the brithish converted india into a exporter of raw material and an importer of brithish goods . explain the help of the industrial revolution on indian textiles
Answers
Explanation:
For about 250 years, the British East India Company evolved from a company chartered by the British Crown to trade with the East Indies into de facto British administrator of India, which set off the era of British colonization of the Indian Subcontinent.After 1588, London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean. Permission was granted to several ships, but in 1600 a group of merchants known as the Adventurers succeeded at gaining a Royal Charter under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies. For 15 years, the charter awarded the newly formed company a monopoly on trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan.
English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The Company decided to gain a territorial foothold in mainland India with official sanction from both Britain and the Mughal Empire. The requested diplomatic mission launched by James I in 1612 arranged for a commercial treaty that would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other areas. While Portuguese and Spanish influences in the region were soon eliminated, competition against the Dutch resulted in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In an act aimed at strengthening the power of the EIC, King Charles II granted the EIC (in a series of five acts around 1670) the rights to autonomously acquire territory, mint money, command fortresses and troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas. These decisions would eventually turn the EIC from a trading company into de facto an administrative agent with wide powers granted by the British government.
In 1698, a new “parallel” EIC was established. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time but it quickly became evident that in practice, the original company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708 by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the EIC became the single largest player on the British global market. With the backing of its own private army, it was able to assert its interests in new regions in India without further obstacles from other colonial powers.
In the hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC began to function more as an administrator and less as a trading concern. The proliferation of the Company’s power chiefly took two forms: the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, or asserting powe through treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the Company’s hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy.
In the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858, the British government nationalized the EIC. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces. The EIC was officially dissolved in 1858 and the rebellion also led the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India. The country was thereafter directly governed by the Crown as the new British Raj.
Key Terms
Government of India Act 1858: An Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. c. 106) passed on August 2, 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company, which had been ruling British India under the auspices of Parliament, and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.
East India Company: An English and later British joint-stock company formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but actually trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The company rose to account for half of the world’s trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea, and opium. It also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.