Formal declaration of India as a colony of Great Britain. British India. Economic and technological changes

British influence in India began with the formation of small trading posts and ended with complete control over the subcontinent, which, however, did not last long.

British footholds in India

Following the example of Portugal and Holland, a group of British merchants established the East India Company in 1599, which the following year received from Queen Elizabeth a monopoly on English trade with India. By the beginning of the 17th century, the trading society tried to establish itself in the subcontinent through numerous trips. And finally, he succeeded. In 1619, a trading post (factory) was created in the city of Surat, and between 1634 and 1639, simultaneously with Fort St. George, a second trading post was created in Madras.

In the period up to 1647, almost 30 trading posts arose and, although the Dutch, Portuguese and local Mughals resisted - from 1688 to 1691 this even resulted in a struggle with the ruler of the Mughal Empire Aurangzeb - the English East India Company continuously expanded its area of ​​​​operation until the end of the century . Many small trading posts were established on both coasts of the subcontinent, and Madras, Bombay and Fort William in Calcutta grew into large cities.

The rise of Britain and the growth of its influence in India

Despite the fact that in the 17th century there was an increase in trade activity in India and an increase in the number of British settlements, Great Britain itself did not represent any significant or political power. It was only after Aurangzeb's death in 1707, when the Mughal Empire gradually began to fall apart, that the British stepped up their efforts to fill the power vacuum. The French East India Company, founded in 1664, increased its wealth and territory, and constantly increased the number of troops. By the beginning of the 18th century, European conflicts, in which the British, changing allies, fought against the French, spread to overseas territories. Rivalry grew and a struggle for power gradually became inevitable. At first the French seemed to be winning as they occupied Madras in 1744. However

in 1751 the wheel of fortune turned to reverse side. Robert Clive, who formerly worked as a clerk in the bureau of the English East India Company, with a small detachment of English and Indian soldiers captured the French fortification of Arcot. In 1756, the conflict spread north when Nabob Siraj-ud-Daula, the ruler of Bengal, captured Fort William and imprisoned its inhabitants. Most of the captives died, which is why people still remember the “black hole of Calcutta” today.

By this time Robert Clive was already governor of Fort St David. In 1757, he took Fort William and Chandernagore, the most important French stronghold in India. Thus, the threat from the French was eliminated. At the Battle of Plassey, Clive's army defeats the troops of Sirad-ja-ud-Daula. In this she was helped by the political intrigues started by Clive and the attraction of Mir Jafar, one of Siraj’s generals, to his side. Clive made Mir Jafar nabob, but demanded a lot of money for this privilege. Thus, the East India Company actually became the property of Bengal: it levied taxes, led the Mughal military detachments, and turned from a trading organization into a political instrument of power. In 1765, Clive returned to Bengal as governor and the rank of commander-in-chief, which he had been awarded in England. This was the first stone laid in the foundation of the future British-Indian empire.

Headquarters of the Netherlands East India Company at Hooghly, Bengal, 1665.

British conquests

Although, beginning in 1757, the British East Indian Company began to create the foundations of a state, its employees were not prepared to govern this state. Therefore, in Great Britain, starting in 1767, voices began to be heard calling for the nationalization of possessions in India. When famine threatened the very existence of the company in 1769-1770, the state came to its aid. However, the condition was set that the company would gradually transfer its powers to the British government. The Regulatory Act of 1773, the so-called "Indian Bill", and the Indian Act of 1784 brought the company under the control of Parliament. Based on these laws, the government installed governors general and thus created a system of dual control that lasted until 1858.

The subsequent period is characterized by British expansionist aspirations. This is either the conclusion of mutual assistance agreements or conquest. The policy of "Mutual Assistance Treaties" led to the formation of seemingly independent states that were ruled by local leaders. However, most of their power was transferred to the company - this primarily concerned issues of military and foreign policy. The base of “British India” was mainly territories annexed during the hostilities.

Governors General Warren Hastings, Lord Cornwell and William Bentinck attempted to "pacify, civilize and improve" their subjects by reforming the education and justice systems and strengthening the rule of law. English began to be used in legal proceedings, and attempts at Christianization allowed Indians to abandon some social and religious customs.

After successful military campaigns against the Mizoran Sultan (1799), the Marathas (1818) and the Sikhs (1845-1848), and the subsequent annexation of other areas by Governor-General Dalhousie Canning in 1849, the British occupation of India was largely over. Almost all of India was controlled directly or indirectly by the East India Company. Since 1851, the country's infrastructure began to develop. Telegraphs and a network of railways emerged, as well as an improved irrigation system. All this helped provide jobs to Indians and other nationalities. Some Indians were loyal to the British or, according to at least, tolerated their power. However, ongoing annexation, high taxes and the danger of losing their own cultural traditions due to Western influence forced much of the Indian population to keep their distance.

