Wednesday, Oct. 16 - Imperialism - India
Objective: To understand the history of colonization in India.
European nations first competed for colonies in India – as early as the 1600s – India had major resources for spices and tea.
The British East India Company began trading in India in the 1600s. France also established trading posts in India and war broke out between the two nations in the 1750s in India. The British won and the French were given a few small areas in southeastern India.
Robert Clive was the head of the East India Company in India. His job was to increase the company’s wealth. To gain more trading rights, he fought the Indians and the French. In 1757, Clive defeated a mogul army at the Battle of Plassey and the East India Company slowly extended its rule across India. By the 1860s, more than 60 percent of India was under the control of the East India Company.
The East India Company set up schools, improved roads and built railroads. It kept peace between rival local leaders. It also made fortunes from Indian resources and labor.
The Company had its own army and forts to protect its property and British citizens and hired Indian soldiers – called sepoys. In 1857, the company gave the sepoys new rifles. To load them, soldiers had to bite off the end of the powder cartridges, which were greased with cow fat (forbidden to Hindus) or pig fats (forbidden to Muslims). The sepoys refused to put the cartridges in their mouth, so they were sent home without pay.
The rebelled (the Sepoy Rebellion) and attacked British men, women and children. The British burned villages and killed Indians. It took the British a year to regain control. When it was over, Parliament said East India Company’s control of India was over. In 1858 India was ruled directly by Parliament and British troops were sent to India.
Parliament appointed a viceroy to govern India and a civil service was set up with the British in top positions and Indians in lower government positions. Indians also served as soldiers in army, overseen by British officers.
British rule was a disaster for the Indian population. England sent British cloth to India, which destroyed the textile industry. They also collected taxes to support the British army in India, which bankrupted many farmers. Also, British wanted Indians to grow cotton, so that replaced food as a main crop and famines in the late 1800s caused millions of deaths.
Many upper-class Indians sent their children to England to be educated. By the late 1800s, they were returning to India with Western ideas of democracy and freedom and were working to end imperial rule. They set up the Indian National Congress to bring an end to British rule. Britain would rule India until 1947.