India is a British colony. India is a British colony. Indian Act

colonial possession in South Asia from 1858 to 1947. The colony's gradually expanding territory eventually covered what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The term British India usually refers to the entire territory of a colonial possession, although strictly speaking it referred only to those parts of the subcontinent that were under direct British rule; In addition to these territories, there were so-called “native principalities”, which were formally only in vassal dependence on the British Empire.

In 1937, Burma was carved out of British India as a separate colony. In 1947, British India was granted independence, after which the country was divided into two dominions - India and Pakistan. Bangladesh, in turn, separated from Pakistan in 1971.

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✪ How India emerged from British colonial occupation

✪ coin British East India Company 1/2 anna 1835

✪ coin British East India Company 1/4 anna 1835

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Beginning in 1916, the British colonial authorities, represented by Viceroy Lord Chelmsford, announced concessions to Indian demands; These concessions included the appointment of Indians to officer positions in the army, the awarding of awards and honorary titles to the princes, and the abolition of the excise tax on cotton, which extremely irritated the Indians. In August 1917, Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu declared the British goal to be the gradual formation in India of "a responsible government as an integral part of the British Empire."

By the end of the war, most troops had been redeployed from India to Mesopotamia and Europe, causing concern among local colonial authorities. Unrest became more frequent, and British intelligence noted many cases of cooperation with Germany. In 1915 it was adopted Indian Defense Act, which in addition to Press Law, allowed the persecution of politically dangerous dissidents, in particular, the sending of journalists to prison without trial, and the implementation of censorship.

In 1917, a committee chaired by British Judge Rowlett investigated the involvement of Germans and Russian Bolsheviks in outbreaks of violence in India. The commission's findings were presented in July 1918, and identified three regions: Bengal, Bombay Presidency and Punjab. The committee recommended expanding the powers of the authorities in wartime conditions, introducing courts of three judges, without juries, introducing government supervision over suspects, and giving local authorities the power to arrest and detain suspects for short periods without trial.

The end of the war also brought about economic changes. By the end of 1919, up to 1.5 million Indians had participated in the war. Taxes rose and prices doubled between 1914 and 1920. Demobilization from the army worsened unemployment, and food riots took place in Bengal, Madras and Bombay.

The government decided to implement the recommendations of the Rowlett Committee in the form of two laws, but when voting in the Imperial Legislative Council, all its Indian deputies voted against it. The British managed to pass a scaled-down version of the first bill, which allowed the authorities to carry out extrajudicial prosecutions, but for a period of only three years, and only against “anarchist and revolutionary movements.” The second bill was entirely rewritten as amendments to the Indian Penal Code. However, great indignation broke out in India, culminating in the Amritsar massacre, and bringing Mahatma Gandhi's nationalists to the forefront.

In December 1919 it was adopted Government of India Act. The Imperial and Provincial Legislative Councils were expanded, and the executive's recourse to the passage of unpopular laws by "official majority" was abolished.

Issues such as defence, criminal investigation, foreign affairs, communications, tax collection remained under the responsibility of the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, while health care, land tenancy, local government were transferred to the provinces. Such measures made it easier for Indians to participate in civil service and obtain officer positions in the army.

Indian suffrage was expanded nationally, but the number of Indians eligible to vote was only 10% of the adult male population, many of whom were illiterate. The British authorities were manipulative; Thus, more seats in legislative councils were received by representatives of villages, who were more sympathetic to the colonial authorities, than by townspeople. Separate seats were reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, college graduates. According to the principle of "communal representation", seats were reserved separately for Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans living in India, in the Imperial and Provincial Legislative Councils.

Also in early 1946, new elections were held in which the Congress won in 8 of the 11 provinces. Negotiations began between the INC and the Muslim League on the partition of India. On August 16, 1946, Muslims declared Direct Action Day demanding the creation of an Islamic national home in British India. The next day, clashes between Hindus and Muslims began in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. In September, a new government was appointed, with the Hindu Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.

Britain's Labor government realized that the country, devastated by the Second World War, no longer had the international or local support to continue to hold power over India, which was sinking into the abyss of communal unrest. In early 1947, Britain announced its intention to withdraw its forces from India no later than June 1948.

As independence approached, clashes between Hindus and Muslims continued to escalate. The new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, proposed a plan for partition. In June 1947, representatives of the Congress, Muslims, untouchables, and Sikhs agreed to the partition of British India along religious lines. Areas with a predominantly Hindu and Sikh population went to the new India, and those with a predominantly Muslim population went to the new country, Pakistan.

On 14 August 1947, the Dominion of Pakistan was established, with a Muslim leader appointed as Governor-General. The next day, August 15, India was declared an independent state.

Organization

The part of the territory of the subcontinent that was under the direct control of the British Crown (through the Governor-General of India) was called British India proper; it was divided into three Presidencies - Bombay, Madras and Bengal. But the bulk of the territory was represented by “native states” (English Native states), or “principalities” (English Princely states).

The total number of individual Indian principalities thus reached several hundred. British power was represented in them by residents, but in 1947 there were only 4 principalities with their own residents. All other principalities were united around various regional divisions (agencies, residencies). Formally, the "native princely states" were considered independent, and were ruled not by the British, but by local Indian rulers, with British control over the army, foreign affairs and communications; especially important rulers were entitled to a cannon salute upon their visit to the capital of India. At the time of India's independence, there were 565 princely states.

Overall, the system had three main levels - the imperial government in London, the central government in Calcutta, and the regional administrations. The Ministry of Indian Affairs and the 15-member Council of India were established in London. A prerequisite for membership in the council was residence in India for at least ten years. On most current issues, the Secretary of State for India usually sought the advice of the council. From 1858 to 1947, 27 people held this post.

The head of India became the Governor-General in Calcutta, increasingly called the Viceroy; this title emphasized his role as an intermediary and representative of the Crown before the formally sovereign Indian princely states.

From 1861, whenever the Government of India required new laws, Legislative Councils were convened, consisting of 12 people, half government officials ("official"), half Indians and local British ("unofficial"). The inclusion of Hindus in the Legislative Councils, including the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta, was a response to the Sepoy Mutiny, but these roles were usually chosen by large landowners, members of the local aristocracy, often appointed for their loyalty. This principle was far from representation.

The Indian Civil Service became the core of British rule.

The 1857 rebellion shook British rule, but did not derail it. One of the consequences was the dissolution of the colonial troops, recruited from the Muslims and Brahmins of Oudh and Agra, who became the core of the uprising, and the recruitment of new troops from the Sikhs and Baluchis, who had shown their loyalty at that time.

According to the 1861 census, the British population of India consisted of only 125,945 people, with 41,862 civilians and 84,083 military.

Armed forces

The armed forces were an autonomous formation that had its own educational institutions for training officers. The rank and file mostly consisted of Indians. Recruitment was carried out on a voluntary basis. The commanding positions were occupied by the British. Initially they were under the control of the British East India Company, then they became subordinate to the government of British India.

Famine and epidemics

During the period of direct rule of the crown, India was rocked by a number of famines and epidemics. During the Great Famine of 1876-1878, from 6.1 to 10.3 million people died, during the Indian Famine of 1899-1900, from 1.25 to 10 million people.

In 1820, a cholera pandemic swept across India, starting in Bengal, killing 10 thousand British soldiers and countless Indians. More than 15 million people died in the period 1817 - 1860, and about 23 million more in the period 1865 - 1917.

In the middle of the 19th century, the Third Plague Pandemic began in China, which swept across all inhabited continents, killing 6 million people in India alone.

The Russian-born British physician Khavkine, who worked mainly in India, pioneered the development of vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague; in 1925, the Bombay Plague Laboratory was renamed the Haffkine Institute. In 1898, Briton Ronald Ross, working in Calcutta, finally proved that mosquitoes are carriers of malaria. Mass vaccination against smallpox led to a decline in mortality from the disease in India at the end of the 19th century.

Overall, despite famine and epidemics, the population of the subcontinent grew from 185 million in 1800 to 380 million in 1941.

Economic and technological changes

In the second half of the 19th century, India underwent significant changes associated with industrialization and close ties with Britain. Much of these changes predated the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, but most of them occurred after the Mutiny, and are generally associated with direct rule by the Crown. The British organized the massive construction of railways, canals, bridges, and laid telegraph lines. The main goal was faster transport of raw materials, particularly cotton, to Bombay and other ports.

On the other hand, finished products produced by British industry were delivered to India.

Despite the growth of infrastructure, very few highly skilled jobs were created for Indians. In 1920, India had the world's fourth largest railway network with a history of 60 years; while only 10% of management positions in the Indian Railways were held by Indians.

Technology has brought about changes in India's agricultural economy; The production of raw materials exported to markets in other parts of the world increased. Many small farmers went bankrupt. The second half of the 19th century in India was marked by outbreaks of mass famine. Famine had happened in India many times before, but this time it killed tens of millions. Many researchers blame it on the policies of the British colonial administration.

Taxes for the majority of the population were reduced. From 15% during Mughal times, they reached 1% at the end of the colonial period.

