was exalted as a prestigious seat of learning during the British Raj and is generally observed for its vibrant alumni...
, the Grant Medical College, and the
Poona Sanskrit CollegeDeccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute is a post-graduate institute of Archeology and Linguistics in Pune, India.Established October 6, 1821, Deccan College is one of the oldest institutions of modern learning in India...
. The Company's administration also founded high-schools en masse in the different provinces and presidencies, and the policy was continued during
Crown ruleBritish Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
which commenced in 1858. By 1861, 230,000 students were attending public educational institutions in the four provinces (the three Presidencies and
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
), of whom 200,000 were in primary schools. Over 5,000 primary schools and 142 secondary schools had been established in these provinces. Earlier, during the
Indian rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
, some civilian leaders, such as Khan Bhadur Khan of
BareillyBareilly is a prominent city in Bareilly district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Standing on the Ramganga river, it is the capital of the Bareilly division and the geographical region Rohilkhand...
, had stressed the threat posed to the populace's religions by the new education programs begun by the Company; however, historical statistics have shown that this was not generally the case. For example, in
EtawahEtawah is a city on the Yamuna River in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Etawah District. The city was an important center for the Revolt of 1857 . Also is the place of sangam or confluence between Yamuna and Chambal...
district in the then
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
(present-day
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
), where during the period 1855–57, nearly 200 primary, middle-, and high-schools had been opened by the Company and tax levied on the population, relative calm prevailed and the schools remained open during the rebellion.
Social reform
In the first half of the 19th century, the British legislated reforms against what they considered were iniquitous Indian practices. In most cases, the legislation alone was unable to change Indian society sufficiently for it to absorb both the ideal and the ethic underpinning the reform. For example, upper-caste Hindu society had long looked askance at the remarriage of widows in order to protect both what it considered was family honour and family property. Even adolescent widows were expected to live a life of austerity and denial. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, enacted in the waning years of Company rule, provided legal safeguards against loss of certain forms of inheritance for a remarrying Hindu widow, though not of the inheritance due her from her deceased husband. However, very few widows actually remarried. Some Indian reformers, such as
Ishwar Chandra VidyasagarIshwar Chandra Vidyasagar CIE , born Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhyaya , was an Indian Bengali polymath and a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance....
, even offered money to men who would take widows as brides, but these men often deserted their new wives.
Post and telegraph
Before 1837, the
East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's dominions in India had no universal public postal service, one that was shared by all regions. Although courier services did exist, connecting the more important towns with their respective seats of provincial government (i.e. the Presidency towns of Fort William (Calcutta), Fort St. George (Madras), and Bombay), private individuals were, upon payment, only sparingly allowed their use. That situation changed in 1837, when, by Act XVII of that year, a public post, run by the Company's Government, was established in the Company's territory in India.
Post officeA post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
s were established in the principal towns and postmasters appointed. The postmasters of the Presidency towns oversaw a few provincial post offices in addition to being responsible for the main postal services between the provinces. By contrast, the
District collectorThe District Collector is the district head of administration of the bureaucracy in a state of India. Though he/she is appointed and is under general supervision of the state government, he/she has to be a member of the elite IAS recruited by the Central Government...
s (originally, collectors of land-tax) directed the District post offices, including their local postal services. Postal services required payment in cash, to be made in advance, with the amount charged usually varying with weight and distance. For example, the charge of sending a letter from Calcutta to Bombay was one
rupeeThe rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and formerly in Burma, and Afghanistan. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century...
; however, that from Calcutta to
AgraAgra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
was 12
annasAn Anna was a currency unit formerly used in India, equal to 1/16 rupee. It was subdivided into 4 Paise or 12 Pies . The term belonged to the Muslim monetary system...
(or three-quarter of a rupee) for each tola (three-eighths of an ounce).
After the recommendations of the commission appointed in 1850 to evaluate the Indian postal system were received, Act XVII of 1837 was superseded by the Indian Postal Act of 1854. Under its provisions, the entire postal department was headed by a Director-General, and the duties of a Postmaster-General were set apart from those of a Presidency Postmaster; the former administered the postal system of the larger provinces (such as the
Bombay PresidencyThe Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
or the
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
), whereas the latter attended to the less important Provinces (such as
Ajmer-MerwaraAjmer-Merwara is a former province of British India in the historical Ajmer region. The territory of the province was ceded to the British by Daulat Rao Sindhia by a treaty on June 25, 1818....
and the major Political Agencies such as
RajputanaThe Rajputana Agency was a political office of the British Indian Empire dealing with a collection of native states in India , under the political charge of an Agent reporting directly to the Governor-General of India and residing at Mount Abu in the Aravalli Range...
