History of the British Raj

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Colonial India
British Indian Empire
Imperial entities of India
Austrian India
 1778–1785
Swedish India 1731–1813
Dutch India 1605–1825
Danish India 1620–1869
French India 1668–1954
Portuguese India
(1505–1961)
Casa da Índia 1434–1833
Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633
British India
(1600–1947)
EIC in India 1600–1757
Company rule in India 1757–1858
British rule in Portuguese India 1797–1813
British Raj 1858–1947
British rule in Burma 1824–1948
Princely states 1721–1949
Partition of India 1947

After the

Queen Victoria
.

The British Raj lasted until 1947, when the

province of Burma
in the eastern region of the Indian Empire had been made a separate colony in 1937 and became independent in 1948.

The East India Company was an English and later British joint-stock company.[1] It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with Mughal India and the East Indies, and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia, and colonised Hong Kong after a war with Qing China.

Prelude

For the earlier history of India, see Company rule in India and Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Effects on the economy

In the later half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the

Bombay, for subsequent export to England.[3] Likewise, finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets.[4] However, unlike Britain itself, where the market risks for the infrastructure development were borne by private investors, in India it was the taxpayers—primarily farmers and farm-labourers—who endured the risks, which, in the end, amounted to £50 million.[5] In spite of these costs, very little skilled employment was created for Indians. By 1920, with a history of 60 years of its construction, only 10 percent of the "superior posts" in the railways were held by Indians.[6]

The rush of technology was also changing the agricultural economy in India: by the last decade of the 19th century, a large fraction of some raw materials—not only cotton, but also some food-grains—were being exported to faraway markets.[7] Consequently, many small farmers, dependent on the whims of those markets, lost land, animals, and equipment to money-lenders.[7] More tellingly, the latter half of the 19th century also saw an increase in the number of large-scale famines in India. Although famines were not new to the subcontinent, these were particularly severe, with tens of millions dying,[citation needed] and with many critics, both British and Indian, laying the blame at the doorsteps of the lumbering colonial administrations.[7]

  • Lord Ripon, the Liberal Viceroy of India, who instituted the Famine Code
    Lord Ripon, the Liberal Viceroy of India, who instituted the Famine Code
  • The Agra canal (c. 1873), a year away from completion. The canal was closed to navigation in 1904 to increase irrigation and aid in famine-prevention.
    The
    Agra canal
    (c. 1873), a year away from completion. The canal was closed to navigation in 1904 to increase irrigation and aid in famine-prevention.
  • Railway map of India in 1909. Railway construction in India had begun in 1853.
    Railway map of India in 1909. Railway construction in India had begun in 1853.
  • A 1903 stereographic image of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, by Underwood and Underwood. The station was completed in 1888.
    A 1903 stereographic image of
    Bombay
    , by Underwood and Underwood. The station was completed in 1888.

In terms of the longer lasting effects and legacies of the economic impact of the British Raj, the impact predominantly stems from the irregular investment of areas of infrastructure. Simon Carey explains how the investment into Indian society was 'narrowly focused' and favoured the growth of transportation of goods and workers.[8] Therefore, India has since seen an uneven economic development of society. For example, Acemoglu et al. (2001) identify how the inability of certain areas of rural India to cope with disease and famine best explain this uneven development of the nation.[9] Carey also points out that a lasting impact of the British Raj is the transformation of India into an agricultural trading economy.[10] Therefore, some areas of India, predominantly in affluent urban areas, have benefited from the legacies of the British Raj in the long term due to the transformation of Indian economic culture to a production based economy. However, the majority of Indian society has experienced a negative impact of the British Raj, especially in rural and suburban areas, due to the focus of investment into transport such as railways and canals rather than into healthcare and primary education.[original research?]

Beginnings of self-government

The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils with the

Municipal Corporations
and District Boards were created for local administration; they included elected Indian members

The

British Parliament
that parliamentary self-government was not the goal of the British government.

