History of British colonization of India. India - British colony British Indian

In 1937, Burma was separated from 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 seceded from Pakistan in 1971.

Story

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

By the end of the war, most of the troops had been redeployed from India to Mesopotamia and Europe, causing concern to the local colonial authorities. Unrest became more frequent, and British intelligence noted many instances of cooperation with Germany. In 1915 it was accepted Defense Act of India, 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 exercise 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 conclusions were presented in July 1918, and they identified three districts: Bengal, Bombay Presidency, and Punjab. The Committee recommended expanding the powers of the authorities in wartime, introducing three-judge courts without trial by jury, introducing government surveillance of suspects, and empowering local authorities 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 participated in the war. Taxes rose and prices doubled between 1914 and 1920. Demobilization from the army exacerbated unemployment, and there were food riots in Bengal, Madras and Bombay.

The government decided to implement the recommendations of the Rowlett Committee in the form of two bills, but in a vote in the Imperial Legislative Council, all of its Indian MPs voted against. The British managed to pass a stripped-down version of the first bill, which allowed the authorities extrajudicial persecution, but only for a period of three years, and only against "anarchist and revolutionary movements." The second bill was completely rewritten as amendments to the Indian Penal Code. Nevertheless, strong indignation erupted in India, which culminated in the Amritsar massacre, and brought Mahatma Gandhi's nationalists to the forefront.

In December 1919 was adopted Government of India Act. The imperial and provincial legislative councils were expanded, and the executive branch's refuge in the passage of unpopular laws in the form of an "official majority" was abolished.

Matters such as defense, criminal investigation, foreign affairs, communications, tax collection remained under the control of the viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, while health care, land lease, local government were transferred to the provinces. Such measures made it easier for Indians to participate in the civil service, and to receive officer positions in the army.

Indian suffrage was expanded at the national level, but the number of Indians with the right to vote was only 10% of the adult male population, and many of them were illiterate. The British authorities engaged in manipulation; thus, more seats in the legislative councils were received by representatives of the villages, who were more sympathetic to the colonial authorities than the townspeople. Separate places were reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, college graduates. Under 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 for 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 broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. In September, a new government was appointed with Hindu Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.

Britain's Labor government has realized that the country, exhausted by the Second World War, no longer has the international support or the backing of local forces to further hold on to power over India, which is plunging 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 that a partition plan be drawn up. In June 1947, representatives of the Congress, Muslims, the untouchable community, and the Sikhs agreed to partition British India along religious lines. Areas with a predominantly Hindu and Sikh population went to the new India, with a predominantly Muslim population - to a new country, Pakistan.

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

Organization

The part of the territory of the subcontinent, which 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” (eng. Native states), or “principalities” (eng. Princely states).

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

In general, the system consisted of three main levels - the imperial government in London, the central government in Calcutta, and regional offices. In London, the Ministry of Indian Affairs was organized, and the Council of India, consisting of 15 people. 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 used to seek the advice of the council. From 1858 to 1947, 27 people served in this post.

The head of India was the governor-general in Calcutta, increasingly called the viceroy; this title emphasized his role as an intermediary and representative of the Crown to the formally sovereign Indian principalities.

Since 1861, in case the government of India needed new laws, Legislative Councils of 12 people were convened, 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 rebellion, but large landowners, representatives of the local aristocracy, often appointed for their loyalty, were usually selected for this role. This principle was far from representation.

The core of British rule was the Indian Civil Service.

The 1857 uprising 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 Audh and Agra, who became the core of the uprising, and the recruitment of new troops from the Sikhs and Balochs, who showed their loyalty at that time.

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

Armed forces

The armed forces were an autonomous formation that had its own educational institutions for the training of officers. The rank and file for the most part consisted of Indians. The acquisition 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 came under the control of the government of British India.

Famine and epidemics

During the period of direct rule of the crown, India was shaken by a series of outbreaks of famine 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 through India, which began in Bengal, 10 thousand British soldiers died from it, and countless Indians. In the period 1817-1860, more than 15 million people died, in the period 1865-1917, about 23 million more.