Chapter

During both world wars, India supported the British war effort, but the growing resistance of the local population to the colonialists and the weakening of the mother country led to the collapse of British rule. The Empire was unable to stop the campaign of civil disobedience launched in 1942 by Mahatma Gandhi.

The decision to grant India independence leads to its division into two main states: the Hindu - Indian Union (modern India), and the Muslim - Dominion of Pakistan (the territory of modern Pakistan and Bangladesh). The core of the two states were the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, respectively.

Several hundred independent principalities that existed at the time of the conquest of India by the British were thus united into two states, and the various titles of their rulers were abolished. The division of the former colony led to the exchange of 15 million refugees and the death of at least 500 thousand people. as a result of intercommunal violence.

Determining the identity of the former native principality of Jammu and Kashmir caused particular difficulties. The majority of the principality's population was Muslim, but its Maharaja, Hari Singh, insisted on independence. The result was an uprising and war between India and Pakistan.

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British India

But already in 1858, the English parliament adopted a special law on the governance of India, according to which state power in India transferred from the East India Company to the English crown, and the entire colonial administration was placed under the direct control of the British parliament and government. A special ministry for Indian affairs was created, under which an advisory Indian Council of major officials was formed. The English Governor-General received the title of Viceroy.

At the same time, the administrative division of the country into British India, which was under direct colonial control, and principalities, which were vassals of the English crown, remained. The property of the dissolved company was transferred to the English state, and its shareholders were paid compensation at the expense of Indian taxpayers.

Taking into account the experience of the popular uprising, the British in 1860-1861. carried out a reorganization of the colonial army, increased the number of English. parts in relation to the sepoys. At the same time, a policy of pacification of Indian feudal lords was pursued; favorable conditions were created for people from their families to advance to junior officer positions in the army; The feudal lords who supported the British during the years of the uprising were given lands confiscated from the rebel princes and cash pensions.

The course towards an alliance with princes and feudal landowners - zamindars - became part of the general policy of expanding and strengthening the social support of the colonial regime. Under the viceroy and provincial governors, councils with advisory functions were created (1861), the judicial system was rebuilt in English. sample. K con. 1870s the landownership rights of the feudal landowners were finally formalized; completed what started in the 1st half. 19th century reform of land tax systems.

The strengthening of hereditary lease rights among the top tenants, the transformation of these rights into an object of purchase and sale, and the transfer of rental plans from kind to cash contributed to the formation of a stratum of wealthy peasants. In the 2nd half. 19th century The transformation of India into an agricultural and raw materials appendage of England was completed.

The gradual loss of England's role as the "workshop of the world", the strengthening of German and French expansion in Africa and Southeast Asia, which undermined England's position as a leading colonial power, increased the importance of India for the British economy. In the 1870s - early. 1880s England's trade with India increased by 60% (for comparison, with Germany - only 7%).

The main Indian exports were cotton, wool, jute, rice, wheat, spices, opium; the bulk of it (for example, 80% of the cotton) went to England. India was becoming the main supplier of food to England; the total value of goods exported annually from this country over the last third of the 19th century increased threefold. Exploitation of India as a market has also increased. Over the same period of time, the import of British goods increased 5 times.

The bulk of imports were fabrics, metal utensils and utensils. In the system of colonial exploitation of India, the tax burden played a significant role. The income of the English colonial state in India, the main source of which was direct and indirect taxation, increased 2.5 times over the last third of the century.

In the era of imperialism, the import of British capital became a new method of colonial exploitation of India. It was used for the construction of railways, the length of which was from 1860 to 1890. increased from 1.3 thousand to 25.6 thousand km; development of the irrigation system (irrigation systems were built in areas where export crops were grown), cultivation of tea, coffee, rubber plantations, and finally, construction of factory and mining enterprises. Every year, British imperialism exacted a huge colonial tribute from India - about 100 million pounds sterling.

The increased export of agricultural raw materials from the country led to the specialization of individual regions in the production of various agricultural products. Monocultural regions emerged: tea - in Bengal and Assam, cotton - in Punjab, jute - in Bengal. The development of capitalism in India followed two parallel paths: on the basis of handicraft production, capitalist manufacture developed, on the basis of which large centers of handicraft production were formed (in the late 1890s in India, handicraft weaving processed 2.5 times more cotton yarn than in cotton factories); the second way is the emergence of factory enterprises, the leading center of which was Bombay. But in large-scale factory production, 2/3 of the share capital belonged to the British.

Increased colonial exploitation stimulated the development of popular movements. Among the largest, we note the peasant “Indigo Rebellion” in East Bengal (1859-1862), the uprising of Bengali peasants in 1872-1873, the anti-feudal struggle of the Sikh sect “Namdhari” (who took the name of God) in the 1860-1880s. in Punjab, folk performances in Western and Southern India. In the 1860-1870s. in the developed provinces - Bengal and Bombay - bourgeois-landowner socio-political organizations are taking shape; but liberals opposed popular movements to maintain the colonial regime.

A petty-bourgeois left wing emerged within the national movement, the largest representative of which was B. G. Tilak. Together with his supporters, Tilak defended the interests of the entire Indian national bourgeoisie, considering the boycott of British goods to be the main form of struggle. Conducted in con. 1870s On the part of the British, the repressive policy did not produce results, so the liberals who came to power in England in 1880 began to flirt with representatives of Indian nationalism, who from the beginning. 1880s made an attempt to create a single all-Indian organization.

In 1885, the first congress of the Indian National Congress was convened in Bombay, a political organization that expressed the interests of the top of the Indian bourgeoisie and nationalist landowners, that is, the liberal wing of the national movement. Their program included demands to encourage national industry and reduce taxes; INK initiated the organization of exhibitions and conferences related to current issues in the development of the Indian economy. By the end of the 19th century, the process of drawing India into the system of the world capitalist economy was completed. A new stage of colonial exploitation of the country began, which led to the “awakening of Asia.”

“If we lose India, the British, who for generations have considered themselves masters of the world, will overnight lose their status as the greatest nation and fall into the third category,” said Lord George Curzon, India’s most famous viceroy. During the heyday of the empire at the end of the 19th century, this land was the fulcrum on which Great Britain controlled the entire hemisphere - from Malta to Hong Kong. So why, just two years after the Allied victory in World War II, thanks to which the British, at incredible cost and sacrifice, managed to completely restore their position in Asia, did she abandon India, dividing it into two independent states?

The secret of the British success in Asia is that they went there not to conquer it, but to make money. This does not mean that their regime in India was consciously conceived as a commercial enterprise: its emergence was not planned at all. The Mistress of the Seas in the 18th and 19th centuries herself watched with amazement the strengthening of her influence on the subcontinent, while not taking any part in the process and formally denying the fact of territorial expansion. It’s just that the British from the East India Company, founded by Elizabeth I back in 1600 with the right to a fifteen-year monopoly on trade in “East India,” turned out to be beyond the control of their government. Note that this Company was by no means the only one: under the same Elizabeth, for example, the “Mystery and Company of Traveling Salesmen-Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands and Unknown Places” appeared, which was later transformed into the Moscow Company. Others also worked - for monopoly trade with Turkey, West Africa, Canada and Spanish America. Among all of them, the East Indian at first did not stand out for its particular successes. But everything changed when England entered into a political union with Holland after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (King James II Stuart was deposed and the Dutch Prince William III of Orange ascended the throne). An agreement followed with new allies, who had their own East India Company, which was even more successful. The deal allowed the British to work freely in the Indian textile market, while the Dutch began exporting spices and transit transportation to Indonesia. By 1720, the British company's income was greater than that of its competitors. This logically led to the establishment of English rule in Hindustan, where the East India Company operated through a system of bases and fortified forts. Around these springboards of British entrepreneurial genius, large cities grew over time: Bombay, Madras and the main outpost of the Company - Calcutta. At the beginning of the 18th century, India's population was twenty times that of Britain's, and the subcontinent's share of world trade was 24 percent to Britain's three. Until the middle of the 18th century, the role of English merchants in the struggle for the market was modest, and they, like all their “colleagues,” had to prostrate themselves before the throne of the Great Mughals in Delhi - the success of their business was still entirely dependent on the imperial will.

But in 1740, regular invasions of the peninsula by the Persians and Afghans began, as well as severe internal strife. Successful figures like the Nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad grabbed pieces of the Mughal possessions, in the west the Marathas declared their rights to independence from Delhi, in general, the grip of the central government began to weaken. It was then that the Company raised its head, sensing the prospects for territorial expansion. She also had a mercenary army, which was recruited from local military castes.

First of all, Britain then sought to win the battle with its main European enemy - France, and not only in India, but also in the rest of the world. And soon the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) undermined Paris's global position. Back in 1757, there was a breakthrough on the Indian “front”: General Robert Clive won a decisive victory at Plassey in Bengal. Eight years later, the Mughal emperor was forced to grant the East India Company the right of diwani (civil government) in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Over the course of half a century, the power of successful British traders spread throughout the subcontinent - as if on their own, without the support of official London.