The Morley-Minto Reforms were a milestone. Step by step, the elective principle was introduced for membership in Indian legislative councils. The "electorate" was limited, however, to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members increasingly became an "opposition" to the "official government". The Communal electorates were later extended to other communities and made a political factor of the Indian tendency toward group identification through religion.

World War I and its causes

founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participating, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (The British Indies), in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[12] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians[11] through Sport in India
.

In 1916, in the face of new strength demonstrated by the nationalists with the signing of the

Home Rule leagues, and the realisation, after the disaster in the Mesopotamian campaign, that the war would likely last longer, the new Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, cautioned that the Government of India needed to be more responsive to Indian opinion.[13] Towards the end of the year, after discussions with the government in London, he suggested that the British demonstrate their good faith – in light of the Indian war role – through a number of public actions, including awards of titles and honours to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled cotton excise duty, but most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete steps.[13] After more discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, announced the British aim of "increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire."[13] This envisioned reposing confidence in the educated Indians, so far disdained as an unrepresentative minority, who were described by Montague as "Intellectually our children".[14] The pace of the reforms where to be determined by Britain as and when the Indians were seen to have earned it.[14]
However, although the plan envisioned limited self-government at first only in the provinces – with India emphatically within the British Empire – it represented the first British proposal for any form of representative government in a non-white colony.

Earlier, at the onset of World War I, the reassignment of most of the British army in India to Europe and

wartime governmental control and it now feared a revival of revolutionary violence,[14] the government also began to consider how some of its wartime powers could be extended into peacetime.[15]

Edwin Montagu, left, the Secretary of State for India, whose report led to the Government of India Act 1919, also known as the Montford Reforms or the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms.

Consequently, in 1917, even as Edwin Montagu announced the new constitutional reforms,

Bombay presidency, and the Punjab.[13] To combat subversive acts in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its wartime authority, which included the ability to try cases of sedition by a panel of three judges and without juries, exaction of securities from suspects, governmental overseeing of residences of suspects,[13] and the power for provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without trial.[19]

With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By year's end 1919, 1.5 million Indians had served in the armed services in either combatant or non-combatant roles, and India had provided £146 million in revenue for the war.

Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic woes,[21] and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.[22]

To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's recommendations into two

Mohandas Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.[19]

Montagu–Chelmsford Report 1919

Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[23] After more discussion by the government and parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee for the purpose of identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act 1919 (also known as the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919.[23] The new Act enlarged the provincial councils and converted the Imperial Legislative Council into an enlarged Central Legislative Assembly. It also repealed the Government of India's recourse to the "official majority" in unfavourable votes.[23] Although departments like defence, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications and income-tax were retained by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue and local self-government were transferred to the provinces.[23] The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council.[23] The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.

A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate.

Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial legislative councils.[23] The Montagu–Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen as instruments of British control.[23]

British Prime Minister MacDonald to the right of Gandhi at the Second Round Table Conference in London, October 1931.

Round Table Conferences 1930–31–32

Main article: Round Table Conferences (India)

The three

dominion status. However, there were significant disagreements between the Indian and the British leaders that the Conferences could not resolve.[26]

A cartoon from 1932 depicting Viscount Willingdon on a hunger strike against Gandhi

Willingdon imprisons leaders of Congress

In 1932 the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, after the failure of the three Round Table Conferences (India) in London, now confronted Gandhi's Congress in action. The India Office told Willingdon that he should conciliate only those elements of Indian opinion that were willing to work with the Raj. That did not include Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, which launched its Civil Disobedience Movement on 4 January 1932. Therefore, Willingdon took decisive action.[27] He imprisoned Gandhi. He outlawed the Congress; he rounded up all members of the Working Committee and the Provincial Committees and imprisoned them; and he banned Congress youth organisations. In total he imprisoned 80,000 Indian activists. Without most of their leaders, protests were uneven and disorganised, boycotts were ineffective, illegal youth organisations proliferated but were ineffective, more women became involved, and there was terrorism, especially in the North-West Frontier Province. Gandhi remained in prison until 1933.[28][29] Willingdon relied on his military secretary, Hastings Ismay, for his personal safety.[30]