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 Khavkin, who worked mainly in India, pioneered the development of vaccines for cholera and bubonic plague; in 1925, the Bombay Plague Laboratory was renamed the Khavkin Institute. In 1898, the Briton Ronald Ross, who worked in Calcutta, finally proved that mosquitoes are vectors of malaria. Mass vaccination against smallpox led to a decrease in mortality from this 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 this change was prepared before the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, but most of it took place after the Mutiny, and are usually associated with the direct rule of the Crown. The British organized the mass construction of railways, canals, bridges, laid telegraph lines. The main goal was the faster transport of raw materials, in particular 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 high-skilled jobs were created for the Indians. In 1920, India had the fourth largest railway network in the world with a history of 60 years; while only 10% of the senior positions in Indian Railways were occupied by Indians.

Technology has brought about changes in India's agricultural economy; increased production of raw materials exported to markets in other parts of the world. 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 tens of millions died from it. Many researchers place the blame for it on the policies of the British colonial administration.

Taxes for the majority of the population were reduced. At 15% during the Mughal era, 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 English rule. The empire was unable to stop the campaign of civil disobedience launched in 1942 by Mahatma Gandhi.

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

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

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

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On the Indian territories, about which in Europe in the XV century. there were legends about the land of miracles, at the beginning Catholic missionaries began to penetrate, and the colonialists came after them. The first colony was founded in Goa by the Portuguese. True, neither the Portuguese nor the French could withstand competition from the third European power - Great Britain.

The English East India Company, established in the early years of the 17th century, eventually seized all power in India, including control over trade relations, military campaigns, and political events. Along the entire coast of India, the British created fortified trading posts - the future large Indian cities of Bombay, Calcutta, Madras.

The growing energy of Europe rushed to the East, especially to the territory of India, at the very moment when the once great state was noticeably weakened politically.

Torn apart by the struggle of the new emerging states, India was unable to offer worthy resistance to the British. If at the end of the XVII century. the British suffered several defeats in a row from the troops of the Mughal emperors, and in 1690 the Mughals laid siege to Madras, then with the weakening of the empire, the British began to achieve more and more military successes. The formidable army of the Marathas, being quite a worthy force in the struggle for power in India, was significantly thinned as a result of strife between the leaders. The British gradually began to win victories over each of them individually, while they would hardly have defeated a single Maratha.

In 1757, the British commander Robert Clive, with the help of treachery and intrigue, managed to win the battle of Plassey, capture Bengal and Bihar. Many scholars of Indian history believe that this year can be considered the beginning of the founding of the British colony in India.

In 1764, the British captured Oudh, which for several decades opposed the seizure of Indian territories by the East India Company.

As a result of the Anglo-Maratha, Anglo-Sikh and Anglo-Mysore wars victorious for Great Britain, as well as thanks to the British policy of bribery and blackmail of local rulers, all state associations of India gradually fell under the rule of the colonialists. Having defeated the Mysores, the British captured South India and made the former independent principalities of Mysore and Hyderabad their vassals. Having won a victory over the Marathas, they subjugated Maharashtra and the territories of Northern India to their power. After the defeat of the Sikhs, the East India Company became the owner of the Punjab, and later of the whole of India, and in 1852 Burma was annexed to the British colonial possessions.

Despite the collapse of the Mughal empire, India was in a fairly prosperous state before the beginning of British rule, and only the British invaders led to complete chaos in the country. According to the descriptions of contemporaries, at the beginning of the XIX century. India was like Central Europe during the Thirty Years' War.

By 1818, all the major Maratha leaders in Central India recognized the supreme power of the East India Company and the British began to completely own Indian lands, leading the country through established government bodies or through puppet princes through the so-called "subsidiary agreements".

