Question

Describe the extension of British power in India in brief.

Answer 1

The next large-scale expansion of British rule in India occurred during the Governor-Generalship of Lord Wellesley who came to India in 1798 at a time when the British were locked in a life-and- death struggle with France all over the world.
Till then, the British had followed the policy of consolidating their gains and resources in India and making territorial gains only when this could be done safely without antagonizing the major Indian powers. Lord Wellesley decided that the time was ripe for bringing as many Indian states as possible under British control. By 1797 the two strongest Indian powers, Mysore and the Marathas, had declined in power.

Aggression was easy as well as profitable. To achieve his political aims Wellesley relied on three methods: the system of Subsidiary Alliances’, outright war, and the assumption of the territories of previously subordinated rulers.

Answer 2

1510: Portuguese Catholics conquer Goa to serve as capital of their Asian maritime empire, beginning conquest and exploitation of India by Europeans.
1526: Mughal conqueror Babur (1483-1530) defeats the Sultan of Delhi and captures the Koh-i-noor diamond. Occupying Delhi, by 1529 he founds the Indian Mughal Empire (1526-1761), consolidated by his grandson Akbar.
ca 1600: "Persian wheel" to lift water by oxen is adopted, one of few farming innovations since Indus Valley civilization.
1600: Royal Charter forms the East India Company, setting in motion a process that ultimately results in the subjugation of India under British rule.
1605: Akbar the Great dies at age 63. His son Jahangir succeeds him as fourth Mughal Emperor.
1679: Aurangzeb levies Jizya tax on non-believers, Hindus.
1773: British East India Company obtains monopoly on the production and sale of opium in Bengal.
1784: Judge and linguist Sir William Jones founds Calcutta's Royal Asiatic Society. First such scholastic institution.
1786: Sir William Jones uses the Rig Veda term Aryan ("noble") to name the parent language (now termed Indo-European) of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Germanic tongues.
1787-95: British Parliament impeaches Warren Hastings, Governor General of Bengal (1774-85) for misconduct.
1787: British Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed, marking the beginning of the end of slavery.
1803: Second Anglo-Maratha war results in British Christian capture of Delhi and control of large parts of India. 1803: India's population is 200 million.
1809: British strike a bargain with Ranjit Singh for exclusive areas of influence.
1820: First Indian immigrants arrive in the US.
1825: First massive immigration of Indian workers from Madras is to Reunion and Mauritius. This immigrant Hindu community builds their first temple in 1854.
1835: Civil service jobs in India are opened to Indians.
1837: Kali-worshiping Thugees are suppressed by British.
1838: British Guyana receives its first 250 Indian laborers.
1900: India's tea exports to Britain reach 137 million pounds.
1905: Lord Curzon, arrogant British Viceroy of India, resigns
1906: Muslim League political party is formed in India.
1906: Dutch Christians overtake Bali after Puputan massacres in which Hindu Balinese royal families are murdered.
1909: Gandhi and assistant Maganlal agitate for better working conditions and abolition of indentured servitude in S. Africa. Maganlal continues Gandhi's work in Fiji.
1912: Anti-Indian racial riots on the US West Coast expel large Hindu immigrant population.
1913: New law prohibits Indian immigration to S. Africa, primarily in answer to white colonists' alarm at competition of Indian merchants and expired labor contracts.
1914: US government excludes Indian citizens from immigration. Restriction stands until 1965.
1917: Last Hindu Indian indentured laborers are brought to British Christian colonies of Fiji and Trinidad.
1918: Spanish Influenza epidemic kills 12.5 million in India, 21.6 million worldwide.
1919: Brigadier Dyer orders Gurkha troops to shoot unarmed demonstrators in Amritsar, killing 379. Massacre convinces Gandhi that India must demand full independence from oppressive British Christian rule.
1920: Gandhi formulates the satyagraha, "firmness in truth," strategy of noncooperation and nonviolence against India's Christian British rulers. Later resolves to wear only dothi to preserve homespun cotton and simplicity.
1920: System of indentured servitude is abolished by India, following grassroots agitation by Mahatma Gandhi.
1923: US law excludes citizens of India from naturalization.
1924: Sir John Marshall (1876-1958) discovers relics of the Indus Valley Hindu civilization. Begins large-scale excavations.
1927 & 34: Indians permitted to sit as jurors and court magistrates.
1928: Hindu leader Jawaharlal Nehru drafts plan for a free India; becomes president of Congress Party in 1929.
1931: Dr. Karan Singh is born, son and heir apparent of Kashmir's last Maharaja; becomes parliamentarian, Indian ambassador to the US and global Hindu spokesman.
1939: Mohammed Ali Jinnah calls for a separate Muslim state.
1941: First US chair of Sanskrit and Indology established at Yale Univ.; American Oriental Society founded in 1942.
1942: At sites along the lost Sarasvati River in Rajasthan, archeologist Sir Aurel Stein finds shards with incised characters identical to those on Indus Valley seals.
1947: India gains independence from Britain August 15. Pakistan emerges as a separate Islamic nation, and 600,000 die in clashes during subsequent population exchange of 14 million people between the two new countries.