El Raj británico ( / rɑːdʒ / RAHJ ; del indostánico rāj , 'reinado', 'regla' o 'gobierno') [ 10 ] fue el gobierno de la Corona británica en el subcontinente indio , [11] que duró desde 1858 hasta 1947. [12] También se le llama gobierno de la Corona en la India , [13] o gobierno directo en la India . [14] La región bajo control británico se llamaba comúnmente India en el uso contemporáneo e incluía áreas administradas directamente por el Reino Unido , que se llamaban colectivamente India británica , y áreas gobernadas por gobernantes indígenas, pero bajo supremacía británica , llamadas estados principescos . La región a veces se llamaba Imperio indio , aunque no oficialmente. [15]
Este sistema de gobierno fue instituido el 28 de junio de 1858, cuando, después de la Rebelión de la India de 1857 , el gobierno de la Compañía de las Indias Orientales fue transferido a la Corona en la persona de la Reina Victoria [16] (quien, en 1876, fue proclamada Emperatriz de la India ). Duró hasta 1947, cuando el Raj británico fue dividido en dos estados de dominio soberano: la Unión de la India (más tarde la República de la India ) y Pakistán (más tarde la República Islámica de Pakistán ). Más tarde, la República Popular de Bangladesh obtuvo la independencia de Pakistán. Al inicio del Raj en 1858, la Baja Birmania ya era parte de la India británica; La Alta Birmania se añadió en 1886, y la unión resultante, Birmania , fue administrada como una provincia autónoma hasta 1937, cuando se convirtió en una colonia británica separada, obteniendo su propia independencia en 1948. Pasó a llamarse Myanmar en 1989. La Provincia del Comisionado Jefe de Adén también era parte de la India británica al inicio del Raj británico, y se convirtió en una colonia separada conocida como Colonia de Adén también en 1937.
Como India , fue miembro fundador de la Liga de Naciones y miembro fundador de las Naciones Unidas en San Francisco en 1945. [ 17] India fue un estado participante en los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1900 , 1920 , 1928 , 1932 y 1936 .
El Raj británico se extendió por casi toda la actual India, Pakistán, Bangladesh y Myanmar, a excepción de pequeñas posesiones de otras naciones europeas como Goa y Pondicherry . [18] Esta zona es muy diversa y contiene las montañas del Himalaya, llanuras fértiles aluviales, la llanura indogangética , una larga costa, bosques tropicales secos, tierras altas áridas y el desierto de Thar . [19] Además, en varias ocasiones, incluyó Adén (de 1858 a 1937), [20] la Baja Birmania (de 1858 a 1937), la Alta Birmania (de 1886 a 1937), la Somalilandia británica (brevemente de 1884 a 1898) y los Asentamientos del Estrecho (brevemente de 1858 a 1867). Birmania estuvo separada de la India y fue administrada directamente por la Corona británica desde 1937 hasta su independencia en 1948. Los Estados de la Tregua del Golfo Pérsico y los demás estados bajo la Residencia del Golfo Pérsico eran teóricamente estados principescos, así como presidencias y provincias de la India británica hasta 1947 y utilizaban la rupia como su unidad monetaria. [21]
Entre otros países de la región, Ceilán , que en ese momento se refería a las regiones costeras y la parte norte de la isla (ahora Sri Lanka ), fue cedida a Gran Bretaña en 1802 en virtud del Tratado de Amiens . Estas regiones costeras fueron administradas temporalmente bajo la presidencia de Madrás entre 1793 y 1798, [22] pero durante períodos posteriores los gobernadores británicos informaron a Londres y no fue parte del Raj. Los reinos de Nepal y Bután , después de haber librado guerras con los británicos, firmaron posteriormente tratados con ellos y fueron reconocidos por los británicos como estados independientes. [23] [24] El Reino de Sikkim se estableció como un estado principesco después del Tratado anglo-sikkimés de 1861; sin embargo, la cuestión de la soberanía quedó sin definir. [25] Las Islas Maldivas fueron un protectorado británico desde 1887 hasta 1965, pero no formaron parte de la India británica. [26]
Aunque la rebelión india de 1857 había sacudido la iniciativa británica en la India, no la había descarrilado. Hasta 1857, los británicos, especialmente bajo el mando de Lord Dalhousie , habían estado construyendo apresuradamente una India que imaginaban que estaría a la par de la propia Gran Bretaña en la calidad y fortaleza de sus instituciones económicas y sociales. Después de la rebelión, se volvieron más circunspectos. Se dedicó mucha reflexión a las causas de la rebelión y se extrajeron tres lecciones principales. En primer lugar, a nivel práctico, se sintió que era necesario que hubiera más comunicación y camaradería entre los británicos y los indios, no solo entre los oficiales del ejército británico y su personal indio, sino también en la vida civil. [27] El ejército indio se reorganizó por completo: se disolvieron las unidades compuestas por musulmanes y brahmanes de las Provincias Unidas de Agra y Oudh , que habían formado el núcleo de la rebelión. Se formaron nuevos regimientos, como los sikhs y los baluchis, compuestos por indios que, a juicio de los británicos, habían demostrado firmeza. Desde entonces, el ejército indio no sufrió modificaciones en su organización hasta 1947. [28] El censo de 1861 reveló que la población inglesa en la India era de 125.945 habitantes, de los cuales sólo unos 41.862 eran civiles, en comparación con unos 84.083 oficiales y soldados europeos del ejército. [29] En 1880, el ejército indio permanente estaba formado por 66.000 soldados británicos, 130.000 nativos y 350.000 soldados de los ejércitos principescos. [30]
En segundo lugar, también se consideró que tanto los príncipes como los grandes terratenientes, al no sumarse a la rebelión, habían demostrado ser, en palabras de Lord Canning, "rompeolas en una tormenta". [27] También ellos fueron recompensados en el nuevo Raj británico al ser integrados en el sistema político británico-indio y tener sus territorios garantizados. [31] Al mismo tiempo, se consideró que los campesinos, en cuyo beneficio se habían llevado a cabo las grandes reformas agrarias de las Provincias Unidas, habían demostrado deslealtad, al, en muchos casos, luchar por sus antiguos terratenientes contra los británicos. En consecuencia, no se implementaron más reformas agrarias durante los siguientes 90 años: Bengala y Bihar seguirían siendo los reinos de las grandes propiedades de tierra (a diferencia del Punjab y Uttar Pradesh ). [32]
En tercer lugar, los británicos se sintieron desencantados con la reacción india al cambio social. Hasta la rebelión, habían impulsado con entusiasmo la reforma social, como la prohibición del sati por Lord William Bentinck . [33] Ahora se sentía que las tradiciones y costumbres en la India eran demasiado fuertes y rígidas para ser cambiadas fácilmente; en consecuencia, no hubo más intervenciones sociales británicas, especialmente en asuntos relacionados con la religión, [34] incluso cuando los británicos tenían sentimientos muy fuertes sobre el tema (como en el caso del nuevo matrimonio de las niñas viudas hindúes). [35] Esto se ejemplificó aún más en la Proclamación de la Reina Victoria publicada inmediatamente después de la rebelión. La proclamación decía: "Renunciamos por igual a nuestro derecho y deseo de imponer nuestras convicciones a cualquiera de nuestros súbditos"; [36] demostrando el compromiso oficial británico de abstenerse de la intervención social en la India.
