Indian Independence Coursework Full Marks

Introduction

In the first half of the 18th century, the British were a trading presence at multiple points across the coast. From the 1750’s they began to rage war onto eastern and southern eastern India to reap the reward of thriving warfare, that was the exercise of political power, notably over the province of Bengal. By the tip of the century, British rule had been consolidated over the primary conquest and it had been extended up to the Ganges valley to Delhi and over most of the of southern India. By then the British had established a military dominance that would allow them within the next fifty years to subdue all the remaining Indian states, either by forcing them or forcing their rulers to become subordinate allies.

Political

The East India Company helped exterminate India’s once-robust textile industries, pushing a lot of and more individuals into agriculture. This, in turn, created the Indian economy rather more addicted to the uncertainty of seasonal monsoons. The Indian and British press carried reports of inflation, dwindling grain reserves, and also the desperation of peasants now not able to afford rice. In my opinion, this suggests that Britain hurt India because as a result of their colonisation they had changed how the economy functioned and made key aspects that brought in significant revenue almost obsolete, such as the textiles which the British took over for economic benefit.

All of this did little to stir the colonial administration into action. within the mid-19th Century, it had been common economic knowledge that government intervention in famines was surplus and even harmful. The market would restore the correct balance. Any excess deaths, in line with Malthusian principles, were nature’s means of responding to population. The long term legacy for the British empire some would say was devastating but to this day not a lot of people know about the Orissa famine that struck eastern India killing 4-5 million residents this is because While Orissans perished in droves in 1866, Mr Naoroji noted that India had exported over 200m pounds of rice to Britain. He discovered a similar pattern of mass exportation during other famine years. This shows that on the British watch millions of residents died while the raj was turning over a huge profit, ultimately showing in my opinion that the raj contributed to the deaths and in turn had a massive negative effect on the Indian empire.

Establishing the Rule of Law in India

The colonization of India by Britain began when the East India Company came together with some British traders and saw an opportunity to snatch parts of India. When The East India Company stacked up some goods they build multiple warehouses, which in their opinion gave them an excuse to build up forts and armies to protect them. This showed the first step into colonization into India and almost establishing rule of law in India by force by disguised as cohesion. The East India Company dominated parts of India in the eighteenth century and took steps to introduce self- governing judicial and political administration in its territories in India. As historical social scientist Claude Bernard Cohn says, ‘In the last half of the eighteenth century, the East India Company had to make a state through that it may administer the speedily increasing territories non-inheritable by conquest or accession.

Establishing Good Government and a Civil Service

The Indian Civil Service was ultimately liable for overseeing all governance within the 250 districts that compromised the parts of India Britain ruled. They were appointed below of the govt of India Act 1858, enacted the parliament in Britain, which Its provisions were drawn up the liquidation of the East India Company and also the transference of its functions and powers to the Raj

Rule by Consent or Rule by Force

With Emperor Jehangir’s permission, the East India Company began to create little bases and factories on Indias East Coast and Western Coasts. As far as society is concerned, the debate about whether the colonial rule of Britain over India between 1790 and 1890 was advantageous to India is still conflicted. The banning of the ceremonial “sati” could be seen as cultural insensitivity on behalf of the British, this ceremony as the British had claimed was “inhumane” and even “cruel” to some extent. The fact that women in most cases were coerced into jumping onto their husbands’ funeral pyres, comes to show that the whole ceremony or as other historians have come to refer to it as a “practice” something like a rite of passage for widowed women into a higher spiritual plane.

• Sati and exactly why it was banned try and use sources
• Explain how it impacted Indian women in particular
• The infantilised Indian women – fetishized and treated like children, patronized by men of both races
• The Mild expression, so characteristic of this race, the beauty and regularity of the features and the symmetrical form of the head are striking and convey a high idea of the intellectuality of the Asiatic race. This classic elegance of form is not confined to the head alone, the bust is often of the finest proportions of ancient statuary and when seen through the thin veil of flowing muslin as the graceful Hindu female ascends from her morning ablution in the Ganges is a subject well worth the labour of the poet or artist.
• The education system

Charles Grant and Willaim Wilberforce who was a missionary activist compelled the East India Company to administer up its non-invention policy ad move for spreading education through English to teach western literature and preach Christianity. As a result, the British parliament added a clause in 1813 charter that Governor-general in council less than one lakh for education and allowed the Christain Missionaries to layout their spiritual ideas in the Republic of India. This act had its importance because it had been the first instance that the British East India Company had acknowledged for the promotion of education in India. This shows that Britain had a good impact on India as it was educating the public which before the education was scarce. However, you could argue that this was not the case because they were teaching the Indian natives western values so they would have an Indian in blood but a British in the heart, ultimately so they could control them and possibly add them into the army. The General committee of public instruction 1823, was fashioned to look upon the evolution of education in India which was dominated by Orientalists who were the supporter of Oriental learning instead of the Anglican. Consequently, they created preponderating of pressure on the British East India Company to promote Western Education. As a result, the unfold of education in India got discursive between Orientalist – Anglicist and Macaulay’s resolution come upon with a clear image of the British education system. In addition to this, the British implemented many education policies later on such as the Lord Macaulay’s Education policy, 1835, Wood’s Dispatch, 1854 and the Hunter Commission. This, in my opinion, would have separated the Indian people greatly, by the ones who were heavily influenced by the British education system and those who still learnt the Indian education system. Because of this, the British harmed India as they caused divisions in society and social unrest.