Plan
Introduction
1. History
1.1 World War I and its aftermath
1.2 World War II and its aftermath

2 Organization
3 Famine and epidemics
4 Economic and technological changes
5 Section

Introduction

British India (English) british raj) - the name of the British colonial possession in South Asia in the middle of the XVIII century - 1947. The gradually expanding territory of the colony eventually covered the territories of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (and until 1937 - Burma). term British India usually called the entire territory of the colonial possession, although, strictly speaking, it referred only to those parts of the subcontinent that were under direct British control (administration first in Fort William, and then in Calcutta and Delhi); in addition to these territories, there were so-called. "native principalities", formally being only in vassal dependence on the Crown.

In 1947, British India was granted independence, after which the country was divided into two dominions - India and Pakistan (retained the status of a dominion until 1950 and 1956, respectively). Pakistan, in turn, collapsed in 1971 with the formation of the state of Bangladesh.

1. History

The result of the sepoy uprising of 1857-1859 was the liquidation of the British East India Company and the transfer of power directly to the crown. The established system in English-language sources is called "British Raj" (eng. british raj). This system used the traditional feudal organization of India, but the British crown was the supreme overlord of the rulers of individual Indian regions. Such an organization was finally consolidated in 1876 with the coronation of Queen Victoria of England as Empress of India.

In 1935, India was granted partial autonomy by the Government of India Act. Moreover, India was the only colonial country to sign the United Nations Declaration on January 1, 1942.

1.1. World War I and its aftermath

During the war, up to 1.4 million British and Indian soldiers from the British Army in India took part in hostilities around the world, fighting alongside soldiers from dominions such as Canada and Australia. India's international role has grown. In 1920, she became one of the founders of the League of Nations, and took part in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp under the name "British Indies". In India itself, this led to demands for more self-government, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress.

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

By the end of the war, most of the troops were redeployed from India to Mesopotamia and Europe, which caused concern to the local colonial authorities. Unrest became more frequent, and British intelligence noted many cases of cooperation with Germany. In 1915, the Defense of India Act was passed, which, in addition to the Press Act of 1910, allowed for the persecution of politically dangerous dissidents, including the jailing of journalists without trial, and the exercise of censorship.

In 1917, a committee chaired by the British Judge Rowlat investigated the involvement of Germans and Russian Bolsheviks in outbreaks of violence in India. The commission's findings were presented in July 1918, and allotted three districts: Bengal, Bombay Presidency, and Punjab. The Committee recommended expanding the powers of the authorities in wartime, introducing three-judge courts without trial by jury, introducing government surveillance of suspects, and empowering local authorities 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 participated in the war. Taxes rose and prices doubled between 1914 and 1920. Demobilization from the army exacerbated unemployment, and there were food riots in Bengal, Madras and Bombay.

The government decided to implement the recommendations of the Rowlat Committee in the form of two laws ("Rowlat's bills"), however, when voting in the Imperial Legislative Council, all of its Indian deputies voted against. The British managed to pass a stripped-down version of the first bill, which allowed the authorities extrajudicial persecution, but only for a period of three years, and only against "anarchist and revolutionary movements." The second bill was completely rewritten as amendments to the Indian Penal Code. However, strong indignation broke out in India, which culminated in the massacre in Amritsar, and brought Mahatma Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalists.

In December 1919, the Government of India Act was passed. The imperial and provincial legislative councils were expanded, and the executive branch's refuge in the passage of unpopular laws in the form of an "official majority" was abolished.

Affairs such as defense, criminal investigation, foreign affairs, communications, tax collection remained under the control of the viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, while health care, land leasing, local government were transferred to the provinces. Such measures made it easier for Hindus to participate in the civil service, and to receive officer positions in the army.

Hindu suffrage was expanded at the national level, but the number of Hindus with the right to vote was only 10% of the adult male population, and many of them were illiterate. The British authorities engaged in manipulation; thus, more seats in the legislative councils were received by representatives of the villages, who were more sympathetic to the colonial authorities than the townspeople. Separate places were reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, college graduates. Under 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.