En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, tanto la administración directa de la India por parte de la corona británica como el cambio tecnológico introducido por la revolución industrial tuvieron el efecto de entrelazar estrechamente las economías de la India y Gran Bretaña. [37] De hecho, muchos de los principales cambios en el transporte y las comunicaciones (que suelen asociarse con el gobierno de la Corona de la India) ya habían comenzado antes del motín. Dado que Dalhousie había adoptado el cambio tecnológico que entonces proliferaba en Gran Bretaña, la India también vio el rápido desarrollo de todas esas tecnologías. Se construyeron rápidamente ferrocarriles, carreteras, canales y puentes en la India, y se establecieron enlaces telegráficos con la misma rapidez, de modo que las materias primas, como el algodón, del interior de la India, pudieran transportarse de manera más eficiente a puertos, como Bombay , para su posterior exportación a Inglaterra. [38] Del mismo modo, los productos terminados desde Inglaterra se transportaban de vuelta para su venta en los florecientes mercados indios. [39] A diferencia de Gran Bretaña, donde los riesgos de mercado para el desarrollo de la infraestructura fueron asumidos por inversores privados, en la India fueron los contribuyentes, principalmente agricultores y trabajadores agrícolas, quienes soportaron los riesgos, que, al final, ascendieron a 50 millones de libras. [40] A pesar de estos costos, se creó muy poco empleo calificado para los indios. En 1920, con la cuarta red ferroviaria más grande del mundo y una historia de 60 años desde su construcción, solo el diez por ciento de los "puestos superiores" en los Ferrocarriles Indios estaban ocupados por indios. [41]
La avalancha de tecnología también estaba cambiando la economía agrícola en la India: en la última década del siglo XIX, una gran fracción de algunas materias primas (no sólo algodón, sino también algunos cereales) se exportaban a mercados lejanos. [42] Muchos pequeños agricultores, dependientes de los caprichos de esos mercados, perdieron tierras, animales y equipos a manos de los prestamistas. [42] La segunda mitad del siglo XIX también vio un aumento en el número de hambrunas a gran escala en la India . Aunque las hambrunas no eran nuevas en el subcontinente, fueron particularmente graves, con decenas de millones de muertos, [ cita requerida ] y con muchos críticos, tanto británicos como indios, echando la culpa a las torpes administraciones coloniales. [42] También hubo efectos saludables: los cultivos comerciales, especialmente en el Punjab recientemente canalizado, llevaron a un aumento de la producción de alimentos para el consumo interno. [43] La red ferroviaria proporcionó un alivio crítico de la hambruna, [44] redujo notablemente el costo de transportar bienes, [44] y ayudó a la naciente industria de propiedad india. [43] Después de la Gran Hambruna de 1876-1878 , se publicó el informe de la Comisión de la Hambruna de la India en 1880 y se instituyeron los Códigos de Hambruna de la India , las primeras escalas y programas para la prevención de la hambruna. [45] De una forma u otra, las Naciones Unidas y la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación los implementarían en todo el mundo hasta bien entrada la década de 1970. [ cita requerida ]
En 1880, una nueva clase media había surgido en la India y se había extendido por todo el país. Además, había una creciente solidaridad entre sus miembros, creada por los "estímulos conjuntos de aliento e irritación". [46] El estímulo que sentía esta clase provenía de su éxito en la educación y su capacidad para aprovechar los beneficios de esa educación, como el empleo en el Servicio Civil Indio . También provenía de la proclamación de la Reina Victoria de 1858 en la que había declarado: "Nos sentimos vinculados con los nativos de nuestros territorios indios por la misma obligación del deber que nos vincula con todos nuestros otros súbditos". [47] Los indios se sintieron especialmente alentados cuando a Canadá se le concedió el estatus de dominio en 1867 y se estableció una constitución democrática autónoma. [47] Por último, el estímulo provino del trabajo de eruditos orientales contemporáneos como Monier Monier-Williams y Max Müller , quienes en sus obras habían estado presentando a la antigua India como una gran civilización. La irritación, por otra parte, no sólo surgió de los incidentes de discriminación racial a manos de los británicos en la India, sino también de acciones gubernamentales como el uso de tropas indias en campañas imperiales (por ejemplo, en la Segunda Guerra Anglo-Afgana ) y los intentos de controlar la prensa vernácula (por ejemplo, en la Ley de Prensa Vernácula de 1878 ). [48]
Sin embargo, fue la revocación parcial por parte del virrey Lord Ripon de la Ley Ilbert (1883), una medida legislativa que había propuesto poner a los jueces indios en la presidencia de Bengala en igualdad de condiciones con los británicos, lo que transformó el descontento en acción política. [49] El 28 de diciembre de 1885, profesionales e intelectuales de esta clase media —muchos educados en las nuevas universidades fundadas por los británicos en Bombay, Calcuta y Madrás, y familiarizados con las ideas de los filósofos políticos británicos, especialmente los utilitaristas reunidos en Bombay— fundaron el Congreso Nacional Indio . Los 70 hombres eligieron a Womesh Chunder Bonerjee como el primer presidente. La membresía consistía en una élite occidentalizada, y no se hizo ningún esfuerzo en este momento para ampliar la base. [ cita requerida ]
Durante sus primeros veinte años, el Congreso debatió principalmente sobre la política británica hacia la India. Sus debates crearon una nueva perspectiva india que responsabilizaba a Gran Bretaña de haber despojado a la India de su riqueza. Gran Bretaña lo hizo, según afirmaban los nacionalistas, mediante un comercio injusto, la restricción de la industria india autóctona y el uso de los impuestos indios para pagar los altos salarios de los funcionarios británicos en la India. [50]
Thomas Baring fue virrey de la India entre 1872 y 1876. Sus principales logros fueron los de un reformador enérgico que se dedicó a mejorar la calidad del gobierno en el Raj británico. Comenzó a aliviar la hambruna a gran escala, redujo los impuestos y superó los obstáculos burocráticos en un esfuerzo por reducir tanto la hambruna como el malestar social generalizado. Aunque fue nombrado por un gobierno liberal, sus políticas fueron muy similares a las de los virreyes designados por gobiernos conservadores. [51]
En la década de 1880, la reforma social ya estaba en el aire. Por ejemplo, Pandita Ramabai , poeta, estudioso del sánscrito y defensor de la emancipación de las mujeres indias, defendió la causa del nuevo matrimonio de las viudas, especialmente de las viudas brahmanes, que más tarde se convirtieron al cristianismo. [52] En 1900, los movimientos reformistas habían echado raíces en el Congreso Nacional Indio. El miembro del Congreso Gopal Krishna Gokhale fundó la Sociedad de los Siervos de la India , que presionaba a favor de una reforma legislativa (por ejemplo, una ley que permitiera el nuevo matrimonio de las viudas hindúes menores de edad), y cuyos miembros hacían votos de pobreza y trabajaban entre la comunidad intocable . [53]
En 1905 se abrió una profunda brecha entre los moderados, encabezados por Gokhale, que restaban importancia a la agitación pública, y los nuevos "extremistas", que no sólo abogaban por la agitación, sino que también consideraban que la búsqueda de reformas sociales era una forma de distraerse del nacionalismo. Entre los extremistas se destacó Bal Gangadhar Tilak , que intentó movilizar a los indios apelando a una identidad política explícitamente hindú, que se manifestó, por ejemplo, en los festivales públicos anuales de Ganapati que inauguró en la India occidental. [54]
El virrey, Lord Curzon (1899-1905), fue inusualmente enérgico en la búsqueda de la eficiencia y la reforma. [55] Su agenda incluía la creación de la Provincia de la Frontera Noroeste ; pequeños cambios en los servicios civiles; acelerar las operaciones de la secretaría; establecer un patrón oro para asegurar una moneda estable; creación de una Junta de Ferrocarriles; reforma de la irrigación; reducción de las deudas campesinas; reducción del costo de los telegramas; investigación arqueológica y preservación de antigüedades; mejoras en las universidades; reformas policiales; modernización de los roles de los estados nativos; un nuevo Departamento de Comercio e Industria; promoción de la industria; políticas revisadas de ingresos de la tierra; reducción de impuestos; establecimiento de bancos agrícolas; creación de un Departamento Agrícola; patrocinio de la investigación agrícola; establecimiento de una Biblioteca Imperial; creación de un Cuerpo de Cadetes Imperiales; nuevos códigos contra el hambre; y, de hecho, reducción de las molestias del humo en Calcuta. [56]
Los problemas surgieron para Curzon cuando dividió la subdivisión administrativa más grande de la India británica, la provincia de Bengala , en la provincia de mayoría musulmana de Bengala Oriental y Assam y la provincia de mayoría hindú de Bengala Occidental (actualmente los estados indios de Bengala Occidental , Bihar y Odisha ). La ley de Curzon, la Partición de Bengala , había sido contemplada por varias administraciones coloniales desde la época de Lord William Bentinck, pero nunca se llevó a cabo. Aunque algunos la consideraron administrativamente acertada, tenía una carga comunitaria. Sembró las semillas de la división entre los indios de Bengala, transformando la política nacionalista como ninguna otra cosa antes de ella. La élite hindú de Bengala, entre ellos muchos que poseían tierras en Bengala Oriental que estaban arrendadas a campesinos musulmanes, protestó fervientemente. [57]
Tras la Partición de Bengala , que fue una estrategia establecida por Lord Curzon para debilitar el movimiento nacionalista, Tilak alentó el movimiento Swadeshi y el movimiento de boicot. [58] El movimiento consistía en el boicot de los bienes extranjeros y también el boicot social de cualquier indio que usara bienes extranjeros. El movimiento Swadeshi consistía en el uso de bienes producidos localmente. Una vez que se boicoteaban los bienes extranjeros, había un vacío que tenía que llenarse con la producción de esos bienes en la propia India. Bal Gangadhar Tilak dijo que los movimientos Swadeshi y Boicot son dos caras de la misma moneda. La gran clase media hindú bengalí (los Bhadralok ), molesta ante la perspectiva de que los bengalíes fueran superados en número en la nueva provincia de Bengala por los biharis y los oriyas, sintió que el acto de Curzon era un castigo por su asertividad política. Las protestas generalizadas contra la decisión de Curzon tomaron la forma predominantemente de la campaña Swadeshi ("comprar productos indios") liderada por el dos veces presidente del Congreso, Surendranath Banerjee , e involucraron un boicot a los productos británicos. [59]
El grito de guerra para ambos tipos de protestas era el lema Bande Mataram ("Salve a la Madre"), que invocaba a una diosa madre, que representaba a Bengala, India y la diosa hindú Kali . Sri Aurobindo nunca fue más allá de la ley cuando editó la revista Bande Mataram ; predicó la independencia, pero dentro de los límites de la paz en la medida de lo posible. Su objetivo era la resistencia pasiva. [60] El malestar se extendió desde Calcuta a las regiones circundantes de Bengala cuando los estudiantes regresaron a sus hogares, a sus pueblos y ciudades. Algunos se unieron a los clubes políticos juveniles locales que surgían en Bengala en ese momento, algunos participaron en robos para financiar armas e incluso intentaron quitarle la vida a los funcionarios del Raj. Sin embargo, las conspiraciones generalmente fracasaron frente al intenso trabajo policial. [61] El movimiento de boicot Swadeshi redujo las importaciones de textiles británicos en un 25%. La tela swadeshi , aunque más cara y algo menos cómoda que su competidora de Lancashire, fue usada como una marca de orgullo nacional por personas de toda la India. [62]
La abrumadora, pero predominantemente hindú, protesta contra la partición de Bengala y el temor a que se produjeran reformas que favorecieran a la mayoría hindú llevaron a la élite musulmana de la India a reunirse con el nuevo virrey, Lord Minto , en 1906 y a pedir electorados separados para los musulmanes. [39] Al mismo tiempo, exigieron una representación legislativa proporcional que reflejara tanto su condición de antiguos gobernantes como su historial de cooperación con los británicos. Esto condujo, [ cita requerida ] en diciembre de 1906, a la fundación de la Liga Musulmana Panindia en Dacca . Aunque Curzon, para entonces, había renunciado a su cargo debido a una disputa con su jefe militar Lord Kitchener y había regresado a Inglaterra, la Liga estaba a favor de su plan de partición. [63] La posición de la élite musulmana, que se reflejó en la posición de la Liga, se había cristalizado gradualmente durante las tres décadas anteriores, comenzando con las revelaciones del Censo de la India Británica en 1871, [ cita requerida ] que había estimado por primera vez las poblaciones en regiones de mayoría musulmana [63] (por su parte, el deseo de Curzon de cortejar a los musulmanes de Bengala Oriental había surgido de las ansiedades británicas desde el censo de 1871 -y a la luz de la historia de los musulmanes que lucharon contra ellos en el Motín de 1857 y la Segunda Guerra Anglo-Afgana - acerca de los musulmanes indios que se rebelaban contra la Corona). [ cita requerida ] En las tres décadas transcurridas desde entonces, los líderes musulmanes en todo el norte de la India habían experimentado intermitentemente la animosidad pública de algunos de los nuevos grupos políticos y sociales hindúes. [63] El Arya Samaj , por ejemplo, no sólo había apoyado a las Sociedades Protectoras de Vacas en su agitación, [64] sino que también, angustiado por las cifras de musulmanes del censo de 1871, organizó eventos de "reconversión" con el propósito de dar la bienvenida a los musulmanes de regreso al redil hindú. [63] En 1905, cuando Tilak y Lajpat Rai intentaron ascender a posiciones de liderazgo en el Congreso, y el propio Congreso se unió en torno al simbolismo de Kali, los temores musulmanes aumentaron. [65] No pasó desapercibido para muchos musulmanes, por ejemplo, que el grito de guerra, "Bande Mataram", había aparecido por primera vez en la novela Anand Math en la que los hindúes habían luchado contra sus opresores musulmanes. [65] Por último, la élite musulmana, y entre ellos Dacca Nawab , Khwaja Salimullah , quien fue anfitrión de la primera reunión de la Liga en su mansión en Shahbag, era consciente de que una nueva provincia con mayoría musulmana beneficiaría directamente a los musulmanes que aspiraban al poder político. [65]
Los primeros pasos hacia el autogobierno en la India británica se dieron a finales del siglo XIX con el nombramiento de consejeros indios para asesorar al virrey británico y el establecimiento de consejos provinciales con miembros indios; posteriormente, los británicos ampliaron la participación en los consejos legislativos con la Ley de Consejos Indios de 1892. Se crearon corporaciones municipales y juntas de distrito para la administración local; incluían miembros indios electos.