Sati

The Bengal Sati Regulation banned the Sati practice in all jurisdictions of British India and was passed on December 4, 1829, by the then Governor-General Lord William Bentinck. The ban on Sati, accomplished by Lord Willaim Bentinck in 1829, was mostly because of the efforts of each Christain and Hindu teams. From 1815–1818 Sati deaths doubled.

Niall Ferguson Empire How Britain Made the Modern World

“The British had been aware that certain Indian communities engaged in female infanticide since the late 1780s: the principal reason seems to have been the excessive cost to high-caste families of marrying off their daughters. However, it was not until 1836 that James Thomason, then the Magistrate of Azamgarh and later Lieutenant- Governor fo the Northern Provinces, took active steps to stamp it out. In 1839 the Maharaja of Marwar was persuaded to pass a law prohibiting the practice. This was only the beginning of a sustained campaign. A systematic survey in 1854 found that the practice was endemic in Gorakhpur and Mirzapur. After further research- including detailed analyses of village census data – a new act was passed in 1870, initially applying only to the North-Western Provinces but later extended to the Punjab and Oudh.

Economic

The state of infrastructure throughout pre-British India was poor. The transportation and communication lines were below average. Most of the villages lacked a properly connected network. Consequently, because of the bad tracks, the natural dust-covered tracks were the predominant roads in India.However, such roads wheat misery throughout monsoons as they became muddy and troublesome to traverse. The pre-colonial state of infrastructure in the Republic of India was below satisfactory and therefore the British were answerable for most of our infrastructure development. Transportation of materials from the rural area to ports was inefficient and long. Varied routes became inaccessible because of the absence of permanent roads. Development of infrastructure was, therefore, a necessity to empower colonial motives. In Consequence infrastructure like railroads was built and was aimed toward British authorization instead of providing basic services to the natives.

Railways and India some people would say are an honest match, an enduring one since not solely are the Indians still building new lines, however nearly none have ever been closed. The railways delivered abundant for India. They stuck and connected the country. They allowed quick travel between one finish of the country and therefore the alternative and cemented relationships between the varied provinces. They enabled merchandise to be carried around the country way more cheaply than ever before. and alternative agricultural produce that enhanced their availableness and, eventually, did create famines less seemingly. They created an infrastructure that in Bharat was unexampled in its sophistication and extent. They gave the chance of secure jobs to millions of Indians and enabled many of them to accumulate new skills and they set the foundations of the big Indian bourgeoisie. However, there were many negative views of the railroad in India because it was seen as a sign of British colonization. Furthermore, the railways were an instrument of management. The stations became fortresses, the white and, later, the Eurasian, workers became an auxiliary army, and therefore the tracks became lines of communication within the event of a conflict.

There was another supply of mounting antagonism: the treatment of third-class passengers WHO were just about all Indian. whereas the Europeans travelled in the first luxury in first-class, the plenty was crammed into first dirtiness. There was even a protracted battle for them to own bathrooms on trains and conditions remained squalid well into the 20 the century. This proved to be a good supply of dissent and inspired nationalistic sentiment. The invention that did most to keep the Indians under control proved to be ambiguous, stimulating the nationalistic forces that eventually triumphed. Gandhi made nice use of the railways however additionally criticized the conditions that third-class travellers – of that he deliberately was one, despite his relative wealth – endured. At times it appeared that the authorities set out willfully to make sure that the railways antagonized the native population. within the mid-1880s, varied lines were designed purportedly to alleviate famine, tho’ they were a remarkably inefficient method of doing, therefore. The Bengal-Nagpur line, for instance, was designed with funds from the Rothschild family however the British government determined that their secure profits ought to be paid by an additional tax on the native peasantry. Consequently, the profits accumulated by the richest family on earth were being provided from a bunch that was definitely among the poorest.

To conclude the failure was, above all, economic. In an analysis of the impact of railways, John Hurd, an economic expert who has written extensively on Asian nation, concludes that India solely enjoyed restricted economic development underneath the raj precisely because the railways weren’t allowed to be the catalyst for growth that they proved to be in such a large amount of different countries. whereas they beyond question enabled the cheaper flow of products, stirred up accrued agricultural output, and created many roles in trendy trade and mining, ‘these changes failed to affect the fundamental structure of the economy. Not till Independence once economic development became an aware and pursued policy did the railways begin to appreciate their potential for aiding within the transformation of the Indian economy.’