).
Postage stampA postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s were introduced at this time and the postal rates fixed by weight, dependent no longer also on the distance traveled in the delivery. The lowest inland letter rate was half anna for 1/4 tola, followed by one anna for 1/2 tola, and 2 annas for a tola, a great reduction from the rates of 17 years before. The Indian Post Office delivered letters, newspapers, postcards, book packets, and parcels. These deliveries grew steadily in number; by 1861 (three years after the end of Company rule), a total of 889 post offices had been opened, and almost 43 million letters and over four and a half million newspapers were being delivered annually.
Before the advent of
electric telegraphyAn electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via telecommunication lines or radio. The electromagnetic telegraph is a device for human-to-human transmission of coded text messages....
, the word "telegraph" had been used for semaphore signaling. During the period 1820–30, the East India Company's Government in India seriously considered constructing signaling towers ("telegraph" towers), each a hundred feet high and separated from the next by eight miles, along the entire distance from Calcutta to Bombay. Although such towers were built in Bengal and Bihar, the India-wide semaphore network never took off. By mid-century, electric telegraphy had become viable, and hand signaling obsolete.
Dr.
W. B. O'ShaughnessyWilliam Brooke O'Shaughnessy MD FRS was an Irish physician famous for his work in pharmacology and inventions related to telegraphy...
, a Professor of Chemistry in the
Calcutta Medical CollegeMedical College,Kolkata was established 1835 as Medical College, Bengal in Kolkata, India as the first college of European medicine in Asia...
, received permission in 1851 to conduct a trial run for a telegraph service from Calcutta to
Diamond HarbourDiamond Harbour is in the southern suburbs of Kolkata, on the banks of the Hooghly River quite near where the river meets the Bay of Bengal. This small town is a popular weekend tourist spot located in South 24 Parganas district....
along the river Hooghly. Four telegraph offices, mainly for shipping-related business, were also opened along the river that year. The telegraph receiver used in the trial was a
galvanoscopeA galvanometer is a type of ammeter: an instrument for detecting and measuring electric current. It is an analog electromechanical transducer that produces a rotary deflection of some type of pointer in response to electric current flowing through its coil in a magnetic field. .Galvanometers were...
of Dr. O'Shaughnessy's design and manufactured in India. When the experiment was deemed to be a success a year later, the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, sought permission from the Court of Directors of the Company for the construction of telegraph lines from "Calcutta to Agra, Agra to Bombay, Agra to Peshawar, and Bombay to Madras, extending in all over 3,050 miles and including forty-one offices." The permission was soon granted; by February 1855 all the proposed telegraph lines had been constructed and were being used to send paid messages. Dr. O'Shaughnessy's instrument was used all over India until early 1857, when it was supplanted by the Morse instrument. By 1857, the telegraph network had expanded to 4,555 miles of lines and sixty two offices, and had reached as far as the
hill stationA hill station is a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The term was used mostly in colonial Asia , but also in Africa , for towns founded by European colonial rulers as refuges from the summer heat, up where temperatures are cooler...
of
OotacamundOotacamund , is a town, a municipality and the district capital of the Nilgiris district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Ootacamund is a popular hill station located in the Nilgiri Hills...
in the Nilgiri Hills and the port of Calicut on the southwest coast of India. During the
Indian rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
, more than seven hundred miles of telegraph lines were destroyed by the rebel forces, mainly in the
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
. The East India Company was nevertheless able to use the remaining intact lines to warn many outposts of impending disturbances. The political value of the new technology was, thus, driven home to the Company, and, in the following year, not only were the destroyed lines rebuilt, but the network was expanded further by 2,000 miles.
Dr. O'Shaughnessy's experimental set-up of 1851–52 consisted of both overhead and underground lines; the latter included underwater ones that crossed two rivers, the Hooghly and the
HaldiHaldi may refer to:* Haldi Hindi/Punjabi/Urdu/Gujarati name for the spice turmeric* Haldi River, a West Bengal river* Ḫaldi, an Urartian god* Haldi, Estonia, village in Estonia* Haldi, a Swiss family name, originally from the Saanen region...