La Ley de Consejos Indios de 1909 , conocida como las Reformas Morley-Minto ( John Morley era el secretario de Estado para la India y Minto el virrey), otorgó a los indios papeles limitados en las legislaturas central y provincial. Se favoreció a los indios de clase alta, a los terratenientes ricos y a los hombres de negocios. La comunidad musulmana se convirtió en un electorado separado y se le concedió una doble representación. Los objetivos eran bastante conservadores, pero sí promovieron el principio electivo. [66]
La partición de Bengala fue revocada en 1911 y anunciada en el Delhi Durbar, al que acudió en persona el rey Jorge V y fue coronado emperador de la India . Anunció que la capital se trasladaría de Calcuta a Delhi. Este período vio un aumento de las actividades de los grupos revolucionarios , entre los que se encontraban el Anushilan Samiti de Bengala y el Partido Ghadar del Punjab . Sin embargo, las autoridades británicas pudieron aplastar rápidamente a los rebeldes violentos, en parte porque la corriente principal de los políticos indios educados se oponía a la revolución violenta. [67]
La Primera Guerra Mundial resultó ser un punto de inflexión en la relación imperial entre Gran Bretaña e India. Poco antes del estallido de la guerra, el Gobierno de la India había indicado que podría proporcionar dos divisiones más una brigada de caballería, con una división adicional en caso de emergencia. [68] Unos 1,4 millones de soldados indios y británicos del Ejército Indio Británico participaron en la guerra, principalmente en Irak y Oriente Medio . Su participación tuvo una repercusión cultural más amplia, ya que se difundieron noticias de cuán valientemente los soldados lucharon y murieron junto a los soldados británicos, así como soldados de dominios como Canadá y Australia. [69] El perfil internacional de la India aumentó durante la década de 1920, ya que se convirtió en miembro fundador de la Liga de las Naciones en 1920 y participó, bajo el nombre de "Les Indes Anglaises" (India británica), en los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1920 en Amberes. [70] De regreso en la India, especialmente entre los líderes del Congreso Nacional Indio , la guerra provocó llamados a un mayor autogobierno para los indios. [69]
Al comienzo de la Primera Guerra Mundial, la reasignación de la mayor parte del ejército británico en la India a Europa y Mesopotamia , había llevado al virrey anterior, Lord Harding , a preocuparse por los "riesgos que implica despojar a la India de tropas". [69] La violencia revolucionaria ya había sido una preocupación en la India británica; en consecuencia, en 1915, para fortalecer sus poderes durante lo que vio como un momento de mayor vulnerabilidad, el Gobierno de la India aprobó la Ley de Defensa de la India de 1915 , que le permitió internar a disidentes políticamente peligrosos sin el debido proceso, y se sumó al poder que ya tenía bajo la Ley de Prensa India de 1910 para encarcelar a periodistas sin juicio y censurar a la prensa. [71] Fue en virtud de la Ley de Defensa de la India que los hermanos Ali fueron encarcelados en 1916, y Annie Besant , una mujer europea, y por lo general más problemática de encarcelar, fue arrestada en 1917. [71] Ahora, cuando la reforma constitucional comenzó a discutirse en serio, los británicos comenzaron a considerar cómo se podría incorporar a los nuevos indios moderados al redil de la política constitucional y, simultáneamente, cómo se podría fortalecer la mano de los constitucionalistas establecidos. Sin embargo, como el Gobierno de la India quería asegurarse de que los extremistas no sabotearan el proceso de reforma, y como su plan de reforma se ideó durante un momento en que la violencia extremista había disminuido como resultado de un mayor control gubernamental, también comenzó a considerar cómo algunos de sus poderes en tiempos de guerra podrían extenderse a tiempos de paz. [71]
Después de la división de 1906 entre los moderados y los extremistas en el Congreso Nacional Indio , la actividad política organizada por el Congreso permaneció fragmentada hasta 1914, cuando Bal Gangadhar Tilak fue liberado de prisión y comenzó a sondear a otros líderes del Congreso sobre la posible reunificación. Sin embargo, eso tuvo que esperar hasta la desaparición de los principales oponentes moderados de Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale y Pherozeshah Mehta , en 1915, momento en el que se llegó a un acuerdo para que el grupo expulsado de Tilak volviera a ingresar al Congreso. [69] En la sesión de Lucknow de 1916 del Congreso, los partidarios de Tilak pudieron impulsar una resolución más radical que pedía a los británicos que declararan que era su "objetivo e intención... otorgar autogobierno a la India en una fecha temprana". [69] Pronto, otros rumores similares comenzaron a aparecer en pronunciamientos públicos: en 1917, en el Consejo Legislativo Imperial , Madan Mohan Malaviya habló de las expectativas que la guerra había generado en la India: "Me atrevo a decir que la guerra ha adelantado el reloj... cincuenta años... (Las) reformas después de la guerra tendrán que ser tales,... que satisfagan las aspiraciones de su pueblo (el de la India) de tomar su parte legítima en la administración de su propio país". [69]
La sesión de Lucknow de 1916 del Congreso también fue el escenario de un esfuerzo mutuo inesperado entre el Congreso y la Liga Musulmana, que se produjo gracias a la asociación en tiempos de guerra entre Alemania y Turquía. Dado que el sultán turco , o califa , también había reclamado esporádicamente la tutela de los lugares sagrados islámicos de La Meca , Medina y Jerusalén , y dado que los británicos y sus aliados estaban ahora en conflicto con Turquía, comenzaron a aumentar las dudas entre algunos musulmanes indios sobre la "neutralidad religiosa" de los británicos, dudas que ya habían surgido como resultado de la reunificación de Bengala en 1911, una decisión que se consideró mal dispuesta a los musulmanes. [72] En el Pacto de Lucknow , la Liga se unió al Congreso en la propuesta de un mayor autogobierno por el que hicieron campaña Tilak y sus partidarios; a cambio, el Congreso aceptó electorados separados para los musulmanes en las legislaturas provinciales, así como en el Consejo Legislativo Imperial. En 1916, la Liga Musulmana tenía entre 500 y 800 miembros y aún no contaba con el apoyo más amplio entre los musulmanes indios del que disfrutó en años posteriores; en la propia Liga, el pacto no tuvo un respaldo unánime, ya que fue negociado en gran medida por un grupo de musulmanes del "Partido Joven" de las Provincias Unidas (UP), principalmente dos hermanos Mohammad y Shaukat Ali , que habían abrazado la causa panislámica; [72] sin embargo, sí contó con el apoyo de un joven abogado de Bombay, Muhammad Ali Jinnah , que más tarde ascendería a puestos de liderazgo tanto en la Liga como en el movimiento independentista indio. En años posteriores, a medida que se fueron desplegando todas las ramificaciones del pacto, se consideró que beneficiaba a las élites minoritarias musulmanas de provincias como UP y Bihar más que a las mayorías musulmanas de Punjab y Bengala; no obstante, en ese momento, el "Pacto de Lucknow" fue un hito importante en la agitación nacionalista y fue visto como tal por los británicos. [72]
Durante 1916, Tilak y Annie Besant fundaron dos Ligas de Autonomía dentro del Congreso Nacional Indio , respectivamente, para promover la autonomía entre los indios y también para elevar la estatura de los fundadores dentro del propio Congreso. [73] Besant, por su parte, también estaba ansiosa por demostrar la superioridad de esta nueva forma de agitación organizada, que había logrado cierto éxito en el movimiento de autonomía irlandés , sobre la violencia política que había plagado intermitentemente el subcontinente durante los años 1907-1914. [73] Las dos Ligas centraron su atención en regiones geográficas complementarias: la de Tilak en el oeste de la India, en la presidencia del sur de Bombay , y la de Besant en el resto del país, pero especialmente en la presidencia de Madrás y en regiones como Sind y Gujarat que hasta entonces el Congreso había considerado políticamente inactivas. [73] Ambas ligas adquirieron rápidamente nuevos miembros —aproximadamente treinta mil cada una en poco más de un año— y comenzaron a publicar periódicos baratos. Su propaganda también se dirigió a carteles, panfletos y canciones político-religiosas, y más tarde a reuniones masivas, que no solo atrajeron a un mayor número de personas que en las sesiones anteriores del Congreso, sino también a grupos sociales completamente nuevos, como no brahmanes , comerciantes, agricultores, estudiantes y funcionarios gubernamentales de nivel inferior. [73] Aunque no alcanzaron la magnitud o el carácter de un movimiento de masas a nivel nacional, las ligas de autogobierno profundizaron y ampliaron la agitación política organizada por el autogobierno en la India. Las autoridades británicas reaccionaron imponiendo restricciones a las ligas, incluida la exclusión de los estudiantes de las reuniones y la prohibición de que los dos líderes viajaran a ciertas provincias. [73]
