The colonization

    From 1765, the English Company of the Mughal emperor receives the power to levy taxes and make the civil justice in Bengal, the Nawab of Bengal preserving the prerogatives of defense and criminal justice. But soon, the real power is in English hands. With the arrival in 1798 of Richard Wellesley as Governor Generalof India, a plan of conquest is implemented and, at the end of the nineteenth century, India and Burma are English.

In 1813, the Company lost its trading monopoly, and becomes an instrument of British government and the army absorbs half of its budget expenditures; Persian is replaced by English as the official language.
   
     In 1857, the sepoys (native troops under British command) mutiny and insurrection quickly wins the Ganges Valley, and is violently crushed with military aid from the metropolis.

  The Company is removed and cedes power to the British Crown, the colonial government is overseen from London by the India Office (Department of genuine India).

India during the colonization

The height of the Indian Empire (1858-1919)

  

       From 1861, the Governor General has the title of viceroy and lives in Calcutta until 1911, and then Delhi. In 1877, Queen Victoria is proclaimed Empress of India.

Around 1900, a total population of 300 million, the UK population is 80,000civilians and 65,000 soldiers (more than half of British ground troops). India knows no economic development between 1800 and 1947.

The decolonization

      There were two majorities in India, Hindus and Muslims. Hindus are represented by the Congress and Muslims by the Muslim League. Between the two wars world, an important nationalism has grown principally thanks to Gandhi’s actions. Indeed, he developed protestations against the British domination but without violence. So in 1929, London signed the “Indian Act” which gives a form of autonomy to India.

Gandhi (1869-1948) was a political leader, a spiritual leader of India and the independence movement in this country.


 With the second War World, the nationalism in India has grown again and in 1942, the Congress invented the slogan “Quit India” which is or the British, all Indian wants that British domination stopped. There were a lot of demonstrations and troubles, but repressed by the British.

  After the end of the war, the negotiation restarted. The United Kingdom accepts the independence only with the guarantee that India will be united and that minority rights will be respected. Negotiations are slowed because of the non-cooperation of the two nationalist parties. The Muslim League led by Jinnah, proposed in 1940 the creation of a Muslim state, Pakistan, while the Congress Party, led by Nehru wants a united Indian state.

        From 1946, the solution of a united state is denied; many bloody and violent troubles erupted, especially in Calcutta in August 1946. The British wanted to quit the country and to be cleared of this problem. In February 1947, the first minister of United Kingdom declared the evacuation of India. The independence is declared August 15 and 16, 1947.  The territory is separated in two parts, The Indian Union, with Hindus majority and the Pakistan with Muslim majority. But because of the independence there were lots of violence, about 400 000 dead and 10 to 15 million people have been displaced at the border.

  India after the decolonization