Sepoy Mutiny of 1857

On May 10, 1857, a mutiny of sepoys, mercenary soldiers of the British army, broke out near Delhi. They launched a general rebellion against the British. The reason for it was rumors that soldiers' ammunition was processed using pork and beef fat, which offended the religious feelings of Muslims and Hindus. However, such violent outrage was most likely a reaction to the rapid change in lifestyle and modernization that the British began to impose on the Ganges.

In addition, the Muslims tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to revive the Mughal dynasty. A year later, the British, with the help of loyal Indian troops, suppressed the rebellion. Following this, the last ruler of the Mughal dynasty, Bahadur Shah, was brought to trial. He was convicted and exiled to Burma. This was the end of the Mughal Empire. Another consequence of the mutiny, which was the first serious threat to British rule in India, was the dissolution of the British government of the East India Company and the transfer of administrative functions into its own hands. India became a crown land and the governors-general became viceroys. This was the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign.

British Raj and Indian Nationalism

In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India and promised to improve the welfare of her subjects and govern them according to British laws. However, the distrust of the British government expressed by the 1857 rebellion was already deeply rooted among the people. The British also behaved separately towards the Indian population. Therefore, India of the Victorian era was split: on the one hand, the Indians and the British, who kept their distance, and on the other side, the desire for close cooperation in work and tolerance. Many nineteenth-century reforms allowed Indians to increase their participation in political processes. National self-awareness began to revive, and hopes arose for the creation of their own government. In 1885, the Indian National Congress party was established, which enabled Indians to actively participate in the life of the state; The Government of India Act was passed and the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 were carried out, according to which the right of Indians to participate in the drafting of laws was recognized.

However, nationalist tendencies also began to appear within the ranks of the party: in Bengal and other places, armed revolutionaries carried out attacks on British institutions and officials. At the same time, the strategy of mass peaceful disobedience and refusal of any joint work as effective forms of protest was tested for the first time. During and immediately after the First World War, in which many Indian soldiers fought, it seemed that further recognition of rights and the constitutional reforms of 1917 and 1919 would inevitably result in Indian self-government. However, in 1919, the British responded to the resistance by using force: during the riots in Amritsar, almost 400 unarmed Indians were killed by troops. In response, political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru called for mass protests, from which a general movement against British rule was born.

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 gained favor and loyalty among the Hindu population for 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 Muhammad 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 from a simple Persian merchant became a vizier, 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 all of South India, broke through eastern India to the north and forced the cession of Malwa from Muhammad Shah (1743), and took Orissa from his son and successor Ahmed Shah (1748-1754) 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 conquest on the west coast of India. Military 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(eng. East India Company), until 1707 - English East India Company - 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 Indian Better Government Act, according to which the company transferred its administrative functions British crown. 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 disintegrated as a result of these difficulties.

French East India Company- French trading company. Founded in 1664 by the Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert. First general director The company became François Caron, who worked for thirty years in the Dutch East India Company, 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 completely depended 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 war that had broken out 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. The Austrian Netherlands did not participate 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 König and his companions the right, for a moderate fee to the crown, to 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 company's first equipped ship 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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India was the first and essentially the only state of such a large scale (or rather, even a group of states united by the civilization that united them, religious tradition and common social-caste principles of internal structure) that was turned into a colony. Taking advantage of the characteristic weakness of administrative and political ties in India, the British relatively easily, without much expense or loss, even mainly through the hands of the Indians themselves, seized power and established their dominance. But once this was achieved (in 1849, after the victory over the Sikhs in the Punjab), a new problem arose before the conquerors: how to manage a giant colony? The previous conquerors did not have such a problem. Without further ado, all of them, right up to the Great Mughals, ruled in a way that had been determined for centuries and was clear to everyone. But the British represented a fundamentally different structure, which was also on a steep rise and was making increasingly decisive and far-reaching demands for its successful development. In a sense, the problem was similar to the one that Alexander solved after his conquest of the Middle East: how to synthesize one’s own and someone else’s, the West and the East? But there were also new circumstances that were fundamentally different from antiquity. The fact is that the annexation of India to Britain was not so much a political act, the result of a war or a series of wars, but rather a consequence of complex economic and social processes throughout the world, the essence of which boiled down to the formation of a world capitalist market and the forced inclusion of colonized countries in world market relations .

It is unlikely that at first, the British colonialists thought about the mentioned problem. Colonization was carried out by the hands of the East India Company, which sought, above all, active trade, huge profits, and high rates of enrichment. But in the course of trade operations and in the name of increasingly guaranteed security, other people's property was taken over, new lands were seized, and successful wars were fought. Colonial trade was increasingly outgrowing its original framework; it was spurred on by the fact that the rapidly growing English capitalist industry at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. was already in dire need of ever-increasing markets for manufactured goods. India was the ideal place for this effort. It is not surprising that, under changing circumstances, Indian affairs gradually ceased to be the prerogative of the company, or at any rate of the company alone. From the end of the 18th century, especially after the trial of W. Hastings, the first Governor-General of India (1774–1785), the company's activities began to be increasingly controlled by the government and parliament.