Communal Award: 1932

MacDonald, trying to resolve the critical issue of how Indians would be represented, on 16 August 1932 announced the

Dalits) obtained a separate electorate. Gandhi, representing the Indian National Congress during negotiations, rejected separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, Europeans, Anglo-Indians, and Indian Christians because, according to historian Helen Nugent, he believed those separate electorates would weaken Congress' claim to be nationally representative. The award went into effect anyway.[31]

Government of India Act (1935)

In 1935, after the failure of the Round Table Conferences, the British Parliament approved the

bicameral national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the British government. Although the national federation was never realized, nationwide elections for provincial assemblies were held in 1937. Despite initial hesitation, the Congress took part in the elections and won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India,[33] and Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. In Great Britain, these victories were to later turn the tide for the idea of Indian independence.[33]

World War II

Main article: India in World War II

India played a major role in the Allied war effort against both Japan and Germany. It provided over 2 million soldiers, who fought numerous campaigns in the Middle East, and in the India-Burma front and also supplied billions of pounds to the British war effort. The Muslim and Sikh populations were strongly supportive of the British war effort, but the Hindu population was divided. Congress opposed the war, and tens of thousands of its leaders were imprisoned in 1942–45.[34][35][36] A major famine in eastern India led to hundreds of thousands of deaths by starvation, and remains a highly controversial issue regarding Churchill's reluctance to provide emergency food relief.[37]

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in the war effort; however, it now took the view that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress. Hindus not affiliated with the Congress typically supported the war. The two major Sikh factions, the Unionists and the Akali Dal, supported Britain and successfully urged large numbers of Sikhs to volunteer for the army.[38]

Quit India movement or the Bharat Chhodo Andolan

The British sent a high level Cripps Mission in 1942 to secure Indian nationalists' co-operation in the war effort in exchange for postwar independence and dominion status. Congress demanded immediate independence and the mission failed. Gandhi then launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. Along with thousands of other Congress leaders, Gandhi was immediately imprisoned, and the country erupted in violent local episodes led by students and later by peasant political groups, especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. According to John F. Riddick, from 9 August 1942 to 21 September 1942, the Quit India movement:

attacked 550 post offices, 250 railway stations, damaged many rail lines, destroyed 70 police stations, and burned or damaged 85 other government buildings. There were about 2,500 instances of telegraph wires being cut....The Government of India deployed 57 battalions of British troops to restore order.[39]

The police and army crushed the resistance in months. Nationalist leaders were imprisoned until the end of World War 2.[40]

Ultimately, the British government realised that India was ungovernable in the long run, and the question for the postwar era became how to exit gracefully and peacefully.

In 1945, when the World War 2 had almost come to an end, the Labour Party of the United Kingdom won elections with a promise to provide independence to India.[41][42] The jailed political prisoners were released the same year.[43]

Bose and the Indian National Army (INA)

Burma Campaign
.

Bose's Indian National Army surrendered with the recapture of Singapore; Bose died in a plane crash soon thereafter.