. The overhead line was constructed by welding uninsulated iron rods, 13½ feet long and 3/8 inch wide, end to end. These lines, which weighed 1,250 pounds per mile, were held aloft by fifteen-foot lengths of
bambooBamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
, planted into the ground at equal intervals—200 to the mile—and covered with a layer each of
coal tarCoal tar is a brown or black liquid of extremely high viscosity, which smells of naphthalene and aromatic hydrocarbons. Coal tar is among the by-products when coal iscarbonized to make coke or gasified to make coal gas...
and
pitchPitch is the name for any of a number of viscoelastic, solid polymers. Pitch can be made from petroleum products or plants. Petroleum-derived pitch is also called bitumen. Pitch produced from plants is also known as resin. Products made from plant resin are also known as rosin.Pitch was...
for insulation. The bamboo supports were also strengthened by
teakTeak is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species Tectona grandis and its wood products. Tectona grandis is native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma, but is naturalized and cultivated in many countries, including those in Africa and the...
or sal posts at approximate intervals of a
furlongA furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and U.S. customary units equal to one-eighth of a mile, equivalent to 220 yards, 660 feet, 40 rods, or 10 chains. The exact value of the furlong varies slightly among English-speaking countries....
(one-eighths of a mile); the conducting iron rods were attached to the posts by secure iron clamps. The underground line, which was laid in Calcutta and its suburbs, used conducting rods that were similar to the overhead line, but these were now wrapped in two layers of
Madras clothMadras is a lightweight cotton fabric with typically patterned texture and plaid design, used primarily for summer clothing—pants, shorts, dresses and jackets. The fabric takes its name from the former English name of the city of Chennai, India...
previously saturated with melted tar and pitch. The insulated line obtained in such manner was then pressed into a row of curved roofing tiles that, in turn, had been filled with melted sand and
resinResin in the most specific use of the term is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. Resins are valued for their chemical properties and associated uses, such as the production of varnishes, adhesives, and food glazing agents; as an important source of raw materials...
. The underwater cables had been manufactured in England and consisted of copper wire covered
with
gutta-perchaGutta-percha is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to the Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. The same term is used to refer to an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species...
. Furthermore, in order to protect the cables from dragging
ship anchorsAn anchor is a device, normally made of metal, that is used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the vessel from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα .Anchors can either be temporary or permanent...
, the cables were attached to the links of a 7/8 in chain cable. An underwater cable of length 2,070 yards was laid across the Hooghly river at Diamond Harbour, and another, 1,400 yards long, was laid across the Haldi at
KedgereeKedgeree is a dish consisting of cooked, flaked fish , boiled rice, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, curry powder, butter or cream and occasionally sultanas.Kedgeree is thought to have originated with an Indian rice-and-bean or rice-and-lentil dish Khichri, traced back to 1340 or...
.
Work on the long lines from Calcutta to
PeshawarPeshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
(through Agra), Agra to Bombay, and Bombay to Madras began in 1853. The conducting material chosen for these lines was now lighter, and the support stronger. The wood used for the support consisted of teak, sal,
firFirs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...
,
ironwoodIronwood is a common name for a large number of woods that have a reputation for hardness. Usage of the name may include the tree that yields this wood...
, or blackwood (Terminalia elata), and was either fashioned into whole posts, or used in attachments to iron screw-piles or
masonryMasonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
columns.
Some sections had uniformly strong support; one such was the 322-mile Bombay-Madras line, which was supported by
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
obelisks sixteen feet high. Other sections had less secure support, consisting, in some cases, of sections of
toddy palmToddy palm is a common name for several species of palms used to produce palm wine. Species so used and named include:*Borassus*Caryota*Cocos nucifera...
, insulated with pieces of sal wood fastened to their tops. Some of the conducting wires or rods were insulated, the insulating material being either manufactured in India or England; other stretches of wire remained uninsulated. By 1856, iron tubes had begun to be employed to provide support, and would see increased use in the second half of the 19th century all over India.