By 1818 the Company dominated most of Indian territory, a form of government that changed only after the famous Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, when the Crown established direct control of affairs. There is no doubt that this turned out to be beneficial for the British. Simple uncontrolled looting was a fairly typical occurrence in the early years of the Company's power, when representatives such as Thomas Pitt, nicknamed the Diamond, smuggled piles of precious stones into England.

However, more often than not, his compatriots still resorted to more complex schemes than the Spaniards in South America. They prepared the fate of the great eastern country as a raw materials appendage, a huge market for the sale of finished products of the early industrial British economy and a food supplier. Until the 17th century, Indian textile production was so developed that British manufactories could only copy the style of oriental fabrics imported from Hindustan. However, due to their cost, they, of course, always remained very expensive. All that changed when the East India Company flooded the subcontinent with cheap calico, calico and cotton from Lancashire mills.

It was a real triumph of the colonial-market concept of Britain. The metropolis forced the subcontinent to open up to the import of new, waste goods, hitherto unknown to it (it fell even more in price in 1813, when a law was passed that ended the absolute monopoly of the Company - now the “East India” duty restrictions also disappeared). On the one hand, India found itself in the tenacious embrace of free trade, on the other, the colonialists, emphasizing their technical competitiveness in every possible way, prohibited the introduction of any duties on the import of their products into the subject country. The result was a kind of “free market imperialism” (this is the term used by modern English historians). In this economic way, the fate of the colony for the coming centuries was determined; and it is no coincidence that Gandhi subsequently placed a spinning wheel - the chakra - in the center of the flag of the independent state, and swadeshi - the boycott of foreign goods - became the favorite demand and slogan of the first nationalists...

In addition, India opened up unprecedented opportunities for storing and increasing capital with its conqueror. By 1880, total investment in the country amounted to 270 million pounds - a fifth of Britain's huge investment portfolio; by 1914 this figure had risen to 400 million. Investments in India in relative terms turned out (unprecedented in history) even more profitable than long-term operations in the domestic economy of the United Kingdom: the colonial authorities assured a huge mass of businessmen in the reliability of the new market and did not disappoint their expectations.

The colony, as best it could, returned its “care” to the mother country a hundredfold - for example, by military force. The famous Indian regiments performed well in the battles of the 19th century. The new subjects faithfully served the empire in various parts of the world, from South Africa to Western Europe - here they took part in both world wars: about a million volunteers participated in the First and almost twice as many in the Second... And in peacetime, the number of Indian There were also considerable numbers of reservists. In 1881, 69,477 British troops served in the colonial army - “against” 125,000 natives, recruited from those Indians whom the conquerors considered “natural warriors”: Muslims and Sikhs. In total, these troops accounted for 62 percent of Great Britain's total land power at the end of the 19th century. In general, Prime Minister Lord Salisbury rightly noted: India is “an English barracks on the eastern seas, from where we can always call up any number of free soldiers.”

Of course, British society as a whole was inclined to justify its rule in a more noble way as the fulfillment of its civilizing mission. This idea was perhaps most clearly formulated by the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay at one of the parliamentary meetings in 1835. He expressed the wish that in the colony there would be formed “a layer of Indians by blood and skin color, but Englishmen by tastes, worldview, morality and intellect.” The idea that the purpose of the English presence was the improvement of the aborigines, in general, was comprehensive. It was believed that the static, amorphous Indian society in all areas should learn from the most advanced power in the world. Naturally, this meant the absolute degeneration of the local ancient culture. The same Macaulay, with unimaginable arrogance, asserted that “a single shelf from a good European library is worth the entire national literature of India and Arabia.” Protestant missionaries were also guided by similar considerations. The Asian lands, they believed, were given to Britain “not for immediate gain, but to spread the light and beneficial influence of the Truth among the aborigines, wandering in the darkness of disgusting and corrupting prejudices!” And William Wilberforce, an enlightened and noble man, the founder of the Anti-Slave Trade Movement, spoke even more harshly: “This is the religion of savages. All its rituals must be eliminated."

What do modern historians think about this? Some believe that the occupying power, scattered geographically and lacking long-term potential, did not have any particular impact on the native society, with which it interacted in a historical perspective for only a short time.

Others still see in the British influence a life-giving renewal that had a completely beneficial effect on the people of India: the harsh laws of the caste system were softened and even the emergence of a united India; the idea of ​​​​national unity was indirectly suggested by the colonialists. Remembering those who sweated, got sick and died in the vastness of India, the famous “singer of imperialism” Kipling wrote: “... as if life-giving moisture we gave this land the best, and if there is a country that flourished on the blood of martyrs, then this country is India.” The authorities dealt not only with general health care, such as the prevention of malaria and vaccination against smallpox (which the Hindus strongly opposed as ritually polluting!). To feed a country with an ever-growing population, during their activities they increased the area of ​​irrigated land eightfold. The well-being of different classes also began to level out slightly: total after-tax income in agriculture increased from 45 to 54 percent, which actually meant that inequality had decreased to some extent. True, then no one really cared about these numbers... The 20th century and great upheavals were approaching.

Paid in blood

The First World War appears in history as the starting point from which the national self-awareness of Indians was formed into a clear political movement capable of setting goals and fighting for them. Natural riots have happened before, of course. For example, in 1912, when administrative reform was being planned in Bengal, radical nationalist Rash Behari Bose threw a bomb at the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge. The Indian National Congress Party, founded back in 1885 (having transformed many times, it would later come to power in the new India), also struggled to achieve self-government, not yet demanding independence. But it was the war that changed everything - the colony paid too high a bloody price: the names of 60 thousand dead are inscribed on the India Gate arch in New Delhi.

In 1917, the British had to set a course for the “gradual formation of a plenipotentiary government of India as an integral part of the British Empire” - a government “recruited” from Indians and for Indians. In 1919, a new Law on Administration was released - the first step on the path that the colonialists were now following. He proclaimed the principle of diarchy - dual government, in which the central power in Calcutta remained undivided in British hands, and the local authorities would be led by members of national parties like the INC - they were counted on primarily in terms of “working with the population,” as they would say Today. To explain to them, the population, the decisions taken by the authorities. Such a cunning and cautious concession, although seemingly insignificant, unexpectedly turned out to be a bomb in the solid foundation of the empire. Having received little, the natives thought about their situation in general. It didn’t take long to look for a reason for indignation - the new laws retained restrictions on civil liberties introduced during wartime (for example, the right of the police to place anyone in custody without trial). A new form of protest, the hartal, an analogue of a Western strike, spread throughout the peninsula, and in some areas resulted in conflicts so serious that local administrations had to introduce martial law.

Public flogging is a widespread method of punishing disobedient people everywhere and always. April 1919

One of these areas was the traditionally troubled Punjab, where in April 1919 General Reginald Dyer commanded one of the infantry brigades. Heavy smoker, irritable and cocky; A bully who, according to the descriptions of his contemporaries, “was happy only when he was climbing the enemy’s fortifications with a revolver in his teeth,” he was the worst person to lead troops in such delicate circumstances. Upon arrival at the command post in Amritsar, the first thing he did was to prohibit any meetings of citizens in his area of ​​​​responsibility. The next day, the general, accompanied by a drummer and a military guard, marched through the streets to the main shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple, stopping every now and then to shout an announcement: fire would be opened on any gatherings of people. Nevertheless, towards evening, a crowd of 10 or 20 thousand people gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh square, surrounded on three sides by blank high walls. Fulfilling his own promise, Dyer appeared there, accompanied by 50 riflemen, and opened fire without any warning. “I fired and continued to shoot until the crowd had dispersed,” he later recalled. But the fact is that the crowd had nowhere to “disperse” - some of the doomed tried to climb the steep fortifications out of despair, someone jumped into the well and drowned there, because others were jumping from above... In total, 379 people died and a thousand were injured. Subsequently, the frantic general practiced public flogging of representatives of the upper castes, forced Hindus to crawl on their stomachs along the street on which a crowd once beat the English doctor Marcella Sherwood (by the way, the natives themselves saved her). In his twilight years, he smugly admitted that his intention was “to strike fear into the whole Punjab.”

But instead, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “the foundations of the empire were shaken.” Another great Indian, Jawaharlal Nehru, later the first Prime Minister of India, recalled how his political position changed greatly when, during one of his trips around the country on behalf of the INC, he heard Dyer justifying his own atrocities without the slightest regret in the next carriage.

Henceforth, for most Indians, the British Raj was stained with blood. Only the opponents of the Hindus, the Sikhs, rejoiced at the beating, who proclaimed the “butcher of Amritsar” an honorary representative of their people...