In 1813, the company's monopoly on trade with India was officially abolished, and over the 15 years after that, the import of cotton factory fabrics increased 4 times. An Act of Parliament in 1833 further limited the company's functions, leaving it essentially the status of an administrative organization that practically governed India, now under the very strict control of the London Board of Control. India, step by step, became more and more obviously a colony of Great Britain, turned into a part of the British Empire, into the jewel of its crown.

But the final part of the colonization process proved to be the most difficult. The interference of the company administration in the internal affairs of the country and, above all, in the agrarian relations that had developed over centuries (English administrators clearly did not understand the real and very difficult relationships between the owning and non-owning strata in India) led to painful conflicts in the country. The influx of factory fabrics and the ruin of many of the aristocrats accustomed to prestigious consumption affected the well-being of Indian artisans. In a word, the usual norm of relations that had been functioning for centuries was cracking at all the seams, and a painful crisis was becoming more and more obvious in the country.

The huge country did not want to put up with this. There was growing dissatisfaction with the new order, which posed a threat to the usual existence of almost everyone. And although due to the weakness of internal ties and the dominance of numerous ethno-caste, linguistic, political and religious barriers that separated people, this discontent was not too strong, much less organized enough, it nevertheless quickly increased and turned into open resistance to the British authorities. An explosion was brewing.

One of the important immediate reasons that provoked it was the annexation by the Governor-General of Dalhousie in 1856 of the large principality of Oudh in the north of the country. The fact is that, along with the lands officially and directly subordinate to the administration of the company, in India there were 500–600 large and small principalities, the status and rights of which were very different. Each of the principalities was associated with the administration of the company by a special contractual act, but their number gradually decreased due to the liquidation of those where the line of direct inheritance was interrupted or a state of crisis ensued. Oudh was annexed to the company's lands under the pretext of "poor management", which caused sharp discontent among the local Muslim population (talukdars), as well as the privileged Rajput zamindars, who were greatly offended by this decision.

The center of the company's military power was the Bengal army of sepoys, two-thirds recruited from the Rajputs, Brahmins and Jats of Oudh. Sepoys from these high castes felt especially painfully their inferior position in the army in comparison with the British who served next to them. Ferment in their ranks gradually increased due to the fact that after the conquest of India, the company, contrary to what was promised, not only reduced their salaries, but also began to use them in wars outside India - in Afghanistan, Burma, even in China. The last straw and the immediate cause for the uprising was the introduction in 1857 of new cartridges, the winding of which was lubricated with beef or pork fat (by biting it, both Hindus who revered the sacred cow and Muslims who did not eat pork were desecrated). Outraged by the punishment of those who opposed the new patrons, on May 10, 1857, three regiments of sepoys mutinied at Merath near Delhi. Other units joined the rebels and soon the sepoys approached Delhi and occupied the city. The British were partially exterminated, partially fled in panic, and the sepoys proclaimed the elderly Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah II, who was living out his days on a company pension, as emperor.

The uprising lasted almost two years and was ultimately drowned in blood by the British, who were able to rely on the help of the Sikhs, Gurkhas and other forces who feared the revival of the Mughal Empire. Having rightly assessed the uprising as a powerful popular explosion of discontent not only with the rule of the colonialists, but also with the brutal breakdown of the traditional forms of existence of many layers of Indian society, the British colonial authorities were forced to seriously think about what to do next. The question was what methods and means would be used to achieve the destruction of the traditional structure. Only one thing was clear: a sharp violent break is unacceptable here; it should be replaced by a gradual and carefully thought-out transformation - with an orientation, of course, towards the European model. Actually, this is what the subsequent policy of the British in India boiled down to.

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 vassals of 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

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✪ coin British East India Company 1/4 anna 1835

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Beginning in 1916, 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, 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, which culminated in the Amritsar massacre, and brought 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 asylum was abolished executive power when passing unpopular laws in the form of an “official majority”.

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 rent, 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 city residents. 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 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 a 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 at that time had shown their loyalty.

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 with 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, the Briton Ronald Ross, working in Calcutta, definitively 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 principalities 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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“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, established 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 the state. 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 have prepared for the great eastern country the fate of a raw materials appendage, a huge market for sales finished products early industrial British economy and 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 remarked: India is “an English barracks eastern seas, from where we can always call up any number of free soldiers."

Of course, British society as a whole tended to justify its rule in more noble terms 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 implied 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, 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 identity 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, the 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 it was released new law about management - 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 common 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 without any warning opened fire. “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, proclaiming 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”). Classic scheme The relationship 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 security 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 even earlier the value of India as a “colonial asset” had fallen somewhat: a decrease in the share Agriculture played a role in the economy after the Great Depression of 1929. 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 explosion 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 to 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, there was the Bombay Mutiny, in which, among others, 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 with eyewitnesses on 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 of India’s 300 million population, 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 to disobey 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. During the 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. Weren’t they 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.