The first Telegraph Act for India was the British Parliament's Act XXXIV of 1854. When the public telegram service was first set up in 1855, the charge was fixed at one rupee for every sixteen words (including the address) for every 400 miles of transmission. The charges were doubled for telegrams sent between 6PM and 6AM. These rates would remain fixed until 1882. In the year 1860–61, two years after the end of Company rule, India had 11,093 miles of telegraph lines and 145 telegraph offices. That year telegrams totaling Rs. 5
lakhA lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
in value were sent by the public, the working expense of the Indian Telegraph Department was Rs. 14 lakh, and the
capital expenditureCapital expenditures are expenditures creating future benefits. A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life extending beyond the taxable year...
until the end of the year totaled Rs. 65 lakh.
Railways
The first inter-city railway service in England, the Stockton-Darlington railway, had been established in 1825; in the following decade other inter-city railways were rapidly constructed between cities in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. In 1845, the Court of Directors of the
East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, forwarded to the
Governor-General of IndiaThe Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
,
Lord DalhousieJames Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
, a number of applications they had received from private contractors in England for the construction of a wide ranging railway network in India, and requested a feasibility report. They added that, in their view, the enterprise would be profitable only if large sums of money could be raised for the construction. The Court was concerned that in addition to the usual difficulties encountered in the construction of this new form of transportation, India might present some unique problems, among which they counted floods, tropical storms in coastal areas, damage by "insects and luxuriant tropical vegetation," and the difficulty of finding qualified technicians at a reasonable cost. It was suggested, therefore, that three experimental lines be constructed and their performance evaluated.
Contracts were awarded in 1849 to the
East Indian Railway CompanyThe East Indian Railway Company, later known as the East Indian Railway , introduced railways to eastern and northern India, while the Companies such as the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, South Indian Railway, Central India Railway and the North-Western Railway operated in other parts of India...
to construct a 120-mile railway from Howrah-Calcutta to
RaniganjRaniganj is a city and a municipality in Bardhaman district in the Indian state of West Bengal.-Geography:Raniganj is located at . It has an average elevation of 91 metres ....
; to the
Great Indian Peninsular Railway CompanyThe Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a predecessor of the Indian Central Railway, whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Bombay . The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was incorporated on August 1, 1849 by an act of the British Parliament. It had a share capital of 50,000 pounds...
for a service from Bombay to Kalyan, thirty miles away; and to the Madras Railway Company for a line from
Madras cityChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
to
ArkonamArakkonam is a mid-sized City in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a population of about 101,626 as per the census 2011...
, a distance of some thirty nine miles. Although construction began first, in 1849, on the East Indian Railways line, with an outlay of £1 million, it was the first-leg of the Bombay-Kalyan line—a 21-mile stretch from Bombay to
ThaneThane , is a city in Maharashtra, India, part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, northeastern suburb of Mumbai at the head of the Thane Creek. It is the administrative headquarters of Thane district. On 16 April 1853, G.I.P...
—that, in 1853, was the first to be completed (see picture below).
The feasibility of a train network in India was comprehensively discussed by Lord Dalhousie in his Railway minute of 1853. The Governor-General vigorously advocated the quick and widespread introduction of railways in India, pointing to their political, social, and economic advantages. He recommended that a network of trunk lines be first constructed connecting the inland regions of each presidency with its chief port as well as each presidency with several others. His recommended trunk lines included the following ones: (i) from Calcutta, in the
Bengal PresidencyThe Bengal Presidency originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire in South-Asia and beyond it. It comprised areas which are now within Bangladesh, and the present day Indian States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura.Penang and...
, on the eastern coast to
LahoreLahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
in the north-western region of the
PunjabThe Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
, annexed just three years before; (ii) from
AgraAgra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
in north-central India (in, what was still being called
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
) to Bombay city on the western coast; (iii) from Bombay to
Madras cityChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
on the southeastern coast; and (iv) from Madras to the southwestern Malabar coast (see map above). The proposal was soon accepted by the Court of Directors.
During this time work had been proceeding on the experimental lines as well. The first leg of the East Indian Railway line, a
broad gaugeBroad-gauge railways use a track gauge greater than the standard gauge of .- List :For list see: List of broad gauges, by gauge and country- History :...
railway, from Howrah to
PanduaPandua is a census town in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a police station in Chinsurah subdivision...