The British demanded

trials for INA officers, but public opinion—including Congress and even the Indian Army—saw the INA as fighting for Indian independence and demanded a termination. The British eventually backtracked in the face of opposition by the Congress.[48][49] These trials became a galvanising point in the Indian Independence movement for the Indian National Congress.[50][51]

Finances

Britain borrowed everywhere it could and made heavy purchases of equipment and supplies in India during the war.[52] Previously India owed Britain large sums; now it was reversed.[53] Britain's sterling balances around the world amounted to £3.4 billion in 1945; India's share was £1.3 billion (equivalent to $US 74 billion in 2016 dollars.)[54][55] In this way the Raj treasury accumulated very large sterling reserves of British pounds that was owed to it by the British treasury. However, Britain treated this as a long-term loan with no interest and no specified repayment date. Just when the money would be made available by London was an issue, for the British treasury was nearly empty by 1945. India's balances totalled to Rs. 17.24 billion in March 1946; of that sum Rs. 15.12 billion [£1.134 billion] was split between India and Pakistan when they became independent in August 1947. They finally got the money and India spent all its share by 1957 which included buying back British owned assets in India.[56]

Transfer of Power

1909 Prevailing Religions, Map of British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the prevailing majority religions of the population for different districts.

The

Allah Bakhsh Soomro also made it easier for the All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of a Pakistan.[60]

In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with

mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. Although the mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they found much public support in India and had the effect of spurring the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading to the Cabinet Mission to India led by the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and including Sir Stafford Cripps, who had visited four years before.[61]

Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India in which the Congress won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.

British India. The following day, Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and they quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru
serving as united India's prime minister.

Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947, Britain announced its intention to transfer power no later than June 1948.

As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy,

Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country in opposition to Gandhi's views. In the years leading up to the partition of India, the pro-separatist All-India Muslim League violently drove out Hindus and Sikhs from the western Punjab.[63]