What is sub-imperialism?
When we talk about the British Raj in India, we are dealing with a phenomenon that historians often call “sub-imperialism” (“secondary imperialism”). The classic scheme of relations between the metropolis, personified by the government of the colonizing country, and the colony in this case includes an intermediary to whom the metropolis delegates its powers “on the spot.” This delegation took place unplanned. For example, the British government could issue laws like the Indian Act of 1784 as much as it wanted, which stated: “The policy of conquest and the extension of our dominion in India is incompatible with the aspirations, policy and honor of this state,” but the remoteness of India reduced the influence of London on the actions of its subjects “on the spot.” events" to zero. The sea voyage to Calcutta via Cape Town took about six months, and it should have started only in the spring, in accordance with the wind rose, and the return journey could only be started in the fall. The governor has been waiting for an answer to his most urgent request for more than two years! Despite his accountability to parliament, the degree of freedom of his actions was enormous, and he cared about the safety of trade in British India much more than his superiors in the metropolis. Take, for example, the sharp rebuke of the governor, Earl Wellesley, admonishing one stubborn admiral who was afraid to move against the French without a royal order: “If I had been guided by the same principle as Your Excellency, Misor would never have been taken.” And Wellesley did not discover America. Sub-imperialism flourished already under his predecessor Lord Cornwallis, who nurtured a galaxy of officials - “Asian conquistadors”. The British won not so much by force as by traditional political cunning, taking advantage of the disunity of the country. The Indian historian G.H. spoke about this. Kann: “...the fact that almost the entire Hindustan passed into the hands of the British is a consequence of the disunity of the Indian rulers.” Take, for example, General Clive's struggle with the Nawab (Mughal governor) of Bengal and his French allies in 1757. The Briton was supported not only by the local banking house Jaget Seth: before the decisive battle of Plassey, Clive managed to win over to his side the initially hostile major military leader Mir Jafar. The army of the East India Company, which Clive commanded that day, was generally two-thirds Indian. Such remarkable examples of English politics led to the emergence of the so-called “Company Raj” - “Company Dominion”. There was a joke about this “unplanned child” that the empire was growing “in a fit of unconsciousness.”

"Mahatma" means "great soul"

The massacre in Amritsar opened the eyes of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to the essence of what was happening, to whom rumor bestowed the authority of the Mahatma (“Great Soul”). Arriving in 1914 from South Africa, Gandhi, who was educated in London, spent the next few years at all corners confessing his “love for the British Empire,” but reality could not help but shake his views. His transformation from a lawyer dressed like a dandy into a freedom fighter into an almost saint in light clothes is textbook and, one might say, constitutes the cornerstone of modern Indian political history. Gandhi managed to become a national leader in the full sense of the word, and called his strategic method, the political technology used for this, “satyagraha” - literally “strength of spirit.” That is, the renunciation of all violence in the struggle and such everyday behavior that will ensure the purity of each individual, and through it the purity of the people.

The most striking action of satyagraha was the famous “Salt March” of 1930 - a peaceful march from the Mahatma’s ashram (monastery) on the Sabarmati River to the shore of the Indian Ocean, where it was supposed to fill pots with water, light a fire and “extract” salt, thereby violating the famous British monopoly , one of the foundations of the colonial regime. Similarly, by repeatedly calling for peaceful civil disobedience in the 20s and 30s of the last century, the INC, under the informal leadership of Gandhi, put effective pressure on the authorities. As a result, a Commission was created in 1927 to develop draft constitutions, and in 1930 and 1931 two round tables were held in London with the participation of representatives of interested parties. At the first meeting, the Mahatma was absent (he was in prison), and the Congress refused to participate. He arrived at the second - but only to state, to his own regret, that the positions were irreconcilable...

Indian Act

In 1935, Parliament in Westminster finally passed the India Act - the longest of all acts issued by the British government in the entire history of this government. It granted the great colony the status of a self-governing dominion. Moreover, this document gave Delhi autonomy in matters of taxes and duties - that is, the end of that very “free trade imperialism” came, a system in which Britain freely flooded India with the products of its textile industry. By and large, it gradually became clear that the national liberation movement was forcing Britain to make such concessions that the very purpose of its dominance was undermined, and it had no choice but to prepare for its own departure. It is worth noting, however, that the value of India as a “colonial asset” had already fallen somewhat: the decline in the share of agriculture in the economy after the Great Depression of 1929 played a role. So the 1935 Act appears to be a simple pragmatic reaction to reality, a recognition: “Hindustan as a capital is being depleted.”

Of course, you shouldn’t simplify it. The document was also developed for another purpose: to keep anti-British forces from radical actions, and to keep India itself under control. Supporters of the Law were confident that the INC, lacking internal structural unity, could well collapse under “delicate” pressure from the government. The new nationalism was supposed to be weakened - this time not by repression, but by cooperation. For example, under the new situation, the power of the rajas was maintained, with the help of which England in all past times indirectly controlled one third of the subcontinent. Thus the reformist tendencies among those who were to be elected to the new free Parliament of India were slightly subdued, and the "feudal element" among them was encouraged. Moreover, in reality it turned out that the articles of the Law, which stipulated the functions of the central government of the Indian Dominion, could not come into force without the consent of half of the princes.

But despite the craftiness and unsatisfactory nature of the proposed conditions, they still convinced the majority of Indian nationalists. All major parties took part in the 1937 elections instead of boycotting them. Thus, the British, regardless of considerations of economic expediency, suppressed for the time being the demands for “purna swaraj” - complete self-government for India. Of course, this does not mean that in the London political kitchen they believed that power over the country would be eternal. But in the 1930s they still enjoyed sufficient authority in Hindustan to postpone the resolution of the issue - as it seemed then, for an indefinite period of time...

Towards independence step by step
On July 14, 1942, the Indian National Congress demanded full independence for India, promising large-scale civil disobedience if refused. In early August, Gandhi called on his countrymen to their promised disobedience, urging them to behave worthy of a free nation and not carry out the orders of the colonialists. Inflamed by the approach of Japanese troops to the Indo-Burmese border, the British responded by arresting Gandhi and all members of the INC Working Committee. A young activist, Aruna Asaf-Ali, came to lead the forces of independence, and on August 9, 1942, she raised the Congress flag in a Bombay park, where Gandhi had called for freedom the day before. The authorities' next move simply banned the Congress, which only caused an outburst of sympathy for it. A wave of protests, strikes and demonstrations swept across the country - not always peaceful. In some areas, bombs exploded, government buildings were set on fire, electricity was cut off, and transport systems and communications were destroyed. The British responded with new repression: more than 100 thousand people were taken into custody throughout the country, and demonstrators were subjected to public floggings. Hundreds of people were injured by police and army gunfire. The leaders of the National Movement went underground, but managed to speak on the radio, distribute leaflets and create parallel governments. The colonialists even sent a Navy ship to take Gandhi and other leaders somewhere far away - to South Africa or Yemen, but it didn’t come to that. Congress leaders spent more than three years behind bars. Gandhi himself, however, was released in 1944 due to his deteriorating health, undermined, in particular, by a 21-day hunger strike. The Mahatma did not give up and demanded the release of his comrades. In general, by the beginning of 1944 the situation in India had become relatively calm. Only discord among Muslims, communists and extremists continued. In 1945, the situation was aggravated by a series of unrest among the Indian military - officers, soldiers and sailors. In particular, the Bombay Mutiny occurred, in which, among others, the crews of 78 ships (a total of 20 thousand people) took part. By early 1946, the authorities released all political prisoners, entering into an open dialogue with the INC on the issue of transfer of leadership. It all ended on August 15, 1947, when India was declared independent. “When the clock strikes midnight, when the whole world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom. Such moments are very rare in history: we take a step from the old to the new. India finds itself again,” Jawaharlal Nehru wrote about India’s Independence Day.

Intangible factor

...But history decreed otherwise. London's authority was irrevocably undermined by the tragic events of World War II. It began to shake, along with Britain’s prestige, already in 1941-1942, when the empire suffered defeats from the newly-minted “Asian tiger”, Japan. As you know, immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her troops attacked Malaysia, Burma, Singapore and in a short time captured these British territories. This caused mixed feelings of panic and joy in Indian society. The wartime London Cabinet hastily sent its special representative, Sir Stafford Cripps, to consult with the INC, the purpose of which was to secure the full support of the party in military matters, and thus prevent the formation of a “fifth column”. The Gandhiists, however, refused to cooperate on the grounds that the Viceroy had announced India's entry into the war back in 1939, without warning them a word about it.

And as soon as Cripps left home “empty-handed,” the INC organized (in August 1942) the “Get Out of India” movement demanding the immediate departure of the British. The latter had no choice but to immediately arrest Gandhi and his closest associates. The Indians responded with widespread riots, although the British subsequently claimed that the Congress had pre-planned a mutiny if its leadership was detained, in fact the nature of the uprisings was spontaneous. Thousands of natives believed that the crown was tottering. British intelligence archives dating back to this time contain reports of the most fantastic rumors. Here's what people said, say, about the extraordinary military skill of the Japanese: they say, in Madras, for example, a Japanese paratrooper landed right into a crowd of people, talked to eyewitnesses in their native language, and then... soared by parachute back to the plane! The unambiguously racial overtones of this reaction are also noticeable in the Indian press. Being under the strict control of military censorship, which vigilantly monitored defeatist sentiments, the newspapers nevertheless amaze with some of the wording. The Allahabad Leader called the fall of Singapore "the most important historical event that has ever happened in our lifetime - the victory of the non-whites over the whites." The Amrita Bazaar Patrika in Calcutta agreed that “the peoples of Asia, having suffered for so long under the European race, cannot go back to the old days of planter rule.” And even already in August 1945, the same publication noted with horror that the Americans had chosen “precisely Asians” to test their atomic bomb, adding that from now on the world must free itself from such concepts as “superior and inferior, masters and slaves.”