In 1935, the British Parliament founded legislative assemblies in India, and in 1937 Burma was separated from British India, becoming a separate crown colony. In the same year, national elections were held for the provincial assemblies, in which the Congress won in 7 of the 11 provinces. In addition, under the law of 1935, Burma had to pay the Indian colonial government a debt of 570 million rupees, which included the cost of conquering Burma, building railways, etc.

1.2. World War II and its aftermath

With the outbreak of war in 1939, the Viceroy of India, Lord Litlingow, declared war on Germany without consulting the Indians. This forced the representatives of the Indian National Congress, who had taken posts in the provinces, to resign in protest. At the same time, the Muslim League supported the British war effort. The British government tried to get Hindu nationalists to support Britain in exchange for promises of independence in the future, but negotiations with Congress failed.

In August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India campaign of civil disobedience, demanding the immediate withdrawal of all British. Along with other Congress leaders, Gandhi was immediately imprisoned and the country exploded with riots, first student and then village riots, especially in the United Provinces, Bihar and West Bengal. The presence in India of numerous wartime troops made it possible to suppress the riots in 6 weeks, but some of their participants formed an underground interim government on the border with Nepal. In other parts of India, riots broke out sporadically in the summer of 1943.

Due to the arrest of almost all the leaders of the Congress, significant influence passed to Subhas Bose, who left the Congress in 1939 due to disagreements. Bose began to cooperate with the Axis, seeking to free India from the British by force. With the support of the Japanese, he formed the so-called Indian National Army, recruited mainly from Indian prisoners of war captured during the fall of Singapore. The Japanese established a number of puppet governments in the occupied countries, in particular, making Bose the leader of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind ("Free India"). The Indian National Army surrendered during the liberation of Singapore from the Japanese, and Bose himself soon died in a plane crash. At the end of 1945, trials of INA soldiers took place, which, however, caused riots in India.

In January 1946 there was a series of mutinies in the army, which began with a mutiny of Indians serving in the Royal Air Force, and dissatisfied with too slow repatriation. In February 1946 there was also a mutiny in the Royal Navy in Bombay, and then other mutinies in Calcutta, Madras and Karachi.

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 for the partition of India. On August 16, 1946, the Muslims declared the Day of Direct Action demanding the creation of an Islamic national home in British India. The next day, clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. In September, a new government was appointed with Hindu Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.

Britain's Labor government has realized that the country, exhausted by the Second World War, no longer has the international support or the backing of local forces to further hold on to power over India, which is plunging into the abyss of communal unrest. In early 1947, Britain announced its intention to withdraw its forces from India no later than June 1948.

The British Empire is a state that owned a huge number of colonies. India is one of the British colonies. In this lesson, you will learn how India became a colony of Great Britain, how hard it fought for independence and finally got it. And also get acquainted with the outstanding Indian figure Mahatma Gandhi, learn about the sepoy uprising and the Indian National Congress.

Rice. 2. Fort William - the first bastion of the East India Company in eastern India ()

England established economic control over India because she needed sources of raw materials and additional funds that could be obtained from Indian citizens through a system of taxation. This system has actually turned into a robbery of the Indian population. For example, in 1769-1770 there was a terrible famine in Bengal(Fig. 3). It was connected with the fact that the British pumped out all the resources from India, such as grain and other foodstuffs. During this famine, at least 10 million people died in India. Such waves of famine swept over India regularly.

Rice. 3. Famine in Bengal (1769-1770) ()

The British were interested in spreading their influence as widely as possible. They waged active wars with Nepal and Bhutan, annexed Burma.

In 1838-1842. the Anglo-Afghan war during which Emir Dost Mohammad Khan was captured. In 1878-1880. the second Anglo-Afghan war took place. It did not formally lead to the liquidation of the independence of this state, however, it placed Afghanistan under British control. This control was all-encompassing.

In India, despite the existence of rajas and padishahs (the title of Eastern Muslim sovereigns), the British controlled absolutely everything.