El año 1915 también fue testigo del regreso de Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi a la India. Ya conocido en la India como resultado de sus protestas por las libertades civiles en nombre de los indios en Sudáfrica, Gandhi siguió el consejo de su mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale y decidió no hacer ningún pronunciamiento público durante el primer año de su regreso, sino que pasó el año viajando, observando el país de primera mano y escribiendo. [74] Antes, durante su estancia en Sudáfrica, Gandhi, abogado de profesión, había representado a una comunidad india que, aunque pequeña, era lo suficientemente diversa como para ser un microcosmos de la propia India. Al abordar el desafío de mantener unida a esta comunidad y al mismo tiempo enfrentarse a la autoridad colonial, había creado una técnica de resistencia no violenta, que denominó Satyagraha (o Lucha por la Verdad). [75] Para Gandhi, Satyagraha era diferente de la " resistencia pasiva ", por entonces una técnica familiar de protesta social, que consideraba una estrategia práctica adoptada por los débiles frente a una fuerza superior; Por otra parte, la satyagraha era para él el «último recurso de aquellos lo suficientemente fuertes en su compromiso con la verdad como para soportar el sufrimiento por su causa». [75] Ahimsa o «no violencia», que formaba la base de la satyagraha , llegó a representar el pilar gemelo, junto con la Verdad, de la visión religiosa poco ortodoxa de Gandhi sobre la vida. [75] Durante los años 1907-1914, Gandhi puso a prueba la técnica de la satyagraha en una serie de protestas en nombre de la comunidad india en Sudáfrica contra las injustas leyes raciales. [75]
Además, durante su estancia en Sudáfrica, en su ensayo Hind Swaraj (1909), Gandhi formuló su visión del Swaraj o "autogobierno" para la India basándose en tres ingredientes vitales: la solidaridad entre indios de diferentes credos, pero sobre todo entre hindúes y musulmanes; la eliminación de la intocabilidad de la sociedad india; y el ejercicio del swadeshi (el boicot a los productos manufacturados extranjeros y la reactivación de la industria artesanal india ). [74] Los dos primeros, creía, eran esenciales para que la India fuera una sociedad igualitaria y tolerante, acorde con los principios de la Verdad y la Ahimsa , mientras que el último, al hacer a los indios más autosuficientes, rompería el ciclo de dependencia que estaba perpetuando no sólo la dirección y el tenor del gobierno británico en la India, sino también el compromiso británico con él. [74] Al menos hasta 1920, la presencia británica en sí misma no fue un obstáculo en la concepción de Gandhi del swaraj ; Más bien, fue la incapacidad de los indios para crear una sociedad moderna. [74]
Gandhi hizo su debut político en la India en 1917 en el distrito de Champaran en Bihar , cerca de la frontera con Nepal, donde fue invitado por un grupo de agricultores arrendatarios descontentos que, durante muchos años, se habían visto obligados a plantar índigo (para tintes) en una parte de su tierra y luego venderlo a precios por debajo del mercado a los plantadores británicos que les habían arrendado la tierra. [76] A su llegada al distrito, Gandhi se unió a otros agitadores, incluido un joven líder del Congreso, Rajendra Prasad , de Bihar, que se convertiría en un partidario leal de Gandhi y luego desempeñaría un papel destacado en el movimiento de independencia de la India. Cuando las autoridades británicas locales le ordenaron a Gandhi que se fuera, se negó por motivos morales, presentando su negativa como una forma de Satyagraha individual . Pronto, bajo la presión del virrey en Delhi, que estaba ansioso por mantener la paz interna durante la guerra, el gobierno provincial anuló la orden de expulsión de Gandhi y más tarde aceptó una investigación oficial del caso. Aunque los plantadores británicos finalmente cedieron, no se convencieron de la causa de los agricultores y, por lo tanto, no produjeron el resultado óptimo de una Satyagraha que Gandhi había esperado; de manera similar, los propios agricultores, aunque complacidos con la resolución, respondieron menos que entusiastamente a los proyectos concurrentes de empoderamiento rural y educación que Gandhi había inaugurado de acuerdo con su ideal de swaraj . El año siguiente, Gandhi lanzó dos Satyagrahas más, ambas en su Gujarat natal : una en el distrito rural de Kaira , donde los agricultores terratenientes protestaban por el aumento de los ingresos de la tierra, y la otra en la ciudad de Ahmedabad , donde los trabajadores de una fábrica textil de propiedad india estaban angustiados por sus bajos salarios. La satyagraha en Ahmedabad tomó la forma de un ayuno de Gandhi y apoyo a los trabajadores en una huelga, que finalmente condujo a un acuerdo. En Kaira, en cambio, aunque la causa de los agricultores recibió publicidad gracias a la presencia de Gandhi, la propia satyagraha, que consistía en la decisión colectiva de los agricultores de no pagar, no tuvo un éxito inmediato, ya que las autoridades británicas se negaron a dar marcha atrás. La agitación en Kaira le valió a Gandhi otro lugarteniente de toda la vida, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel , que había organizado a los agricultores y que también llegaría a desempeñar un papel de liderazgo en el movimiento independentista indio. [77]
En 1916, ante la nueva fuerza demostrada por los nacionalistas con la firma del Pacto de Lucknow y la fundación de las ligas de autogobierno , y la constatación, tras el desastre de la campaña mesopotámica , de que la guerra probablemente duraría más, el nuevo virrey, Lord Chelmsford , advirtió que el Gobierno de la India debía ser más receptivo a la opinión india. [78] Hacia finales de año, tras conversaciones con el gobierno en Londres, sugirió que los británicos demostraran su buena fe -a la luz del papel de la India en la guerra- mediante una serie de acciones públicas, incluidas la concesión de títulos y honores a los príncipes, la concesión de comisiones en el ejército a los indios y la eliminación del tan vilipendiado impuesto especial al algodón, pero, lo más importante, un anuncio de los planes futuros de Gran Bretaña para la India y una indicación de algunos pasos concretos. Después de más discusiones, en agosto de 1917, el nuevo secretario de estado liberal para la India, Edwin Montagu , anunció el objetivo británico de "aumentar la asociación de indios en cada rama de la administración y el desarrollo gradual de instituciones de autogobierno, con vistas a la realización progresiva de un gobierno responsable en la India como parte integral del Imperio Británico". [78] Aunque el plan preveía al principio un autogobierno limitado sólo en las provincias (con la India enfáticamente dentro del Imperio Británico), representó la primera propuesta británica para cualquier forma de gobierno representativo en una colonia no blanca.
Montagu y Chelmsford presentaron su informe en julio de 1918 después de un largo viaje de investigación por la India el invierno anterior. [79] Después de más debates por parte del gobierno y el parlamento en Gran Bretaña, y otra gira del Comité de Franquicias y Funciones con el fin de identificar quién entre la población india podría votar en futuras elecciones, la Ley de Gobierno de la India de 1919 (también conocida como las Reformas Montagu-Chelmsford ) se aprobó en diciembre de 1919. [79] La nueva ley amplió los consejos legislativos provinciales e imperiales y derogó el recurso del Gobierno de la India a la "mayoría oficial" en votos desfavorables. [79] Aunque departamentos como defensa, asuntos exteriores, derecho penal, comunicaciones e impuesto sobre la renta fueron retenidos por el virrey y el gobierno central en Nueva Delhi, otros departamentos como salud pública, educación, ingresos territoriales y autogobierno local fueron transferidos a las provincias. [79] Las provincias mismas debían ahora ser administradas bajo un nuevo sistema diárquico , por el cual algunas áreas como la educación, la agricultura, el desarrollo de infraestructura y el autogobierno local pasaron a ser dominio exclusivo de los ministros y legislaturas indias, y en última instancia de los electorados indios, mientras que otras como la irrigación, los ingresos territoriales, la policía, las prisiones y el control de los medios de comunicación permanecieron dentro del ámbito de competencia del gobernador británico y su consejo ejecutivo. [79] La nueva ley también facilitó la admisión de indios en los servicios civiles y el cuerpo de oficiales del ejército.