The conclusion suggests itself: it turns out that the main impetus that accelerated the movement of the subcontinent towards independence was an ephemeral, intangible factor - the loss of that almost mystical respect that Indians once had for the “white sahib”. But only “on a bayonet,” as Napoleon said, “you can’t sit”... In 1881, according to the census, for the 300 million population of India, there were only 89,778 Britons - if the country had not accepted their rule, it would not have been difficult to get rid of such power . In the 1940s, this ratio was less critical, and yet the pillars of power were crumbling. The most characteristic sign here, naturally, is the loss of loyalty of the Indian military. Riots in Royal Navy units in Karachi and Bombay in February 1946 were stopped only with the assistance of the INC, and in April of the same year, the representative of the metropolis in the Indian government expressed doubt that the soldiers would have remained on the side of the British if the party refused mediation.

We remember how in 1935 the colonialists hoped for a constitutional agreement that would allow them to remain in India for the foreseeable future. Only ten years had passed, and the Labor government of Clement Attlee, instinctively feeling the irreversibility of post-war changes, was simply looking for a convenient way out of the situation. An opportunity to save face and leave with dignity.

Divide and rule

The disintegration of India into Pakistan and India itself in August 1947 is often blamed on the “two-faced British Empire.” She allegedly applied her favorite principle of “divide and conquer” and in every possible way increased mutual distrust and tension in society. The British are also accused of deliberate fraud: they say, in order to belittle the influence of the INC in granting independence to India, they deliberately exaggerated and inflated the “quota” of concessions and guarantees in the constitution to the opponents of this party - Muslims. Their leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, thus acquired an influence disproportionate to the number of his supporters, and managed to bring matters to a national split.

But the first demands for the separation of Muslim regions were made during the elections of 1937: then the INC and other coalitions of Hindu candidates won a general victory, but Muslims, and primarily the Islamic League of Jinnah, received more than 80 seats - or a little less than a quarter in percentage calculus. This was a great success, allowing the ambitious politician to seriously turn to the poetic idea of ​​uniting fellow believers, which was expressed by Muhammad Iqbal. This famous thinker dreamed of a new independent homeland for the Indian followers of the Prophet - “Pakistan,” the “Land of the Faithful” (literally, “The Land of the Pure”). The demand to create it in practice was again loudly heard in March 1940, and the British, desperately looking for any allies in the subcontinent, recognized Jinnah's right to represent all Muslims of the subcontinent. They even promised that they would adhere to his wishes in their future constitutional proposals. So the two sides found themselves “tied by a blood oath.”

In June 1945, the “intercessor for coreligionists” Jinnah successfully failed the Anglo-Indian conference in Simla to resolve political conflicts in the dominion, and in the elections in the winter of 1945/46, his League won all 30 seats specially reserved by law for Muslims in the Central Legislative Council. True, it seemed that the agreement of all parties to secede provinces with a predominant Islamic population was still far away, and the flexible leader initially blackmailed the authorities with this extreme demand - in order to simply win additional concessions and benefits. But then his supporters themselves became indignant: “Give up Pakistan? But what about the oath on the Koran to fight and die for him?!” One of the League leaders later wrote: “Wherever I went, people said: Bhai (brother)! If we don’t vote for independence, we will become kafirs (infidels)!”

But who finally made the final decision: the plan to create a united India, a federation of provinces with broad autonomy, was not destined to take place? Jinnah? No, he just agreed. It turned out to be against... The National Congress: Jawaharlal Nehru, who had headed it by that time, wanted to see a strong unified government at the head of the country, not torn apart by fundamental contradictions. “Better a truncated India than a weak one”...

Is it surprising that such a tough stance led to bloodshed? On August 16, 1946, Muhammad Jinnah declared “Direct Action Day,” that is, he called on Muslims not to submit to the newly proclaimed INC government. It ended dramatically - during the “Great Calcutta Massacre” alone, four thousand people of different religions were killed...

Armed rebels are preparing to march into Kashmir. December 1947

The law and order system collapsed. Realizing this, the British decided to simply leave, and as quickly as possible. In the second half of the same 1946, Attlee in London announced his intention to “release” India in June 1948, but already on June 4, 1947, the then acting Viceroy, Lord Lewis Mountbatten, had to set an earlier date, August 15, 1947. The map showing the future border between India and Pakistan was drawn up by an ordinary administration official named Radcliffe and was kept in the Viceroy's safe until the proclamation of independence...

Immediately after the publication of this map, terrible confusion began. Bengal suffered, divided exactly in half. Punjab suffered the same fate. Demobilized from the fronts of North Africa and Southeast Asia, former British Hindu soldiers created a powerful military community called the Sword, Shield and Spear of India to attack villages and columns of foreign refugees. Sikh gangs raided Muslim-majority East Punjab up to four times a night. Violence literally penetrated into the flesh and blood of society: during Muslim attacks on Hindu villages, husbands forced their wives to jump into wells so that they would at least die undefiled, and then they themselves would fight to the end. Another terrifying sign of the times were the “ghost trains,” which delivered only hundreds of corpses to their destination stations.

People who had previously never thought of leaving their homes now understood: if you want to survive, you need to be on the “right” side of the border. The largest mass migration of peoples in the history of South Asia began. Within four months of 1947, about five million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to India, while five and a half million Muslims moved in the opposite direction. A similar, although smaller scale, castling took place between West and East Bengal (future Bangladesh). In this brutal manner, a religiously homogeneous Pakistan was formed. The number of victims whose lives were paid for is unknown: estimates range from two hundred thousand to a million. Most likely, the closest to the truth is the Pakistani historian Stevens, who in 1963 settled on a figure of approximately half a million Indians and Pakistanis. The loss of moral guidelines caused by the split can be judged by the treatment of abducted women: during punitive or simply predatory raids on both sides, women were not killed, but taken as trophies. “After the massacre was over,” says one war correspondence, “the girls were distributed like dessert.” Many were simply sold or abandoned after being raped.

Some, however, were forced into marriage, and then, after the terrible 1947, the governments in Delhi and Islamabad began to work to find and repatriate such unfortunates. Some were glad to have the opportunity to return, others, fearing that their relatives would not want to take them back, refused to go. These latter, in accordance with mutual agreements and the general mood of society, were taken to where they came from by force - this continued until 1954.

Epilogue. Inevitability.

Could the British have prevented or mitigated this bloody bacchanalia and avoided the division of the country if they had not abandoned the colony at the most dramatic moment? Here we return again to the question of prestige. It was the inevitability of the end of their rule, the general awareness of this imminent end that created an atmosphere of intolerance in 1945-1947. Everyone was waiting for a settlement, but the war only strengthened the religious overtones of Indian political forces. Hence the bloody clashes, hence, with all inevitability, the collapse of India. Violence became both the cause and consequence of the split, and the British, having almost lost control of the administrative reins, could not restrain the warring factions. The financial situation within Great Britain itself did not allow maintaining a huge military contingent, which was necessary in these conditions and unnecessary before. The decision to leave was simply dictated by the famous British common sense...

We, guided by the same common sense, can judge: it is unlikely that the British are guilty of deliberately condoning the Indian split. After all, the main pathos of their two-century domination, in the end, consisted in the opposite - in all kinds of unification: political, cultural, social. Were they not the ones who, having once taken advantage of the disunity of the subcontinent, conquered and wove its disparate lands into one motley blanket, for the first time introduced common, familiar state languages, entangled the country with a network of railways and telegraph wires, thus preparing the ground for organized resistance to their own authorities in the future? It is quite possible that if not for the colonial history of India, about two dozen states would be located on its territory today...

But be that as it may, the age of “old imperialism” is over. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are seeing attempts - albeit with the help of the same military force! - to introduce a completely new version of it, the imperialism of political systems and ideas. Perhaps, given the spread of humanitarian values, this task in itself is quite worthy. But, remembering the lessons of British rule in India, it is worth realizing: everything on the political map of the world ends sooner or later. And, as a rule, it ends dramatically.

The riches of India haunted the Europeans. The Portuguese began systematic exploration of the Atlantic coast of Africa in 1418 under the patronage of Prince Henry, eventually circumnavigating Africa and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition led by Vasco da Gama was able to reach India, circumnavigating Africa and opening a direct trade route to Asia. In 1495, the French and English and, a little later, the Dutch entered the race to discover new lands, challenging the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade routes and exploring new routes.

