Question

When did the company lose its monopoly of indian trade?

Answer 1

The East India Company Act 1813, also known as the Charter Act 1813, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which renewed the charter issued to the British East India Company, and continued the Company's rule in India. However, the Company's commercial monopoly was ended, except for the tea and opium trade and the trade with China, this reflecting the growth of British power in India.

The Act expressly asserted the Crown's sovereignty over British India, allotted 100,000 rupees, and permitted Christian missionaries to propagate English and preach their religion. The power of the provincial governments and courts in India over European British subjects was also strengthened by the Act, and financial provision was also made to encourage a revival in Indian literature and for the promotion of science.[2]

The literary critic and historian Gauri Viswanathan identifies two major changes to the relation between Britain and India that came about as the result of the act: first, the assumption by the British of a new responsibility for Indian people's education; and, second, the relaxation of controls on missionary activity.[3] Whereas previously educational provision was at the discretion of the Governor-General of India, the Act overturned this laissez-faire status quo by establishing an obligation to promote Indian people's "interests and happiness" and "religious and moral improvement" – a responsibility the British state did not bear to British people at the time of the Act's passage.[4] Viswanathan attributes the impetus for the new educational responsibilities to the mood in the English Parliament. Parliamentarians were concerned with the extravagant lifestyles of East India Company officials and the company's ruthless exploitation of natural resources, and, feeling that the British ought to lead by example but lacking the ability to curtail the activities of wealthy Nabobs, sought to remedy perceived injustices by seeking Indians' welfare and improvement.[5]