Un mayor número de indios obtuvieron el derecho al voto, aunque, para votar a nivel nacional, constituían solo el 10% de la población masculina adulta total, muchos de los cuales aún eran analfabetos. [79] En las legislaturas provinciales, los británicos continuaron ejerciendo cierto control reservando escaños para intereses especiales que consideraban cooperativos o útiles. En particular, a los candidatos rurales, generalmente simpatizantes del gobierno británico y menos confrontativos, se les asignaron más escaños que a sus contrapartes urbanas. [79] También se reservaron escaños para no brahmanes, terratenientes, empresarios y graduados universitarios. El principio de "representación comunal", una parte integral de las Reformas Minto-Morley y, más recientemente, del Pacto de Lucknow entre el Congreso y la Liga Musulmana, se reafirmó, y se reservaron escaños para musulmanes, sijs , cristianos indios , angloindios y europeos domiciliados, tanto en los consejos legislativos provinciales como en los imperiales. [79] Las reformas de Montagu-Chelmsford ofrecieron a los indios la oportunidad más importante hasta el momento para ejercer el poder legislativo, especialmente a nivel provincial; sin embargo, esa oportunidad también se vio restringida por el número aún limitado de votantes elegibles, por los pequeños presupuestos disponibles para las legislaturas provinciales y por la presencia de escaños rurales y de intereses especiales que se consideraban instrumentos de control británico. [79] Su alcance fue insatisfactorio para el liderazgo político indio, expresado célebremente por Annie Besant como algo "indigno de que Inglaterra lo ofrezca y de que la India lo acepte". [80]
.jpg/1280px-Sir_Sidney_Arthur_Taylor_Rowlatt_(cropped).jpg)
En 1917, mientras Montagu y Chelmsford estaban compilando su informe, un comité presidido por un juez británico, Sidney Rowlatt , fue encargado de investigar "conspiraciones revolucionarias", con el objetivo tácito de extender los poderes del gobierno en tiempos de guerra. [78] El Comité Rowlatt estaba compuesto por cuatro miembros británicos y dos indios, entre ellos Sir Basil Scott y Diwan Bahadur Sir CV Kumaraswami Sastri , los actuales y futuros presidentes de la Corte Suprema de Bombay y la Corte Suprema de Madrás . Presentó su informe en julio de 1918 e identificó tres regiones de insurgencia conspirativa: Bengala , la presidencia de Bombay y el Punjab . [78] Para combatir los actos subversivos en estas regiones, el comité recomendó por unanimidad que el gobierno utilizara poderes de emergencia similares a su autoridad en tiempos de guerra, que incluían la capacidad de juzgar casos de sedición por un panel de tres jueces y sin jurados, la exigencia de garantías a los sospechosos, la supervisión gubernamental de las residencias de los sospechosos, [78] y el poder de los gobiernos provinciales para arrestar y detener a los sospechosos en centros de detención de corto plazo y sin juicio. [81]
Con el fin de la Primera Guerra Mundial, también se produjo un cambio en el clima económico. A finales de 1919, 1,5 millones de indios habían servido en las fuerzas armadas, ya sea como combatientes o como no combatientes, y la India había aportado 146 millones de libras en ingresos para la guerra. [82] El aumento de los impuestos, junto con las perturbaciones en el comercio nacional e internacional, tuvo el efecto de duplicar aproximadamente el índice de precios generales en la India entre 1914 y 1920. [82] Los veteranos de guerra que regresaron, especialmente en el Punjab, crearon una creciente crisis de desempleo, [83] y la inflación de posguerra provocó disturbios por alimentos en las provincias de Bombay, Madrás y Bengala, [83] una situación que solo empeoró por el fracaso del monzón de 1918-19 y por la especulación y el afán de lucro. [82] La epidemia mundial de gripe y la Revolución bolchevique de 1917 se sumaron al nerviosismo general; El primero entre la población que ya atravesaba problemas económicos, [83] y el segundo entre los funcionarios del gobierno, que temían una revolución similar en la India. [84]
Para combatir lo que veía como una crisis inminente, el gobierno redactó las recomendaciones del comité Rowlatt en dos proyectos de ley Rowlatt . [81] Aunque Edwin Montagu autorizó la consideración legislativa de los proyectos de ley, lo hicieron de mala gana, con la declaración adjunta: "A primera vista, detesto la sugerencia de preservar la Ley de Defensa de la India en tiempos de paz en la medida en que Rowlatt y sus amigos lo consideren necesario". [78] En la discusión y votación subsiguientes en el Consejo Legislativo Imperial, todos los miembros indios expresaron su oposición a los proyectos de ley. No obstante, el Gobierno de la India pudo utilizar su "mayoría oficial" para asegurar la aprobación de los proyectos de ley a principios de 1919. [78] Sin embargo, lo que aprobó, en deferencia a la oposición india, fue una versión menor del primer proyecto de ley, que ahora permitía poderes extrajudiciales, pero por un período de exactamente tres años y para el procesamiento únicamente de "movimientos anárquicos y revolucionarios", eliminando por completo el segundo proyecto de ley que implicaba la modificación del Código Penal de la India . [78] Aun así, cuando se aprobó, la nueva Ley Rowlatt despertó una indignación generalizada en toda la India y llevó a Gandhi a la vanguardia del movimiento nacionalista. [81]
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre or "Amritsar massacre", took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in the predominantly Sikh northern city of Amritsar. After days of unrest Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer forbade public meetings and on Sunday 13 April 1919 fifty British Indian Army soldiers commanded by Dyer began shooting at an unarmed gathering of thousands of men, women, and children without warning. Casualty estimates vary widely, with the Government of India reporting 379 dead, with 1,100 wounded.[85] The Indian National Congress estimated three times the number of dead. Dyer was removed from duty but he became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the Raj.[86] Historians consider the episode was a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.[87]
In 1920, after the British government refused to back down, Gandhi began his campaign of non-cooperation, prompting many Indians to return British awards and honours, to resign from the civil services, and to again boycott British goods. In addition, Gandhi reorganised the Congress, transforming it into a mass movement and opening its membership to even the poorest Indians. Although Gandhi halted the non-cooperation movement in 1922 after the violent incident at Chauri Chaura, the movement revived again, in the mid-1920s.
The visit, in 1928, of the British Simon Commission, charged with instituting constitutional reform in India, resulted in widespread protests throughout the country.[88] Earlier, in 1925, non-violent protests of the Congress had resumed too, this time in Gujarat, and led by Patel, who organised farmers to refuse payment of increased land taxes; the success of this protest, the Bardoli Satyagraha, brought Gandhi back into the fold of active politics.[88]
At its annual session in Lahore, the Indian National Congress, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, issued a demand for Purna Swaraj (Hindustani language: "complete independence"), or Purna Swarajya. The declaration was drafted by the Congress Working Committee, which included Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Gandhi subsequently led an expanded movement of civil disobedience, culminating in 1930 with the Salt Satyagraha, in which thousands of Indians defied the tax on salt, by marching to the sea and making their own salt by evaporating seawater. Although, many, including Gandhi, were arrested, the British government eventually gave in, and in 1931 Gandhi travelled to London to negotiate new reform at the Round Table Conferences.[citation needed]
In local terms, British control rested on the Indian Civil Service (ICS), but it faced growing difficulties. Fewer and fewer young men in Britain were interested in joining, and the continuing distrust of Indians resulted in a declining base in terms of quality and quantity. By 1945 Indians were numerically dominant in the ICS and at issue was divided loyalty between the Empire and independence.[89] The finances of the Raj depended on land taxes, and these became problematic in the 1930s. Epstein argues that after 1919 it became harder and harder to collect the land revenue. The Raj's suppression of civil disobedience after 1934 temporarily increased the power of the revenue agents but after 1937 they were forced by the new Congress-controlled provincial governments to hand back confiscated land. Again the outbreak of war strengthened them, in the face of the Quit India movement the revenue collectors had to rely on military force and by 1946–47 direct British control was rapidly disappearing in much of the countryside.[90]
In 1935, after the Round Table Conferences, Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1935, which authorised the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all provinces of British India, the creation of a central government incorporating both the British provinces and the princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities. The future Constitution of independent India was based on this act.[91] However, it divided the electorate into 19 religious and social categories, e.g., Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Depressed Classes, Landholders, Commerce and Industry, Europeans, Anglo-Indians, etc., each of which was given separate representation in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. A voter could cast a vote only for candidates in his own category.[citation needed]
The 1935 Act provided for more autonomy for Indian provinces, with the goal of cooling off nationalist sentiment. The act provided for a national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the British government, but the rulers of the princely states managed to block its implementation. These states remained under the full control of their hereditary rulers, with no popular government. To prepare for elections Congress built up its grass roots membership from 473,000 in 1935 to 4.5 million in 1939.[92]
In the 1937 elections Congress won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India.[93] Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. The widespread voter support for the Indian National Congress surprised Raj officials, who previously had seen the Congress as a small elitist body.[94] The British separated Burma Province from British India in 1937 and granted the colony a new constitution calling for a fully elected assembly, with many powers given to the Burmese, but this proved to be a divisive issue as a ploy to exclude Burmese from any further Indian reforms.[95]
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in the war effort and maintained its control of the government in three major provinces, Bengal, Sind and the Punjab.[96]
While the Muslim League had been a small elite group in 1927 with only 1300 members, it grew rapidly once it became an organisation that reached out to the masses, reaching 500,000 members in Bengal in 1944, 200,000 in Punjab, and hundreds of thousands elsewhere.[97] Jinnah now was well positioned to negotiate with the British from a position of power.[98] Jinnah repeatedly warned that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress. On 24 March 1940 in Lahore, the League passed the "Lahore Resolution", demanding that, "the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign."[99] Although there were other important national Muslim politicians such as Congress leader Ab'ul Kalam Azad, and influential regional Muslim politicians such as A. K. Fazlul Huq of the leftist Krishak Praja Party in Bengal, Fazl-i-Hussain of the landlord-dominated Punjab Unionist Party, and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan of the pro-Congress Khudai Khidmatgar (popularly, "red shirts") in the North West Frontier Province,[100] the British, over the next six years, were to increasingly see the League as the main representative of Muslim India.
The Congress was secular and strongly opposed to having any religious state.[97] It insisted there was a natural unity to India, and repeatedly blamed the British for "divide and rule" tactics based on prompting Muslims to think of themselves as alien from Hindus.[citation needed] Jinnah rejected the notion of a united India, and emphasised that religious communities were more basic than an artificial nationalism. He proclaimed the Two-Nation Theory,[101] stating at Lahore on 23 March 1940:
[Islam and Hinduism] are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality ... The Hindu and Muslim belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature [sic]. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different ... To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.[102]
While the regular Indian army in 1939 included about 220,000 native troops, it expanded tenfold during the war,[103] and small naval and air force units were created. Over two million Indians volunteered for military service in the British Army. They played a major role in numerous campaigns, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. Casualties were moderate (in terms of the world war), with 24,000 killed; 64,000 wounded; 12,000 missing (probably dead), and 60,000 captured at Singapore in 1942.[104]
London paid most of the cost of the Indian Army, which had the effect of erasing India's national debt; it ended the war with a surplus of £1,300 million. In addition, heavy British spending on munitions produced in India (such as uniforms, rifles, machine-guns, field artillery, and ammunition) led to a rapid expansion of industrial output, such as textiles (up 16%), steel (up 18%), and chemicals (up 30%). Small warships were built, and an aircraft factory opened in Bangalore. The railway system, with 700,000 employees, was taxed to the limit as demand for transportation soared.[105]
The British government sent the Cripps mission in 1942 to secure Indian nationalists' co-operation in the war effort in exchange for a promise of independence as soon as the war ended. Top officials in Britain, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, did not support the Cripps Mission and negotiations with the Congress soon broke down.[106]
Congress launched the Quit India Movement in July 1942 demanding the immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. On 8 August the Raj arrested all national, provincial and local Congress leaders, holding tens of thousands of them until 1945. The country erupted in violent demonstrations led by students and later by peasant political groups, especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. The large wartime British Army presence crushed the movement in a little more than six weeks;[107] nonetheless, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal.[107] In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive; however, it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943.[108]
Earlier, Subhas Chandra Bose, who had been a leader of the younger, radical, wing of the Indian National Congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, had risen to become Congress President from 1938 to 1939.[109] However, he was ousted from the Congress in 1939 following differences with the high command,[110] and subsequently placed under house arrest by the British before escaping from India in early 1941.[111] He turned to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for help in gaining India's independence by force.[112] With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National Army, composed largely of Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Singapore. As the war turned against them, the Japanese came to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, and in addition, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind, presided by Bose.[112]
Bose's effort, however, was short-lived. In mid-1944 the British Army first halted and then reversed the Japanese U-Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. Bose's Indian National Army largely disintegrated during the subsequent fighting in Burma, with its remaining elements surrendering with the recapture of Singapore in September 1945. Bose died in August from third degree burns received after attempting to escape in an overloaded Japanese plane which crashed in Taiwan,[113] which many Indians believe did not happen.[114][115][116] Although Bose was unsuccessful, he roused patriotic feelings in India.[117]
In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.[118] The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. Although the mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they had the effect of spurring the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading to the Cabinet Mission to India led by the secretary of state for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and including Sir Stafford Cripps, who had visited four years before.[118]
Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India. Earlier, at the end of the war in 1945, the colonial government had announced the public trial of three senior officers of Bose's defeated Indian National Army who stood accused of treason. Now as the trials began, the Congress leadership, although ambivalent towards the INA, chose to defend the accused officers.[119] The subsequent convictions of the officers, the public outcry against the convictions, and the eventual remission of the sentences, created positive propaganda for the Congress, which only helped in the party's subsequent electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[120] The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout British India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India's prime minister.[121]
Later that year, the British Exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, and the Labour government conscious that it had neither the mandate at home, the international support, nor the reliability of native forces for continuing to control an increasingly restless British India,[122][123] decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.[96]
As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence.[124][96] With the partition of India, the end of the British rule in India in August 1947 saw the creation of two separate states of India and Pakistan.[125]
On 15 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan), with Muhammad Ali Jinnah as the governor-general; and the Dominion of India, (later Republic of India) with Jawaharlal Nehru as the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first governor-general came into being; with official ceremonies taking place in Karachi on 14 August and New Delhi on 15 August. This was done so that Mountbatten could attend both ceremonies.[126]
The great majority of Indians remained in place with independence, but in border areas millions of people (Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu) relocated across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, there was much bloodshed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders, among both the refugee and resident populations of the three faiths, died in the violence.[127]
India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory: British India and the Native States (or Princely States).[139] In its Interpretation Act 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions in Section 18:
(4.) The expression "British India" shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India or through any governor or other officer subordinates to the Governor-General of India.