Vasco de Gama's voyage.
In July 1497, a small exploring fleet of four ships and about 170 crew under the command of Vasco da Gama left Lisbon. In December, the fleet reached the Great Fish River (the place where Dias turned back) and headed into uncharted waters. On May 20, 1498, the expedition arrived in Calicut, in southern India. Vasco da Gama's attempts to obtain the best trading conditions failed due to the low value of the goods they brought in comparison with the expensive goods that were traded there. Two years after their arrival, Gama and the remaining crew of 55 people on two ships returned in glory to Portugal and became the first Europeans to reach India by sea.

At this time, on the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, there was a huge empire of the “Great Mughals”. The state existed from 1526 to 1858 (in fact, until the middle of the 19th century). The name “Great Mughals” appeared under the British colonialists. The term "Mughal" was used in India to refer to Muslims in Northern India and Central Asia.
The empire was founded by Babur, who was forced, together with his comrades, to migrate from Central Asia to the territory of Hindustan. Babur’s army included representatives of different peoples and tribes that were part of the Timurid state of that time, such as, for example, Turkic, Mughal and other tribes.
The founder of the Baburid state (1526) in India is Zahireddin Muhammad Babur (February 14, 1483 - December 26, 1530). Babur is a descendant of Tamerlane from the Barlas clan. He ruled in the city of Andijan (modern Uzbekistan), and was forced to flee from the warring nomadic Kipchak Turks, first to Afghanistan (Herat), and then went on a campaign to Northern India. Babur's son, Humayun (1530-1556), inherited from his father a huge kingdom stretching from the Ganges to the Amu Darya, but did not retain it, and for more than 25 years his throne was occupied by the Afghan dynasty of Sher Shah.

Map of the Mughal Empire. Borders of the empire: - under Babur (1530), - under Akbar (1605), - under Aurangzeb (1707).
The actual founder of the Mughal Empire is Humayun's son Akbar (1556-1605). Akbar's reign (49 years) was dedicated to the unification and pacification of the state. He turned independent Muslim states into provinces of his empire, and made Hindu rajas his vassals, partly through alliances, partly by force.
The appointment of Hindu ministers, viceroys and other officials won the favor and loyalty of the Hindu population to the new monarch. The hated tax on non-Muslims was destroyed.
Akbar translated the sacred books and epic poems of the Hindus into Persian, took an interest in their religion and respected their laws, although he prohibited some inhumane customs. The last years of his life were overshadowed by family troubles and the behavior of his eldest son, Selim, vindictive and cruel, who rebelled against his father.
Akbar was one of the most prominent Muslim rulers of India. Distinguished by his great military talent (he did not lose a single battle), he did not like war and preferred peaceful pursuits.
Imbued with broad religious tolerance, Akbar allowed free discussion of the tenets of Islam.
From 1720 the collapse of the empire began. This year, under Sultan Muhamed Shah, the viceroy of the Deccan, Nizam-ul-Mulk (1720-1748), formed his own independent state. His example was followed by the governor of Oudh, who became a vizier from a simple Persian merchant, and then the first Nawab of Oudh, under the name of Nawab Vizier of Oudh (1732-1743).
The Marathas (one of the indigenous Indian peoples) imposed tribute on the whole of South India, broke through eastern India to the north and forced the cession of Malwa from Muhammad Shah (1743), and from his son and successor Ahmed Shah (1748-1754) they took Orissa and received the right tribute from Bengal (1751).
Internal strife was joined by attacks from without. In 1739, Nadir Shah of Persia raided India. After capturing Delhi and plundering the city for 58 days, the Persians returned home through the northwest passages with booty valued at £32 million.
Vasco da Gama's expedition marked the beginning of Portugal's colonial conquests on the west coast of India. War flotillas with large numbers of soldiers and artillery were sent annually from Portugal to capture Indian ports and naval bases. With firearms and artillery at their disposal, the Portuguese destroyed the flotillas of their trading competitors, the Arab merchants, and captured their bases.
In 1505, Almeida was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese possessions in India. He defeated the Egyptian fleet at Diu and penetrated the Persian Gulf. His successor Albuquerque, a cunning, cruel and enterprising colonialist, blocked all approaches to India for Arab merchants. He captured Hormuz, a trade and strategic point at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and also closed the exit from the Red Sea. In 1510, Albuquerque captured the city of Goa. Goa became the center of Portuguese possessions in India. The Portuguese did not seek to seize large territories, but created only strongholds and trading posts for the export of colonial goods. Having strengthened themselves on the Malabar coast of India, they began to move east to the centers of spice production. In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca, thereby opening the way to the Moluccas and China. In 1516, a Portuguese expedition appeared off the coast of China. Soon a Portuguese trading post was created in Macau (southwest of Canton). At the same time, the Portuguese settled in the Moluccas and began exporting spices from there.
The Portuguese monopolized the spice trade. They forced the local population to sell them spices at “fixed prices” - 100-200 times lower than prices on the Lisbon market. In order to maintain high prices for colonial goods on the European market, no more than 5-6 ships with spices were brought per year, and the surplus was destroyed.

At the beginning of the 17th century, other European maritime powers also rushed into the colonial race.

Map of European trading settlements in India, showing years of establishment and nationality.

In several European powers ripe for colonialism (except Portugal, where the exploitation of colonies was considered a state matter), companies were established with a monopoly on trade with the East Indies:
British East India Company - established in 1600
Dutch East India Company - established in 1602
Danish East India Company - established in 1616
French East India Company - established in 1664
Austrian East India Company - established in 1717 in the Austrian Netherlands
Swedish East India Company - established in 1731

The most successful and famous was British East India Company(English: East India Company), until 1707 - the English East India Company - a joint-stock company created on December 31, 1600 by decree of Elizabeth I and received extensive privileges for trading operations in India. With the help of the East India Company, the British colonization of India and a number of countries in the East was carried out.
In effect, the royal decree gave the company a monopoly on trade in India. The company initially had 125 shareholders and a capital of £72,000. The company was governed by a governor and a board of directors who were responsible to a meeting of shareholders. The commercial company soon acquired government and military functions, which it lost only in 1858. Following the Dutch East India Company, the British also began to list its shares on the stock exchange.
In 1612, the company's armed forces inflicted a serious defeat on the Portuguese at the Battle of Suvali. In 1640, the local ruler of Vijayanagara allowed the establishment of a second trading post in Madras. In 1647, the company already had 23 trading posts in India. Indian fabrics (cotton and silk) are in incredible demand in Europe. Tea, grain, dyes, cotton, and later Bengal opium were also exported. In 1668 the Company leased the island of Bombay, a former Portuguese colony given to England as the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles II. In 1687, the Company's headquarters in Western Asia were moved from Surat to Bombay. The company tried to achieve trade privileges by force, but lost, and was forced to ask the Great Mogul for mercy. In 1690, the Company's settlement was founded in Calcutta, after appropriate permission from the Great Mogul. The Company's expansion into the subcontinent began; at the same time, the same expansion was carried out by a number of other European East India Companies - Dutch, French and Danish.

Meeting of shareholders of the East India Company.
In 1757, at the Battle of Plassey, the troops of the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the troops of the Bengali ruler Siraj-ud-Dowla - just a few volleys of British artillery put the Indians to flight. After the victory at Buxar (1764), the company received diwani - the right to rule Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, full control over the Nawab of Bengal and confiscated the Bengal treasury (valuables worth 5 million 260 thousand pounds sterling were seized). Robert Clive becomes the first British Governor of Bengal. Meanwhile, expansion continued around the bases in Bombay and Madras. The Anglo-Mysore Wars of 1766-1799 and the Anglo-Maratha Wars of 1772-1818 made the Company the dominant power south of the Sutlej River.
For almost a century, the company pursued a ruinous policy in its Indian possessions, which resulted in the destruction of traditional crafts and the degradation of agriculture, which led to the death of up to 40 million Indians from starvation. According to the calculations of the famous American historian Brooks Adams, in the first 15 years after the annexation of India, the British took 1 billion pounds sterling worth of valuables from Bengal. By 1840 the British ruled most of India. The unbridled exploitation of the Indian colonies was the most important source of the accumulation of British capital and the industrial revolution in England.
The expansion took two main forms. The first was the use of so-called subsidiary agreements, essentially feudal - local rulers transferred the management of foreign affairs to the Company and were obliged to pay a “subsidy” for the maintenance of the Company’s army. If payments were not made, the territory was annexed by the British. In addition, the local ruler undertook to maintain a British official ("resident") at his court. Thus, the company recognized "native states" led by Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawabs. The second form was direct rule.
The most powerful opponents of the Company were two states formed on the ruins of the Mughal Empire - the Maratha Union and the Sikh state. The collapse of the Sikh Empire was facilitated by the chaos that ensued after the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh, in 1839. Civil strife broke out both between individual sardars (generals of the Sikh army and de facto major feudal lords) and between the Khalsa (Sikh community) and the darbar (court). In addition, the Sikh population experienced tensions with local Muslims, who were often willing to fight under British banners against the Sikhs.

Ranjit Singh, first Maharaja of Punjab.