Delhi was captured by the British East India Company in 1803. The padishah was offered a deal: he receives a certain salary, which he was paid regularly and was quite solid, in exchange for renunciation of political influence in the state. The padishah agreed to such conditions, because, in fact, he had no choice. As a result, with the formal preservation of the power of the Great Moghuls, the British began to rule the country.

Until 1911, the main city of India was Calcutta(Fig. 4). It was an important city from an economic point of view, as well as the largest port in India, through which it was most convenient to communicate with Britain (Fig. 5).

Rice. 4. Government House in Calcutta ()

Rice. 5. Port in Calcutta ()

The Indian population did not like that the real political power in the country belongs to the British. But during the first half of the 19th century, there were no serious unrest in India. Local rajas formally continued to control their principalities and suppress any protests, no matter how radical they were.

But in 1857 a powerful uprising was raised,most important and significant. It went down in history as sepoy uprising(Fig. 6). It is considered one of the first measures to achieve the independence of India. Sepoys are local military. It is generally accepted that out of approximately 300,000 British soldiers, only 20,000 were natives of Britain. All the rest were local residents. In fact, the sepoys took power into their own hands. They forced Padishah BahadurII, who was 82 years old, to sign a decree on the restoration of real imperial power. That is, they demanded from Bahadur II to abandon the agreement with the British, according to which his power in the country was eliminated.

Rice. 6. Sepoy uprising in 1857 ()

In response to the actions of the sepoys, the British brought additional troops into India. In 1858, these detachments stormed Delhi., and Shah BahadurIIwas in captivity.

The sepoy uprising was crushed in the most brutal way(Fig. 7). Mass executions have become a familiar element in the suppression of speeches for the local population of India.

Rice. 7. Shooting sepoys ()

However, during the sepoy uprising, the British drew conclusions for themselves in relation to India.

In the same 1858 when the uprising was finally crushed, an act was adopted "On the Better Government of India". According to this act, the power of the British East India Company in India ceased. India was turning into an ordinary colony of England. In fact, this meant that direct British rule was introduced in India. That is, from that moment on, it was no longer possible to shift the blame for the failures of British colonization on the trading company.

With the adoption of this act, the economic development of India received a new impetus. But the development was one-sided. Only factories for processing raw materials were built in the country: cotton and jute factories. The railways that the British began to build were focused on exporting raw materials to ports and from there to Great Britain or other British colonies. But even this economic development must have contributed to the progress of social relations in India.

It was at this time India is beginning to be called "the main diamond in the British crown." However, the price for this diamond had to be paid very high. In India, the British used the "divide and conquer" method of government. They, as before, relied on the power of the rajas, who from time to time turned against each other. They handed out lands, political privileges, but at the same time they played on contradictions, of which there were many in India. In addition to ethnic, there were also religious contradictions in India. This is due to the existence of states with different religions: some were dominated by Hindus, while others were dominated by Muslims.

Concerning social relations, working conditions in India were appalling, while labor laws already existed in England. The norm in India was the 80-hour work week. This means that the working day lasted more than 10 hours, even if there were no days off.

The local Indian intelligentsia still did not agree that Britain was using its colony in this way. In 1885, the intelligentsia decided to unite in order to start a struggle for self-government. In 1885, the Indian National Congress Party was created (it exists to this day, only with a changed name, and is the ruling one). The leaders of this party demanded for India self-government. This term in local languages ​​sounds like Swaraj. India had little chance of obtaining this self-government, because then all the economic power in India would have passed into the hands of the local bourgeoisie, which England could not allow.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the leader of the INC (Indian National Congress) party became Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi(Fig. 8). In India, he received the nickname Mahatma - "great soul." He continued the struggle for the unification of the country and for its self-government. To do this, he used the experience of the struggle of other countries. The events in Russia had a great influence on the Indians (meaning the revolutions of 1905, and then the February and October revolutions of 1917).