(5.) The expression "India" shall mean British India together with any territories of any native prince or chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any governor or other officer subordinates to the Governor-General of India.[1]
In general, the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to refer also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858.[140] The term has also been used to refer to the "British in India".[141]
The terms "Indian Empire" and "Empire of India" (like the term "British Empire") were not used in legislation. The monarch was officially known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in Queen Victoria's Queen's Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. In addition, an order of knighthood, the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was set up in 1878.
Suzerainty over 175 princely states, some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name of the British Crown) by the central government of British India under the viceroy; the remaining approximately 500 states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a governor, lieutenant-governor, or chief commissioner (as the case might have been).[142] A clear distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the courts of the Princely States existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.[142]
At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a governor or a lieutenant-governor.
During the partition of Bengal (1905–1913), the new provinces of Assam and East Bengal were created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became: Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.[143]
In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a chief commissioner:[144]
A Princely State, also called a Native State or an Indian State, was a British vassal state in India with an indigenous nominal Indian ruler, subject to a subsidiary alliance.[145] There were 565 princely states when India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely states did not form a part of British India (i.e. the presidencies and provinces), as they were not directly under British rule. The larger ones had treaties with Britain that specified which rights the princes had; in the smaller ones the princes had few rights. Within the princely states external affairs, defence and most communications were under British control.[citation needed] The British also exercised a general influence over the states' internal politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. Although there were nearly 600 princely states, the great majority were very small and contracted out the business of government to the British. Some two hundred of the states had an area of less than 25 square kilometres (10 square miles).[145] The last vestige of the Mughal Empire in Delhi which was under Company authority prior to the advent of British Raj was finally abolished and seized by the Crown in the aftermath of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 for its support to the rebellion.[146][147]
The princely states were grouped into agencies and residencies.
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (usually called the Indian Mutiny by the British), the Government of India Act 1858 made changes in the governance of India at three levels:
In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member Council of India, whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have spent at least ten years in India and to have done so no more than ten years before.[149] Although the secretary of state formulated the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was required in most instances to consult the Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending of Indian revenues. The Act envisaged a system of "double government" in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy-making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India. However, the secretary of state also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the Council's expertise was sometimes outdated.[150] From 1858 until 1947, twenty-seven individuals served as Secretary of State for India and directed the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859–1866), the Marquess of Salisbury (1874–1878; later British prime minister), John Morley (1905–1910; initiator of the Minto–Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (1917–1922; an architect of the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1945–1947; head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India). The size of the Advisory Council was reduced over the next half-century, but its powers remained unchanged. In 1907, for the first time, two Indians were appointed to the Council.[151] They were K.G. Gupta and Syed Hussain Bilgrami.
.jpg/1280px-Robert-Gascoyne-Cecil-3rd-Marquess-of-Salisbury_(cropped).jpg)
In Calcutta, the governor-general remained head of the Government of India and now was more commonly called the viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to the nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the secretary of state in London and through him to Parliament. A system of "double government" had already been in place during the Company's rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784. The governor-general in the capital, Calcutta, and the governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for example, were issued in the name of "Governor-General-in-Council" (i.e. the Governor-General with the advice of the Council). The Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been intermittent feuding between the governor-general and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made no major changes in governance.[151] However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead, so he requested the "portfolio system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department (the "portfolio") was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single council member.[151] Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, but important decisions required the consent of the governor-general and, in the absence of such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act 1861.
If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative Council—an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to a two-year term—with half the members consisting of British officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half, comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity.[152] All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in Madras and Bombay, required the final assent of the secretary of state in London; this prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second secretary of state, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism controlled from home".[151] Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more consultation with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty, and far from representative.[153] Even so, the "... tiny advances in the practice of representative government were intended to provide safety valves for the expression of public opinion, which had been so badly misjudged before the rebellion".[154] Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in the British Parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.[155]
With the promulgation of the Government of India Act 1935, the Council of India was abolished with effect from 1 April 1937 and a modified system of government enacted. The secretary of state for India represented the Government of India in the UK. He was assisted by a body of advisers numbering from 8–12 individuals, at least half of whom were required to have held office in India for a minimum of 10 years, and had not relinquished office earlier than two years prior to their appointment as advisers to the secretary of state.[156]
The viceroy and governor-general of India, a Crown appointee, typically held office for five years though there was no fixed tenure, and received an annual salary of Rs. 250,800 p.a. (£18,810 p.a.).[156][157] He headed the Viceroy's Executive Council, each member of which had responsibility for a department of the central administration. From 1 April 1937, the position of Governor-General in Council, which the viceroy and governor-general concurrently held in the capacity of representing the Crown in relations with the Indian princely states, was replaced by the designation of "HM Representative for the Exercise of the Functions of the Crown in its Relations with the Indian States", or the "Crown Representative". The Executive Council was greatly expanded during the Second World War, and in 1947 comprised 14 members (secretaries), each of whom earned a salary of Rs. 66,000 p.a. (£4,950 p.a.). The portfolios in 1946–1947 were:
Until 1946, the viceroy held the portfolio for External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations, as well as heading the Political Department in his capacity as the Crown representative. Each department was headed by a secretary excepting the Railway Department, which was headed by a Chief Commissioner of Railways under a secretary.[158]
The viceroy and governor-general was also the head of the bicameral Indian Legislature, consisting of an upper house (the Council of State) and a lower house (the Legislative Assembly). The viceroy was the head of the Council of State, while the Legislative Assembly, which was first opened in 1921, was headed by an elected president (appointed by the Viceroy from 1921 to 1925). The Council of State consisted of 58 members (32 elected, 26 nominated), while the Legislative Assembly comprised 141 members (26 nominated officials, 13 others nominated and 102 elected). The Council of State existed in five-year periods and the Legislative Assembly for three-year periods, though either could be dissolved earlier or later by the Viceroy. The Indian Legislature was empowered to make laws for all persons resident in British India including all British subjects resident in India, and for all British Indian subjects residing outside India. With the assent of the King-Emperor and after copies of a proposed enactment had been submitted to both houses of the British Parliament, the Viceroy could overrule the legislature and directly enact any measures in the perceived interests of British India or its residents if the need arose.[158]
Effective from 1 April 1936, the Government of India Act created the new provinces of Sind (separated from the Bombay Presidency) and Orissa (separated from the Province of Bihar and Orissa). Burma and Aden became separate Crown Colonies under the Act from 1 April 1937, thereby ceasing to be part of the Indian Empire. From 1937 onwards, British India was divided into 17 administrations: the three Presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Bengal, and the 14 provinces of the United Provinces, Punjab, Bihar, the Central Provinces and Berar, Assam, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Orissa, Sind, British Baluchistan, Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, Coorg, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Panth Piploda. The Presidencies and the first eight provinces were each under a governor, while the latter six provinces were each under a chief commissioner. The viceroy directly governed the chief commissioner provinces through each respective chief commissioner, while the Presidencies and the provinces under governors were allowed greater autonomy under the Government of India Act.[159] Each Presidency or province headed by a governor had either a provincial bicameral legislature (in the Presidencies, the United Provinces, Bihar and Assam) or a unicameral legislature (in the Punjab, Central Provinces and Berar, NWFP, Orissa and Sind). The governor of each presidency or province represented the Crown in his capacity, and was assisted by a ministers appointed from the members of each provincial legislature. Each provincial legislature had a life of five years, barring any special circumstances such as wartime conditions. All bills passed by the provincial legislature were either signed or rejected by the governor, who could also issue proclamations or promulgate ordinances while the legislature was in recess, as the need arose.[160]
Each province or presidency comprised a number of divisions, each headed by a commissioner and subdivided into districts, which were the basic administrative units and each headed by a district magistrate, collector or deputy commissioner; in 1947, British India comprised 230 districts.[160]
Singha argues that after 1857 the colonial government strengthened and expanded its infrastructure via the court system, legal procedures, and statutes. New legislation merged the Crown and the old East India Company courts and introduced a new penal code as well as new codes of civil and criminal procedure, based largely on English law. In the 1860s–1880s the Raj set up compulsory registration of births, deaths, and marriages, as well as adoptions, property deeds, and wills. The goal was to create a stable, usable public record and verifiable identities. However, there was opposition from both Muslim and Hindu elements who complained that the new procedures for census-taking and registration threatened to uncover female privacy. Purdah rules prohibited women from saying their husband's name or having their photograph taken. An all-India census was conducted between 1868 and 1871, often using total numbers of females in a household rather than individual names. Select groups which the Raj reformers wanted to monitor statistically included those reputed to practice female infanticide, prostitutes, lepers, and eunuchs.[161]
Murshid argues that women were in some ways more restricted by the modernisation of the laws. They remained tied to the strictures of their religion, caste, and customs, but now with an overlay of British Victorian attitudes. Their inheritance rights to own and manage property were curtailed; the new English laws were somewhat harsher. Court rulings restricted the rights of second wives and their children regarding inheritance. A woman had to belong to either a father or a husband to have any rights.[162]
The government of India used a variety of flags for different purposes. The Viceroy flew an official banner based on the Union Jack,[163] featuring the Star of India badge; this flag was also considered to represent India itself.[164][165] In 1921 the Viceroy, Lord Reading, declared[166] the government's intention to retain this design as the flag for imperial India, a purpose it began to serve after 1861.[165] The Governor-General was also assigned an official badge, defined and published in the British Admiralty flag book.[167] A Red Ensign bearing the star emblem was also used as an Indian flag prior to 1947, particularly at international events.[168]