At the end of the 18th century, under Governor General Richard Wellesley, active expansion began; The company captured Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), the principalities along the Sutlej River (1815), the Central Indian principalities (1819), Kutch and Gujarat (1819), Rajputana ( 1818), Bahawalpur (1833). The annexed provinces included Delhi (1803) and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North West Frontier and Kashmir were captured in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Kashmir was immediately sold to the Dogra dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu, and became a “native state”. Berar was annexed in 1854, and Oud in 1856.
In 1857, there was a rebellion against the British East India Campaign, which is known in India as the First War of Independence or the Sepoy Mutiny. However, the rebellion was suppressed, and the British Empire established direct administrative control over almost the entire territory of South Asia.

Fight between the British and sepoys.

After the Indian National Uprising in 1857, the English Parliament passed the Act for the Better Government of India, according to which the company transferred its administrative functions to the British Crown in 1858. In 1874 the company was liquidated.

Dutch East India Company- Dutch trading company. Founded in 1602, it existed until 1798. Carried out trade (including tea, copper, silver, textiles, cotton, silk, ceramics, spices and opium) with Japan, China, Ceylon, Indonesia; monopolized trade with these countries of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

By 1669 the company was the richest private firm the world had ever seen, including over 150 commercial ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, and a private army of 10,000 soldiers. The company took part in the political disputes of the time along with states. So, in 1641, she independently, without the help of the Dutch state, knocked out her competitors, the Portuguese, from what is now Indonesia. For this purpose, armed detachments from the local population were created at the expense of the company.
The company was in constant conflict with the British Empire; experienced financial difficulties after the defeat of Holland in the war with this country in 1780-1784, and collapsed as a result of these difficulties.

French East India Company- French trading company. Founded in 1664 by the Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The company's first general director was François Caron, who worked for the Dutch East India Company for thirty years, including 20 years in Japan. The company failed in its attempt to capture Madagascar, settling for the neighboring islands of Bourbon (now Reunion) and Ile-de-France (now Mauritius).

For some time, the company actively intervened in Indian politics, concluding agreements with the rulers of the southern Indian territories. These attempts were stopped by the English baron Robert Clive, who represented the interests of the British East India Company.

The Battle of Plassey (more precisely, Broadsword) is a battle off the banks of the Bhagirathi River in West Bengal, in which on June 23, 1757, British Colonel Robert Clive, representing the interests of the British East India Company, inflicted a crushing defeat on the troops of the Bengal Nawab Siraj ud-Daula, on the side which was represented by the French East India Company.
The armed clash was provoked by the seizure by the Nawab (who believed that the British had violated previous agreements) of the British bridgehead in Bengal - Fort William on the territory of modern Calcutta. The board of directors sent Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson to counter the Bengalis from Madras. The betrayal of the Nawab's military leaders played a significant role in the British victory.
The battle began at 7:00 am on June 23, 1757, when the Indian army went on the offensive and opened artillery fire on the British positions.
At 11:00 am one of the Indian commanders led the attack but was killed by a British cannonball. This caused panic among his soldiers.
At noon a heavy downpour began. The British quickly hid their gunpowder, guns, and muskets from the rain, but the untrained Indian troops, despite French assistance, were unable to do the same. When the rain stopped, the British still had firepower, while their opponents' weapons needed a long drying time. At 14:00 the British began their attack. Mir Jafar announced the retreat. At 17:00 the retreat turned into a flight.

Robert Clive meets with Mir Jafar after the battle.

The victory at Plassey predetermined the English conquest of Bengal, which is why it is customary to begin the countdown of British rule in the Indian subcontinent with it. The confrontation between the British and the French in India represented the eastern theater of the Seven Years' War, which Churchill called the first world war in history.

Prehistory. In the 1750s, having created a combat-ready army of local soldiers (sepoys) trained on the French model, the French captain and later brigadier Charles Joseph Bussy-Castelnau became the de facto ruler of southern India; The ruler of Hyderabad was completely dependent on him. In contrast to the French, the British developed their base to the northeast, in Bengal. In 1754, an agreement was signed between the French and British East India Companies that neither of them would interfere in the internal affairs of India (formally subordinate to the Great Mogul).
In 1756, the Nawab of Bengal Alivardi Khan died and his grandson Siraj ud-Daula took the throne and attacked Fort William in Calcutta, the main English settlement in Bengal, and captured it on June 19, 1756. On the same night, from June 19 to 20, many English prisoners were tortured in the “black pit”. In August news of this reached Madras, and the British General Robert Clive, after much delay, departed for Calcutta on board one of the ships of the squadron under the command of Admiral Watson. The squadron entered the river in December and appeared before Calcutta in January, after which the city quickly fell into British hands.
When information about the outbreak of war in Europe arrived in Madras and Pondicherry at the beginning of 1757, the French governor Leiri, despite the favorable situation, did not dare to attack Madras, preferring to obtain an agreement on neutrality from the British representatives. Siraj ud-Daula, who opposed the British, sent an offer to the French in Chandannagar to join him, but he was refused help. Having secured French neutrality, Clive set out on a campaign and defeated the nawab. The Nawab immediately sued for peace and offered an alliance to the British, renouncing all claims. The proposal was accepted, after which, having secured their rear, the British began military operations against the French.
In 1769, the French enterprise ceased to exist. Some of the company's trading posts (Pondicherry and Shandannagar) remained under French control until 1949.
Danish East India Company- a Danish trading company that carried out trade with Asia in 1616-1729 (with interruptions).
It was created in 1616 on the model of the Dutch East India Company. The largest shareholder of the company was King Christian IV. Upon creation, the company received a monopoly on maritime trade with Asia.
In the 1620s, the Danish crown acquired a stronghold in India - Tranquebar, which later became the center of the company's trading activity (Fort Dansborg). In its heyday, it, along with the Swedish East India Company, imported more tea than the British East India Company, 90% of which was smuggled into England, which brought it huge profits.

Fort Dansborg in Tranquebar.

Due to poor economic performance, the company was abolished in 1650, but was recreated in 1670. By 1729, the Danish East India Company fell into decline and was completely abolished. Soon many of its shareholders became members of the Asiatic Company formed in 1730. But in 1772 it lost its monopoly, and in 1779 Danish India became a crown colony.
The Ostend Company is an Austrian private trading company, created in 1717 in Ostend (Southern Netherlands, part of the Austrian Empire) for trade with the East Indies.
The success of the Dutch, British and French East India Companies encouraged the merchants and shipowners of Ostend to establish direct commercial links with the East Indies. A private trading company in Ostend was created in 1717, and several of its ships sailed to the East. Emperor Charles VI encouraged his subjects to invest in the new enterprise, but did not grant a letter of patent. In the early stages, the company achieved some successes, but neighboring states actively impeded its activities, so in 1719 an Ostend merchant ship with a rich cargo was captured by the Dutch off the coast of Africa and another by the British off Madagascar.
Despite these losses, the people of Ostend stubbornly continued the enterprise. The opposition of the Dutch forced Charles VI to hesitate for some time in granting the company's requests, but on December 19, 1722, the emperor granted the Ostenders a patent letter granting the right to trade in the East and West Indies, as well as on the shores of Africa, for thirty years. Contributions quickly flowed into the enterprise, and two trading posts were opened: in Koblom on the Coromandel Coast near Madras and in Bank Bazaar in Bengal.
The Dutch and British continued to confront the growing competitor. The Dutch appealed to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, under which the Spanish king prohibited the inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands from trading in the Spanish colonies. The Dutch insisted that the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which ceded the Southern Netherlands to Austria, did not lift this ban. However, the Spanish government, after some hesitation, concluded a trade agreement with Austria and recognized the Ostend Company. The response to this treaty was the unification of Great Britain, the United Provinces and Prussia into a defensive league. Fearing such a powerful alliance, the Austrians decided to concede. As a result of the agreement signed in Paris on May 31, 1727, the emperor revoked the company's patent letter for seven years, in exchange for which the opponents of the Ostenders recognized the imperial Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
The company nominally existed in a state of prohibition for some time and soon closed down. The Austrian Netherlands did not engage in maritime trade with the Indies until its union with Holland in 1815.

Swedish East India Company, created in the 18th century to conduct maritime trade with the countries of the East.
In Sweden, the first trading companies modeled on foreign ones began to emerge in the 17th century, but their activities were not very successful. Only in the 18th century did a company appear that could rightfully be called East India.
Its foundation was a consequence of the abolition of the Austrian East India Company in 1731. Foreigners who hoped to profit from participating in the lucrative colonial trade turned their attention to Sweden. Scotsman Colin Campbell, together with Gothenburger Niklas Sahlgren, turned to Commissioner Henrik König, who became their representative before the Swedish government.
After preliminary discussions in the government and at the Riksdag, on June 14, 1731, the king signed the first privilege for a period of 15 years. It gave Henrik Koenig and his companions the right, for a moderate fee to the crown, to carry out trade with the East Indies, namely “in all ports, cities and rivers on the other side of the Cape of Good Hope.” The ships sent by the company had to sail exclusively from Gothenburg and return there after the voyage to sell their cargo at a public auction. She was allowed to equip as many ships as she needed, with the only condition that they had to be built or purchased in Sweden.
The company was managed by a directorate that included at least three people knowledgeable in the trade. In the event of the death of one of the company's directors, the remaining ones had to elect a third. Directors could only be Swedish subjects who professed the Protestant faith.
Already at the very beginning of its existence, the company faced obstacles from foreign competitors and its domestic opponents.
The first equipped ship of the company was captured by the Dutch in the Sound, but was soon released. The attempt to gain a foothold in India was even less successful. In September 1733, the company established a trading post in Porto-Novo on the Coromandel Coast, but already in October it was destroyed by troops equipped by the English governor of Madras and the French governor of Pondicherry. All goods were confiscated, and the subjects of the English king who were there were arrested. In 1740, the English government agreed to pay the company compensation in the amount of 12 thousand pounds sterling.
For Gothenburg, which was the seat of the company, the East India trade served as an impetus for rapid development. Expensive Indian and Chinese goods - mainly silk, tea, porcelain and spices - were sold at lively auctions and then distributed throughout Europe, occupying a fairly significant place in Swedish exports.