India was the first and, in fact, the only state of such a large scale (more precisely, even a group of states united by a civilization that united them, a religious tradition and a common social and caste principles of the internal structure), which was turned into a colony. Taking advantage of the weakness of administrative and political ties characteristic of India, the British relatively easily, without much cost and loss, even mainly through the hands of the Indians themselves, seized power and established their dominance. But as soon as this was achieved (in 1849, after the victory over the Sikhs in the Punjab), a new problem arose for the conquerors: how to manage a gigantic colony? Before the former conquerors, there was no such problem. Without further ado, all of them, up to the Great Mughals, ruled as it was determined for centuries and is clear to everyone. But the British were a fundamentally different structure, which, moreover, was on a steep rise and made ever more 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 our own and others, West and East? But there were new circumstances, fundamentally different from antiquity. The fact is that the accession of India to Britain was not so much a political act, the result of a war or a series of wars, but a consequence of complex economic and social processes throughout the world, the essence of which was the formation of a world capitalist market and the forcible involvement of colonized countries in world market relations. .

Hardly at first, at first, did the British colonialists think about the above problem. Colonization was carried out by the hands of the East India Company, which aspired primarily to active trade, huge profits, and high rates of enrichment. But in the course of trade operations and in the name of more and more guaranteed security, foreign property was seized, new lands were seized, and successful wars were waged. Colonial trade more and more obviously outgrew 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. already in dire need of ever-increasing markets for factory 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 only the company. From the end of the 18th century, especially after the trial of W. Hastings, the first Governor-General of India (1774-1785), the activities of the company began to be controlled by the government and parliament in an ever-increasing volume.

In 1813, the company's monopoly on trade with India was officially abolished, and in 15 years after that, the import of cotton factory fabrics quadrupled. An Act of Parliament of 1833 further limited the functions of the company, leaving it largely the status of an administrative organization that practically ruled India, and 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 pearl of its crown.

But the final part of the colonization process proved to be the most difficult. The intervention of the company's administration in the internal affairs of the country, and above all in the centuries-old agrarian relations (the British administrators clearly did not understand the real and very difficult relationships between the possessing 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 habitual norm of relations that had been functioning for centuries was cracking at the seams, a painful crisis manifested itself more and more clearly in the country.

A huge country did not want to put up with this. There was growing dissatisfaction with the new order, which threatened 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, let alone sufficiently organized, it nevertheless quickly increased and turned into open resistance to the British authorities. An explosion was brewing.

One of the important immediate causes that provoked it was the annexation by the Governor-General 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, there were 500-600 large and small principalities in India, the status and rights of which were very different. Each of the principalities was connected with the administration of the company by a special contractual act, but at the same time their number gradually decreased due to the liquidation of those where the line of direct inheritance was interrupted or a state of crisis set in. Audh was annexed to the lands of the company under the pretext of "bad management", which caused sharp discontent among the local Muslim population (talukdars), who were strongly affected by this decision, as well as the privileged zamindars of the Rajputs.

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 were especially painfully aware of their lowered position in the army compared to the British who served next to them. The ferment in their ranks gradually increased due to the fact that after the conquest of India, the company, contrary to what had been 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 of the uprising was the introduction in 1857 of new cartridges, the winding of which was smeared 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 rebelled at Merath near Delhi. Other units joined the rebels and soon the sepoys approached Delhi and occupied the city. The British were partly exterminated, partly fled in panic, and the sepoys proclaimed emperor the aged Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah II, who lived out his days on the pension of the company.

The uprising lasted almost two years and was ultimately drowned in blood by the British, who managed to rely on the help of the Sikhs, Gurkhas and other forces who feared the revival of the Mughal empire. Rightly evaluating the uprising as a powerful popular outburst of discontent not only with the rule of the colonialists, but also with a rough breaking of the traditional forms of existence of many sections of Indian society, the British colonial authorities were forced to seriously think about how to proceed. The question was what methods and means to achieve the destruction of the traditional structure. Only one thing was clear: a sharp violent breaking is unacceptable here; it should be replaced by a gradual and carefully thought-out transformation - with a focus, of course, on the European model. Actually, the subsequent policy of the British in India came down to this.