The rulers of the Princely states also had their own banners, ceremonially presented to them during Queen Victoria's 1877 Durbar,[169] and the states also had their own official emblems.[170] The Royal Indian Navy flew a blue jack flag bearing the Star of India,[171] which was also used as an ensign.[172]
![Badge of the Governor General of India, published in the 1916[177] and 1930[178] editions of the British Admiralty flag book. It was used on the Viceroy's flag,[179] and was also known as the "Badge of India."[180]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Badge_of_the_Governor_General_of_India.svg/1280px-Badge_of_the_Governor_General_of_India.svg.png){kind=icon}
All three sectors of the economy—agriculture, manufacturing, and services—accelerated in the postcolonial India. In agriculture a huge increase in production took place in the 1870s. The most important difference between colonial and postcolonial India was the use of land surplus with productivity-led growth by using high-yielding variety seeds, chemical fertilizers and more intensive application of water. All these three inputs were subsidised by the state.[181] The result was, on average, no long-term change in per capita income levels, though cost of living had grown higher. Agriculture was still dominant, with most peasants at the subsistence level. Extensive irrigation systems were built, providing an impetus for switching to cash crops for export and for raw materials for Indian industry, especially jute, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and tea.[182] India's global share of GDP fell drastically from above 20% to less than 5% in the colonial period.[183] Historians have been bitterly divided on issues of economic history, with the Nationalist school (following Nehru) arguing that India was poorer at the end of British rule than at the beginning and that impoverishment occurred because of the British.[184]
Mike Davis writes that much of the economic activity in British India was for the benefit of the British economy and was carried out relentlessly through repressive British imperial policies and with negative repercussions for the Indian population. This is reified in India's large exports of wheat to Britain: despite a major famine that claimed between 6 and 10 million lives in the late 1870s, these exports remained unchecked. A colonial government committed to laissez-faire economics refused to interfere with these exports or provide any relief.[185]
With the end of the state-granted monopoly of the East India Trading Company in 1813, the importation into India of British manufactured goods, including finished textiles, increased dramatically, from approximately 1 million yards of cotton cloth in 1814 to 13 million in 1820, 995 million in 1870, to 2050 million by 1890. The British imposed "free trade" on India, while continental Europe and the United States erected stiff tariff barriers ranging from 30% to 70% on the importation of cotton yarn or prohibited it entirely. As a result of the less expensive imports from more industrialized Britain, India's most significant industrial sector, textile production, shrank, such that by 1870–1880 Indian producers were manufacturing only 25%–45% of local consumption. Deindustrialization of India's iron industry was even more extensive during this period.[186]
Jamsetji Tata (1839–1904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian mills produced cheap coarse yarn (and later cloth) using local short-staple cotton and cheap machinery imported from Britain, Tata did much better by importing expensive longer-stapled cotton from Egypt and buying more complex ring-spindle machinery from the United States to spin finer yarn that could compete with imports from Britain.[187]
In the 1890s, he launched plans to move into heavy industry using Indian funding. The Raj did not provide capital, but, aware of Britain's declining position against the US and Germany in the steel industry, it wanted steel mills in India. It promised to purchase any surplus steel Tata could not otherwise sell.[188] The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), now headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859–1932), began constructing its plant at Jamshedpur in Bihar in 1908, using American technology, not British.[189] According to The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, TISCO became the leading iron and steel producer in India, and "a symbol of Indian technical skill, managerial competence, and entrepreneurial flair".[187] The Tata family, like most of India's big businessmen, were Indian nationalists but did not trust the Congress because it seemed too aggressively hostile to the Raj, too socialist, and too supportive of trade unions.[190]
British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century, which was the fourth largest in the world. At first the railways were privately owned and operated. They were run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians.[191]
The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to 5% during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier.[192] Two new railway companies, the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and the East Indian Railway Company (EIR) began to construct and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta in 1853–54. The first passenger railway line in North India, between Allahabad and Kanpur, opened in 1859. Eventually, five British companies came to own all railway business in India,[193] and operated under a profit maximization scheme.[194] Further, there was no government regulation of these companies.[193]
In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies was established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India.[195] Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The route mileage of this network increased from 1,349 to 25,495 kilometres (838 to 15,842 mi) between 1860 and 1890, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.[196]
After the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, and subsequent Crown rule over India, the railways were seen as a strategic defense of the European population, allowing the military to move quickly to subdue native unrest and protect Britons.[197] The railway thus served as a tool of the colonial government to control India as they were "an essential strategic, defensive, subjugators and administrative 'tool'" for the Imperial Project.[198]
Most of the railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers.[199] The system was heavily built, using a broad gauge, sturdy tracks and strong bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of rail services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge networks. In 1900, the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to manage it.[199] During the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grain to the ports of Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia, and East Africa.[citation needed] With shipments of equipment and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the army; workshops were converted to making munitions; the locomotives, rolling stock, and track of some entire lines were shipped to the Middle East. The railways could barely keep up with the increased demand.[200] By the end of the war, the railways had deteriorated for lack of maintenance and were not profitable. In 1923, both GIPR and EIR were nationalised.[201][202]
Headrick shows that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The hard physical labor was left to the Indians. The colonial government was chiefly concerned with the welfare of European workers, and any Indian deaths were "either ignored or merely mentioned as a cold statistical figure."[203][204] The government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms.[202] The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives.[205]
After independence in 1947, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated to form a single nationalised unit named the Indian Railways.
India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well-built system designed for military purposes (after the Rebellion of 1857), in the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. Christensen (1996), who looked at colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests, concluded that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the current needs of the railways or of their passengers.[206]
The British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, including canals and irrigation systems.[207] The Ganges Canal reached 560 kilometres (350 miles) from Haridwar to Cawnpore (now Kanpur), and supplied thousands of kilometres of distribution canals. By 1900 the Raj had the largest irrigation system in the world. One success story was Assam, a jungle in 1840 that by 1900 had 1,600,000 hectares (4,000,000 acres) under cultivation, especially in tea plantations. In all, the amount of irrigated land rose eightfold. Historian David Gilmour says:[208]
By the 1870s the peasantry in the districts irrigated by the Ganges Canal were visibly better fed, housed and dressed than before; by the end of the century the new network of canals in the Punjab had produced an even more prosperous peasantry there.
In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British Crown and the technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Great Britain.[209] In fact many of the major changes in transport and communications (that are typically associated with Crown rule of India) had already begun before the Rebellion. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological revolution underway in Britain, India too saw rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links equally rapidly established so that raw materials, such as cotton, from India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England.[210] Likewise, finished goods from England, were transported back, just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets. Massive railway projects were begun in earnest and government railway jobs and pensions attracted a large number of upper caste Hindus into the civil services for the first time. The Indian Civil Service was prestigious and paid well. It remained politically neutral.[211] Imports of British cotton cloth captured more than half the Indian market in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[212] Industrial production as it developed in European factories was unknown until the 1850s when the first cotton mills were opened in Bombay, posing a challenge to the cottage-based home production system based on family labour.[213]
Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; with the land tax revenue claiming 15% of India's national income during Mughal times compared with 1% at the end of the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44% during Mughal times to 54% by the end of colonial period. India's per capita GDP decreased from 1990 Int'l$550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it later increased to $618, by 1947.[214]
Historians continue to debate whether the long-term intention of British rule was to accelerate the economic development of India, or to distort and delay it. In 1780, the conservative British politician Edmund Burke raised the issue of India's position: he vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of the Mughal Empire.[215] Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and of imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible Bengal famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.[216]
P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy.[217] He argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past, which largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.
The East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators.[215] Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation (supported by many scholars in India and the West) that the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent co-operation with Indian elites.[217] Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still highly controversial among many historians.[218]
Studies suggest that from 1765 to 1938 around $45 trillion was stolen by the British as a result of their direct control of India.[219][220][221]
The population of the territory that became the British Raj was 100 million by 1600 and remained nearly stationary until the 19th century. The population of the Raj reached 255 million according to the first census taken in 1881 of India.[222][223][224][225]
Studies of India's population since 1881 have focused on such topics as total population, birth and death rates, growth rates, geographic distribution, literacy, the rural and urban divide, cities of a million, and the three cities with populations over eight million: Delhi, Greater Bombay, and Calcutta.[226]
Mortality rates fell in the 1920–1945 era, primarily due to biological immunisation. Other factors included rising incomes and better living conditions, improved nutrition, a safer and cleaner environment, and better official health policies and medical care.[227]
Severe overcrowding in the cities caused major public health problems, as noted in an official report from 1938:[228]
During the British Raj, India experienced some of the worst famines ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–1878, in which 6.1 million to 10.39 million Indians perished[251] and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million Indians perished.[252] Recent research, including work by Mike Davis and Amartya Sen,[253] argue that famines in India were made more severe by British policies in India.
The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. Ten thousand British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[citation needed] Estimated deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 exceeded 15 million. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917.[254] The Third plague pandemic which started in China in the middle of the 19th century, eventually spread to all inhabited continents and killed 10 million Indians in India alone.[255] Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, became the first microbiologist to develop and deploy vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1925 the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.