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By the middle of the 19th century. England finally established its dominance over all of India. A complex and contradictory process of Europeanization and modernization began, that is, the introduction of this gigantic colony both to the achievements and benefits, and to the shortcomings of Western European civilization. The Indians did not want to put up with new orders that threatened their traditional way of life.

India - British colony

In response to the colonization of India, a powerful popular uprising broke out in 1857-1859, which was drowned in blood by the civilized British. Thereafter, the struggle for independence continued through peaceful means until its successful conclusion in 1947. This is one of the most remarkable features of modern and contemporary Indian history.

Ranjit Singh is the great ruler (maharaja) of the Sikhs. In 1799-1839. united Punjab under his rule and created a huge Sikh state. After the death of Maharaja Singh, his state began to disintegrate and became an easy prey for the British.

The British conquered India relatively easily, without much loss and at the hands of the Indians themselves. The English armed forces, consisting of local soldiers - sepoys, conquered the Indian principalities one after another. The last place in India to lose its freedom and independence was Punjab, annexed to the territory of the East India Company in 1849. It took the British about a hundred years to bring this huge country under their complete control. For the first time in its history, India was deprived of state independence.

The country has been subject to conquest before. But the foreigners who settled within its borders tried to adapt to the conditions of Indian social and economic life.

The new conquerors were completely different. Their homeland was another and distant country. There was a huge gap between them and the Indians - differences in traditions, lifestyles, habits, and value systems. The British treated the “natives” with contempt, alienated and shunned them, living in their own “higher” world. Even workers and farmers who came to India were inevitably classified as part of the ruling class here. Initially there was nothing in common between the British and Indians except mutual hatred. The British represented a different - capitalist type of civilization, which could not exist without the exploitation of other peoples.

The British in India. Europeans felt like masters of the country

In part of Indian territory, the British exercised power directly through their administration. The other part of India was left in the hands of feudal princes. The British retained approximately 600 independent principalities. The smallest of them numbered hundreds of inhabitants. The princes were under the control of the colonial authorities. This made it easier to rule India.

Colonial exploitation

India was the jewel of the first magnitude in the British crown. During the conquests, enormous wealth and treasures of Indian rajas (princes) flowed into England, replenishing the country's cash capital. This fuel contributed significantly to the industrial revolution in England.

Direct robbery gradually took the form of legalized exploitation. The main weapon for robbing the country was taxes that went to the treasury of the East India Company. Indian goods, which had previously been widely exported, were now denied access to Europe. But English goods were freely imported into India. As a result, India's textile industry declined. Unemployment among artisans was terrible. People were on the verge of starvation and died in thousands. The Governor-General of India reported in 1834: “The plains of India are strewn with the bones of weavers.”

India became an economic appendage of England. The prosperity and wealth of the mother country was largely due to the robbery of the Indian people.

Anti-colonial uprising 1857 - 1859

The establishment of British rule over India sharply increased the misery of the masses. Sensible Englishmen were aware of this. Here is what one of them wrote: “Foreign conquerors used violence and often great cruelty against the natives, but no one has ever treated them with such contempt as we have.”

In the 50s XIX century There was widespread dissatisfaction with the British in the country. It increased even more when rumors spread about the impending forced conversion of Hindus and Muslims to the Christian faith. Hostility towards the British was felt not only by the poorest strata of the population, but also by part of the feudal aristocracy, small feudal lords and the community (village) elite, whose rights were infringed by the colonial administration. The sepoys, with whom the British, after the conquest of India, reckoned less and less, were also gripped by discontent.

In May 1857, the sepoy regiments mutinied. The rebels dealt with the British officers and captured Delhi. Here they announced the restoration of the power of the Mughal emperor.

Tantia Topi. Bodyguard of Nana Sahib, one of the most capable military leaders. He became famous for his partisan actions against the British. He was betrayed by Indian feudal lords, handed over to the British and hanged on April 18, 1859

The performance of the sepoys was not just a military mutiny, but the beginning of a nationwide uprising against the British. It covered northern and part of central India. The struggle for independence was led by feudal lords with the goal of restoring the order that existed before the arrival of the colonialists. And initially it was successful. The power of the British in India was literally hanging by a thread. Nevertheless, the fate of the uprising was largely decided by the Indians themselves. Not all of them, especially the princes, supported the rebels. There was no single leadership, single organization and single center of resistance. Sepoy commanders, as a rule, acted separately and uncoordinated. Although with great difficulty, the British managed to suppress the uprising.

Nana Sahib - adopted son of ruler Baji Pao II, one of the rebel leaders

Nana Sahib led the rebellion in Kanpur. After the defeat, he left with part of the sepoys to the Nepal border. Nothing is known about his further fate. In all likelihood, Nana Sahib died in the impenetrable jungle. His mysterious disappearance gave rise to a lot of rumors. Some believe that Nana Sahib served as the prototype for Captain Nemo in the famous fantasy adventure novels of Jules Verne, in which the French writer foresaw the achievements of future science

The last effort of feudal India to resist capitalist England ended in complete failure.

While pacifying the rebellious country, the British shot a huge number of people. Many were tied to the muzzles of cannons and torn to pieces. Roadside trees were turned into gallows. Villages were destroyed along with their inhabitants. Tragic events of 1857-1859 left an open wound in relations between India and England.

Beginning of the Indian Renaissance

After the collapse of the Mughal Empire, cultural development came to a halt. As a result of English colonial expansion and continuous wars, painting, architecture, and other arts and crafts fell into decline.

The new masters of India rejected the values ​​of Indian culture and doomed the population to poverty and ignorance.“One shelf of English books is worth more than all the native literature of India and Africa put together,” one of the British officials cynically declared. But the British could not do without a small layer of educated Indians - Indian in blood and skin color, English in tastes and mentality. In order to prepare such a layer in the 30s. XIX century A small number of European-style secondary schools were opened, in which people from wealthy families studied. Expenditures on education were meager. As a result, by the time the British left India in 1947, 89% of the population remained illiterate.

Despite the difficulties, the peoples of India continued to develop their national culture. In addition, there was close contact with Western culture. And this served as an important prerequisite for profound transformations in religious and cultural life, called the Indian Renaissance.

Ram Roy

At the origins of the Indian Renaissance is Ram Mohan Roy, an outstanding public figure, reformer and educator of the first half of the 19th century. His compatriots call him the “father of modern India.”

Indian art: "Two sellers with their wares - fish and sweets." Shiva Dayal Lal is one of the famous Indian artists of the mid-19th century.

Ram Roy was born into a Brahmin family. He could have led the measured life of the most learned of scholars, far from political storms and everyday worries. But he, in the words of Rabindranath Tagore, decided to come down to earth among the common people in order to “sow the seeds of knowledge and spread the aroma of feelings.”

For several years Ram Roy led the life of a wandering ascetic. Traveled throughout India and Tibet. Then he became an official of the tax department. After resigning, he devoted himself to literary and social activities. He opposed the reactionary rites and customs of the Hindu religion, against caste prejudices, idolatry, the barbaric custom of self-immolation of widows (sati) and the killing of newborn girls. Under the influence of his speech for the abolition of sati, the English government banned this ritual.

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Heroine of the Indian people

Among the leaders of the anti-colonial uprising of 1857-1859. The name of Lakshmi Bai, the princess (rani) of the small principality of Jhansi, stands out. After the death of her husband, she was rudely removed by the British from governing the principality. When the uprising began, the young princess joined the rebel leaders Nana Sahib and Tantiya Topi, who were her childhood friends. She fought bravely against the British in Jhansi. After the capture of the principality by the enemy, she managed to make her way to Tantia Topi, from whom she began to command a cavalry detachment. In one of the battles, the twenty-year-old princess was mortally wounded. She was called “the best and bravest” of the rebel leaders by the English general who fought against her. The name of the young heroine Rani Jhansi Lakshmi Bai is especially revered by the Indian people.

References:
V. S. Koshelev, I. V. Orzhekhovsky, V. I. Sinitsa / World History of Modern Times XIX - early. XX century, 1998.