Many millions of Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu refugees trekked across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, massive bloodshed followed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders died in the violence.[64] On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, stayed on as its first Governor General.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The Dutch East India Company was the first to issue public stock.
  2. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 259), (Oldenburg 2007)
  3. ^ (Oldenburg 2007), (Stein 2001, p. 258)
  4. ^ a b (Oldenburg 2007)
  5. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 258)
  6. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 159)
  7. ^ a b c (Stein 2001, p. 260)
  8. ^ Carey 2012
  9. ^ Acemoglu, Johnson & Robinson 2001
  10. ^ Carey 2012
  11. ^ a b c d Brown 1994, pp. 197–198
  12. ^ Olympic Games Antwerp 1920: Official Report Archived 5 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Nombre de bations representees, p. 168. Quote: "31 Nations avaient accepté l'invitation du Comité Olympique Belge:... la Grèce – la Hollande Les Indes Anglaises – l'Italie – le Japon ..."
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown 1994, pp. 203–204
  14. ^ a b c Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 166
  15. ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 201–203
  16. ^ Lovett 1920, pp. 94, 187–191
  17. ^ Sarkar 1921, p. 137
  18. ^ Tinker 1968, p. 92
  19. ^ a b c Spear 1990, p. 190
  20. ^ a b c Brown 1994, pp. 195–196
  21. ^ a b c Stein 2001, p. 304
  22. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 208
  23. ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown 1994, pp. 205–207
  24. ISBN 978-0-19-577389-7
    .
  25. ISBN 978-0-19-906606-3
    .
  26. ISBN 9780852297605
    .
  27. ISBN 9780313322808
    .
  28. ^ Brian Roger Tomlinson, The Indian National Congress and the Raj, 1929–1942: the penultimate phase (Springer, 1976).
  29. ^ Rosemary Rees. India 1900–47 (Heineman, 2006) p 122
  30. ISBN 978-0-8371-6280-5
    .
  31. doi:10.1080/00856407908722988
    .
  32. ^ (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156)
  33. ^ a b (Low 1993, p. 154)
  34. ^ Srinath Raghavan, India's War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia (2016).
  35. ^ Yasmin Khan, India At War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War (2015).
  36. ^ Lawrence James, Raj: the making and remaking of British India (1997) pp 545–85
  37. ^ Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II (2010).
  38. ISBN 9781349234103
    .
  39. ^ John F. Riddick, The History of British India: A Chronology (2006) p 115
  40. ^ Srinath Raghavan, India's War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia (2016) pp 233–75.
  41. ISBN 978-0-429-96865-5
    . The Labour Party promised independence for India in its campaign in the general election of 1945.
  42. ISBN 978-0-19-564228-5
    . Labour Party had promised freedom for India if they came to power
  43. ^ Naveen Sharma (1990). Right to Property in India. Deep & Deep Publications. p. 36.
  44. ^ Chaudhuri 1953, p. 355
  45. ^ a b Low 1993, p. 31
  46. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
  47. ^ Lebra 1977, p. 31
  48. ISBN 978-1-135-76456-2
    .
  49. ^ Marston2014, pp. 130–132: "Many Indian Army POWs were perplexed by Congress's sudden support for the INA"
  50. ^ Singh 2003, p. 98.
  51. ^ Sarkar 1983, p. 420
  52. ISBN 0-521-22802-6
    .
  53. ^ Srinath Raghavan, India's War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia (2016) pp 339–47.
  54. ^ See "Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Conversion of Currency"
  55. ^ Marcelo de Paiva Abreu, "India as a creditor: sterling balances, 1940–1953." (Department of Economics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, 2015) online
  56. ISBN 9788171884292
    .
  57. ISBN 9781108621236
    .
  58. ^ Haq, Mushir U. (1970). Muslim politics in modern India, 1857-1947. Meenakshi Prakashan. p. 114. This was also reflected in one of the resolutions of the Azad Muslim Conference, an organization which attempted to be representative of all the various nationalist Muslim parties and groups in India.
  59. ^ a b Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times. However, the book is a tribute to the role of one Muslim leader who steadfastly opposed the Partition of India: the Sindhi leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro. Allah Bakhsh belonged to a landed family. He founded the Sindh People's Party in 1934, which later came to be known as 'Ittehad' or 'Unity Party'. ... Allah Bakhsh was totally opposed to the Muslim League's demand for the creation of Pakistan through a division of India on a religious basis. Consequently, he established the Azad Muslim Conference. In its Delhi session held during April 27–30, 1940 some 1400 delegates took part. They belonged mainly to the lower castes and working class. The famous scholar of Indian Islam, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, feels that the delegates represented a 'majority of India's Muslims'. Among those who attended the conference were representatives of many Islamic theologians and women also took part in the deliberations ... Shamsul Islam argues that the All-India Muslim League at times used intimidation and coercion to silence any opposition among Muslims to its demand for Partition. He calls such tactics of the Muslim League as a 'Reign of Terror'. He gives examples from all over India including the NWFP where the Khudai Khidmatgars remain opposed to the Partition of India.
  60. ^ a b c Ali, Afsar (17 July 2017). "Partition of India and Patriotism of Indian Muslims". The Milli Gazette.
  61. ^ a b (Judd 2004, pp. 172–173)
  62. ^ (Judd 2004, p. 172)
  63. ^ Abid, Abdul Majeed (29 December 2014). "The forgotten massacre". The Nation. On the same dates, Muslim League-led mobs fell with determination and full preparations on the helpless Hindus and Sikhs scattered in the villages of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha. The murderous mobs were well supplied with arms, such as daggers, swords, spears and fire-arms. (A former civil servant mentioned in his autobiography that weapon supplies had been sent from the NWFP and money was supplied by Delhi-based politicians.) They had bands of stabbers and their auxiliaries, who covered the assailant, ambushed the victim and disposed of his body if necessary. These bands were monetarily subsidized by the Muslim League, and cash payments were made to individual assassins based on the numbers of Hindus and Sikhs who they had killed. There were also regular patrolling parties in jeeps which went about sniping and picking off any stray Hindus and Sikhs. ... Thousands of non-combatants including women and children were killed or injured by mobs, supported by the All India Muslim League.
  64. ^ (Khosla 2001, p. 299)

Surveys and reference books

Monographs and collections

Articles in journals or collections

Classic Histories and Gazetteers

Tertiary Sources

External links

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