, was opened in 1854 (see picture of locomotive below), and the entire line up to
RaniganjRaniganj is a city and a municipality in Bardhaman district in the Indian state of West Bengal.-Geography:Raniganj is located at . It has an average elevation of 91 metres ....
would become functional by the time of the
Indian rebellion of 1857The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
. The
Great Indian Peninsular RailwayThe Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a predecessor of the Indian Central Railway, whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Bombay . The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was incorporated on August 1, 1849 by an act of the British Parliament. It had a share capital of 50,000 pounds...
was permitted to extend its experimental line to Poona. This extension required planning for the steep rise in the Bor Ghat valley in the
Western GhatsThe Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...
, a section 15¾ miles long with an ascent of 1,831 feet. Construction began in 1856 and was completed in 1863, and, in the end, the line required a total of twenty five tunnels and fifteen miles of gradients (inclines) of 1 in 50 or steeper, the most extreme being the Bor Ghat Incline, a distance of 1¾ miles at a gradient of 1 in 37 (see picture above).
Each of the three companies (and later five others that were given contracts in 1859) was joint stock company
domiciledIn law, domicile is the status or attribution of being a permanent resident in a particular jurisdiction. A person can remain domiciled in a jurisdiction even after they have left it, if they have maintained sufficient links with that jurisdiction or have not displayed an intention to leave...
in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with its
financial capitalFinancial capital can refer to money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or provide their services or to that sector of the economy based on its operation, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc....
raised in
pound sterlingThe pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
. Each company was guaranteed a 5 per cent return on its capital outlay and, in addition, a share of half the profits. Although the Government of India had no
capital expenditureCapital expenditures are expenditures creating future benefits. A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life extending beyond the taxable year...
other than the provision of the underlying land free of charge, it had the onus of continuing to provide the 5 percent return in the event of net loss, and soon all anticipation of profits would fall by the wayside as the outlays would mount.
The technology of railway construction was still new and there was no railway engineering expertise in India; consequently, all engineers had to be brought in from England. These engineers were unfamiliar not only with the language and culture of India, but also with the physical aspect of the land itself and its concomitant engineering requirements. Moreover, never before had such a large and complex construction project been undertaken in India, and no pool of semi-skilled labour was already organized to aid the engineers. The work, therefore, proceeded in fits and starts—many practical trials followed by a final construction that was undertaken with great caution and care—producing an outcome that was later criticized as being "built to a standard which was far in excess of the needs to the time." The Government of India's administrators, moreover, made up in their attention to the fine details of expenditure and management what they lacked in professional expertise. The resulting delays soon led to the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1857–58 to investigate the matter. However, by the time the Committee concluded that all parties needed to honour the spirit rather than the letter of the contracts, Company rule in India had ended.
Although, railway construction had barely begun in the last years of this rule, its foundations had been laid, and it would proceed apace for much of the next half century. By the turn of the 20th century, India would have over 28,000 miles of railways connecting most interior regions to the ports of
KarachiKarachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta,
ChittagongChittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
, and Rangoon, and together they would constitute the fourth-largest railway network in the world.
Canals
The first irrigation works undertaken during East India Company's rule were begun in 1817. Consisting chiefly of extensions or reinforcements of previous Indian works, these projects were limited to the plains north of Delhi and to the river deltas of the
Madras PresidencyThe Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
. A small dam in the
Kaveri riverThe Kaveri , also spelled Cauvery in English, is a large Indian river. The origin of the river is traditionally placed at Talakaveri, Kodagu in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the...
delta, built some 1,500 years before, and known as the Grand Anicut, was one such indigenous work in
South IndiaSouth India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
. In 1835–36, Sir
Arthur CottonGeneral Sir Arthur Thomas Cotton KCSI was a British general and irrigation engineer.Cotton devoted his life to the construction of irrigation and navigation canals throughout the British Empire in India, however, his dream was only partially realized, but he is still honored in parts of rural...
successfully reinforced the dam, and his success prompted more irrigation projects on the river. A little farther north, on the
Tungabhadra riverThe Tungabhadra River is a sacred river in southern India that flows through the state of Karnataka to Andhra Pradesh, where it serves as the chief tributary of the Krishna River...
, the 16th century
VijayanagaraThe Vijayanagara Empire , referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was an empire based in South Indian in the Deccan Plateau region. It was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of the Yadava lineage. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts...
ruler, Krishna Deva Raya, had constructed several
weirA weir is a small overflow dam used to alter the flow characteristics of a river or stream. In most cases weirs take the form of a barrier across the river that causes water to pool behind the structure , but allows water to flow over the top...
s; these too would be extended under British administration.
In plains above Delhi, the mid-14th century Sultan of Delhi, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, had constructed the 150 mile long Western Jamna Canal. Taking off from the right bank of the Jamna river early in its course, the canal irrigated the Sultan's territories in the
HissarHisar district is one of the 21 districts of Haryana state, India. Hisar city serves as the district headquarters. The district is also part of Hisar division, which is headed by a commissioner who belongs to the Indian Administrative Service....
region of
Eastern PunjabPunjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
. By the mid-16th century, however, the fine sediment carried by the Himalayan river had gradually choked the canal. Desilted and reopened several decades later by
Akbar the GreatAkbar , also known as Shahanshah Akbar-e-Azam or Akbar the Great , was the third Mughal Emperor. He was of Timurid descent; the son of Emperor Humayun, and the grandson of the Mughal Emperor Zaheeruddin Muhammad Babur, the ruler who founded the Mughal dynasty in India...
, the Western Jamna Canal was itself tapped by Akbar's grandson
Shah Jahan Shah Jahan Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) (Full title: His Imperial Majesty Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan...
, and some of its water was diverted to Delhi. During this time another canal was cut off the river. The 129 mile Eastern Jamna Canal or Doab Canal, which took off from the left bank of the Jamna, also high in its course, presented a qualitatively different difficulty. Since it was cut through steeply sloped land, its flow became difficult to control, and it was never to function efficiently. With the decline of
MughalThe Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
power in the 18th century, both canals fell into disrepair and closed. The Western Jamna Canal was repaired by British army engineers and it reopened in 1820. The Doab Canal was reopened in 1830; its considerable renovation involved raising the embankment by an average height of 9 ft. for some 40 miles.
Farther west in the
Punjab regionThe Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
, the 130 mile long Hasli Canal, had been constructed by previous rulers. Taking off from the
Ravi riverThe Ravi is a trans-boundary river flowing through Northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. It is one of the six rivers of the Indus System in Punjab region ....
and supplying water to the cities of
LahoreLahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and
AmritsarAmritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...
, this left-bank canal was extended by the British in the Bari Doab Canal works during 1850–57. The Punjab region, moreover, had much rudimentary irrigation by "inundation canals." Consisting of open cuts on the side of a river and involving no regulation, the inundation canals had been used in both the Punjab and
SindhSindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
for many centuries. The energetic administrations of the
SikhA Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
and
PathanPashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
governors of Mughal West Punjab had ensured that many such canals in
MultanMultan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
,
Dera Ghazi KhanDera Ghazi Khan is a city located in Dera Ghazi Khan District, Punjab, Pakistan. Dera Ghazi Khan is one of the most populous cities in Southern Punjab, and it is the largest district in Punjab in terms of area, being approximately in extent....
, and
MuzaffargarhMuzaffargarh is a city in southwestern Punjab, Pakistan, located on the bank of the Chenab River. The Town of Muzaffargarh was founded in 1794 by the Governor of Mulran Nawab Muzaffar Khan.The Meaning of Muzaffargarh is "Fort of Muzaffar" because the old town lies inside the walls of a fort built...
were still working efficiently at the time of the British
annexation of the PunjabThe Second Anglo-Sikh War took place in 1848 and 1849, between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company. It resulted in the subjugation of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab and what subsequently became the North-West Frontier Province by the East India Company.-Background...
in 1849.
The first new British work—with no Indian antecedents—was the Ganges Canal built between 1842 and 1854.
Contemplated first by Col.
John Russell ColvinJohn Russell Colvin, Esq. was a British civil servant in India, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He was lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, at the height of which he died.-Life:Colvin's was an Anglo-Indian family of...
in 1836, it did not at first elicit much enthusiasm from its eventual architect Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, who balked at idea of cutting a canal through extensive low-lying land in order to reach the drier upland destination. However, after the
Agra famine of 1837–38The Agra famine of 1837–1838 was a famine in the newly established North-Western Provinces of Company-ruled India that affected an area of and a population of 8 million people...
, during which the
East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's administration spent Rs. 2,300,000 on famine relief, the idea of a canal became more attractive to the Company's budget-conscious Court of Directors. In 1839, the Governor General of India,
Lord AucklandGeorge Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, GCB, PC was a British Whig politician and colonial administrator. He was thrice First Lord of the Admiralty and also served as Governor-General of India between 1836 and 1842....
, with the Court's assent, granted funds to Cautley for a full survey of the swath of land that underlay and fringed the projected course of the canal. The Court of Directors, moreover, considerably enlarged the scope of the projected canal, which, in consequence of the severity and geographical extent of the famine, they now deemed to be the entire
DoabA Doab is a term used in India and Pakistan for a "tongue" or tract of land lying between two confluent rivers...
region.
The enthusiasm, however, proved to be short lived. Auckland's successor as Governor General,
Lord EllenboroughEdward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough GCB, PC was a British Tory politician. He was four times President of the Board of Control and also served as Governor-General of India between 1842 and 1844.-Background and education:...
, appeared less receptive to large-scale public works, and for the duration of his tenure, withheld major funds for the project. Only in 1844, when a new Governor-General,
Lord HardingeField Marshal Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, GCB, PC was a British field marshal and Governor-general of India.-Army career:...
, was appointed, did official enthusiasm and funds return to the Ganges canal project. Although the intervening impasse, had seemingly affected Cautely's health and required him to return to Britain in 1845 for recuperation, his European sojourn gave him an opportunity to study contemporary hydraulic works in the United Kingdom and Italy. By the time of his return to India even more supportive men were at the helm, both in the
North-Western ProvincesThe North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...
, with
James ThomasonJames Thomason was a British colonial governor...
as Lt. Governor, and in British India with
Lord DalhousieJames Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
as Governor-General. Canal construction, under Cautley's supervision, now went into full swing. A 350-mile long canal, with another 300 miles of branch lines, eventually stretched between the headworks in
HardwarHardwar is a 1998 science fiction flight simulation computer game developed by The Software Refinery and published by Gremlin Interactive. In the USA, the game was distributed by Interplay under license...
and—after splitting into two branches at Nanau near
Aligarh—the confluence with the Ganges at Cawnpore (now Kanpur) and with the Jumna (now
YamunaThe Yamuna is the largest tributary river of the Ganges in northern India...
)
mainstemIn relation to hydrology, a main stem is "the primary downstream segment of a river, as contrasted to its tributaries". Another common term for the main stem, the final large channel of a riverine system, is the trunk. Water enters the main stem from the river's drainage basin, the land area...
at
EtawahEtawah is a city on the Yamuna River in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Etawah District. The city was an important center for the Revolt of 1857 . Also is the place of sangam or confluence between Yamuna and Chambal...
. The Ganges Canal, which required a total capital outlay of £2.15 million, was officially opened in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie. According to historian Ian Stone:
It was the largest canal ever attempted in the world, five times greater in its length than all the main irrigation lines of LombardyLombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
and EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
put together, and longer by a third than even the largest USA navigation canal, the Pennsylvania CanalPennsylvania Canal refers generally to a complex system of canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and other infrastructure including, in some cases, railroads in Pennsylvania...
.
See also
- British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
- British India
- Secretary of State for India
The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...
- Governor-General of India
The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
- Governor-General of Pakistan
The Governor-General of Pakistan was the representative in Pakistan of the Crown from the country's independence in 1947. When Pakistan was proclaimed a republic in 1956 the connection with the British monarchy ended, and the office of Governor-General was abolished.-History:Pakistan gained...
- Government of India Act
The term Government of India Act refers to any one of a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate the government of British India, in particular:...
- History of Bangladesh
The history of Bangladesh as a nation state began in 1971, when it seceded from Pakistan. Prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, modern-day Bangladesh was part of ancient, classical, medieval and colonial India....
- History of India
The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
- History of Pakistan
The 1st known inhabitants of the modern-day Pakistan region are believed to have been the Soanian , who settled in the Soan Valley and Riwat almost 2 million years ago. Over the next several thousand years, the region would develop into various civilizations like Mehrgarh and the Indus Valley...
- The History of British India
The History of British India is a history of British India by the 19th century British philosopher and imperial political theorist James Mill....
Classic histories and gazetteers