Fevers ranked as one of the leading causes of death in India in the 19th century.[256] Britain's Sir Ronald Ross, working in the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta, finally proved in 1898 that mosquitoes transmit malaria, while on assignment in the Deccan at Secunderabad, where the Centre for Tropical and Communicable Diseases is now named in his honour.[257]
In 1881 there were around 120,000 leprosy patients. The central government passed the Lepers Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of people with leprosy in India.[258] Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination.[259] Mass vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end of the 19th century.[260] In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox.[261] Between 1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.[262]
Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to establishing a systematic institution in Bombay for imparting medical knowledge to the natives.[263] In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognised colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (alongside Elphinstone College, Deccan College and Government Law College, Mumbai).[217]
This is the list of civilian massacre of Indians, in most cases unarmed peaceful crowds, by the army.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) presented his Whiggish interpretation of English history as an upward progression always leading to more liberty and more progress. Macaulay simultaneously was a leading reformer involved in transforming the educational system of India. He would base it on the English language so that India could join the mother country in a steady upward progress. Macaulay took Burke's emphasis on moral rule and implemented it in actual school reforms, giving the British Empire a profound moral mission to "civilise the natives".
Yale professor Karuna Mantena has argued that the civilising mission did not last long, for she says that benevolent reformers were the losers in key debates, such as those following the 1857 rebellion in India, and the scandal of Edward Eyre's brutal repression of the Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. The rhetoric continued but it became an alibi for British misrule and racism. No longer was it believed that the natives could truly make progress, instead, they had to be ruled by heavy hand, with democratic opportunities postponed indefinitely. As a result:
The central tenets of liberal imperialism were challenged as various forms of rebellion, resistance and instability in the colonies precipitated a broad-ranging reassessment....the equation of 'good government' with the reform of native society, which was at the core of the discourse of liberal empire, would be subject to mounting scepticism.[282]
English historian Peter Cain, has challenged Mantena, arguing that the imperialists truly believed that British rule would bring to the subjects the benefits of 'ordered liberty', thereby Britain could fulfil its moral duty and achieve its own greatness. Much of the debate took place in Britain itself, and the imperialists worked hard to convince the general population that the civilising mission was well under-way. This campaign served to strengthen imperial support at home, and thus, says Cain, to bolster the moral authority of the gentlemanly elites who ran the Empire.[283]
Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were established in 1857, just before the Rebellion. By 1890 some 60,000 Indians had matriculated, chiefly in the liberal arts or law. About a third entered public administration, and another third became lawyers. The result was a very well educated professional state bureaucracy. By 1887 of 21,000 mid-level civil services appointments, 45% were held by Hindus, 7% by Muslims, 19% by Eurasians (European father and Indian mother), and 29% by Europeans. Of the 1000 top-level civil services positions, almost all were held by Britons, typically with an Oxbridge degree.[284] The government, often working with local philanthropists, opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911; they enrolled 36,000 students (over 90% men). By 1939 the number of institutions had doubled and enrolment reached 145,000. The curriculum followed classical British standards of the sort set by Oxford and Cambridge and stressed English literature and European history. Nevertheless, by the 1920s the student bodies had become hotbeds of Indian nationalism.[285]
_-_1865.jpg/1280px-St._Paul's_Cathedral_-_Calcutta_(Kolkata)_-_1865.jpg)
In 1889, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury stated, "It is not only our duty but is in our interest to promote the diffusion of Christianity as far as possible throughout the length and breadth of India".[287]
The growth of the British Indian Army led to the arrival of many Anglican chaplains in India.[288] Following the arrival of the Church of England's Church Mission Society in 1814, the Diocese of Calcutta of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was erected, with its St. Paul's Cathedral being built in 1847.[289] By 1930, the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon had fourteen dioceses across the Indian Empire.[290]
Missionaries from other Christian denominations came to British India as well; Lutheran missionaries, for example, arrived in Calcutta in 1836 and by "the year 1880 there were over 31,200 Lutheran Christians spread out in 1,052 villages".[287] Methodists began arriving in India in 1783 and established missions with a focus on "education, health ministry, and evangelism".[291][292] In the 1790s, Christians from the London Missionary Society and Baptist Missionary Society, began doing missionary work in the Indian Empire.[293] In Neyoor, the London Missionary Society Hospital "pioneered improvements in the public health system for the treatment of diseases even before organised attempts were made by the colonial Madras Presidency, reducing the death rate substantially".[294]
Christ Church College (1866) and St. Stephen's College (1881) are two examples of prominent church-affiliated educational institutions founded during the British Raj.[295] Within educational institutions established during the British Raj, Christian texts, especially the Bible, were a part of the curricula.[296] During the British Raj, Christian missionaries developed writing systems for Indian languages that previously did not have one.[297][298] Christian missionaries in India also worked to increase literacy and also engaged in social activism, such as fighting against prostitution, championing the right of widowed women to remarry, and trying to stop early marriages for women.[299] Among British women, zenana missions became a popular method to win converts to Christianity.[296]
The old consensus among historians held that British imperial authority was quite secure from 1858 to World War II. Recently, however, this interpretation has been challenged. For example, Mark Condos and Jon Wilson argue that imperial authority was chronically insecure. Indeed, the anxiety of generations of officials produced a chaotic administration with minimal coherence. Instead of a confident state capable of acting as it chose, these historians find a psychologically embattled one incapable of acting except in the abstract, small scale, or short term. Meanwhile, Durba Ghosh offers an alternative approach.[300]
At independence and after the independence of India, the country has maintained such central British institutions as parliamentary government, one-person, one-vote and the rule of law through nonpartisan courts.[215] It retained as well the institutional arrangements of the Raj such as the civil services, administration of sub-divisions, universities and stock exchanges. One major change was the rejection of its former separate princely states. Metcalf shows that over the course of two centuries, British intellectuals and Indian specialists made the highest priority bringing peace, unity and good government to India.[301] They offered many competing methods to reach the goal. For example, Cornwallis recommended turning Bengali Zamindar into the sort of English landlords that controlled local affairs in England.[301] Munro proposed to deal directly with the peasants. Sir William Jones and the Orientalists promoted Sanskrit, while Macaulay promoted the English language.[302] Zinkin argues that in the long-run, what matters most about the legacy of the Raj is the British political ideologies which the Indians took over after 1947, especially the belief in unity, democracy, the rule of law and a certain equality beyond caste and creed.[301] Zinkin sees this not just in the Congress party but also among Hindu nationalists in the Bharatiya Janata Party, which specifically emphasises Hindu traditions.[303][304]
The British colonisation of India influenced South Asian culture noticeably. The most noticeable influence is the English language which emerged as the administrative and lingua franca of India and Pakistan (and which also greatly influenced the native South Asian languages)[306] followed by the blend of native and gothic/sarcenic architecture. Similarly, the influence of the South Asian languages and culture can be seen on Britain, too; for example, many Indian words entering the English language,[307] and also the adoption of South Asian cuisine.[308]
British sports (particularly hockey early on, but then largely replaced by cricket in recent decades, with football also popular in certain regions of the subcontinent)[309][310] were cemented as part of South Asian culture during the British Raj, with the local games largely having been diminished in the process.[311] During the Raj, soldiers would play British sports as a way of maintaining fitness, since the mortality rate for foreigners in India was high at the time, as well as to maintain a sense of Britishness; in the words of an anonymous writer, playing British sports was a way for soldiers to "defend themselves from the magic of the land".[312] Though the British had generally excluded Indians from their play during the time of Company rule, over time they began to see the inculcation of British sports among the native populace as a way of spreading British values.[312][313] At the same time, some of the Indian elite began to move towards British sports as a way of adapting to British culture and thus helping themselves to rise up the ranks;[314][315] later on, more Indians began to play British sports in an effort to beat the British at their own sports,[316] as a way of proving that the Indians were equal to their colonisers.[317]
—Capital of the Indian Empire, situated in 22° 34' N and 88° 22' E, on the east or left bank of the Hooghly river, within the Twenty-four Parganas District, Bengal
—Head-quarters of Simla District, Punjab, and the summer capital of the Government of India, situated on a transverse spur of the Central Himālayan system system, in 31° 6' N and 77° 10' E, at a mean elevation above sea-level of 7,084 feet.
The earlier grammars and dictionaries made it possible for the British government to replace Persian with vernacular languages at the lower levels of the judicial and revenue administration in 1837, that is, to standardize and index terminology for official use and provide for its translation to the language of the ultimate ruling authority, English. For such purposes, Hindustani was equated with Urdu, as opposed to any geographically defined dialect of Hindi and was given official status through large parts of north India. Written in the Persian script with a largely Persian and, via Persian, an Arabic vocabulary, Urdu stood at the shortest distance from the previous situation and was easily attainable by the same personnel. In the wake of this official transformation, the British government began to make its first significant efforts on behalf of vernacular education.
In the government of northern India Persian ruled. Under the British Raj, Persian eventually declined, but, the administration remaining largely Muslim, the role of Persian was taken not by Hindi but by Urdu, known to the British as Hindustani. It was only as the Hindu majority in India began to assert itself that Hindi came into its own.
Although the official languages of administration in India shifted from Persian to English and Urdu in 1837, Persian continued to be taught and read there through the early twentieth century.
It was only in 1837 that Persian lost its position as official language of India to Urdu and to English in the higher levels of administration.
The British used the Urdu language to effect a shift from the prior emphasis on the Persian language. In 1837, the British East India Company adopted Urdu in place of Persian as the co-official language in India, along with English. In the law courts in Bengal and the North-West Provinces and Oudh (modern day Uttar Pradesh) a highly technical form of Urdu was used in the Nastaliq script, by both Muslims and Hindus. The same was the case in the government offices. In the various other regions of India, local vernaculars were used as official language in the lower courts and in government offices. ... In certain parts South Asia, Urdu was written in several scripts. Kaithi was a popular script used for both Urdu and Hindi. By 1880, Kaithi was used as court language in Bihar. However, in 1881, Hindi in Devanagari script replaced Urdu in the Nastaliq script in Bihar. In Panjab, Urdu was written in Nastaliq, Devanagari, Kaithi, and Gurumukhi.
In April 1900, the colonial government of the North-West Provinces and Oudh granted equal official status to both, Devanagari and Nastaliq scripts. However, Nastaliq remained the dominant script. During the 1920s, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi deplored the controversy and the evolving divergence between Urdu and Hindi, exhorting the remerging of the two languages as Hindustani. However, Urdu continued to draw from Persian, Arabic, and Chagtai, while Hindi did the same from Sanskrit. Eventually, the controversy resulted in the loss of the official status of the Urdu language.
The use of Persian was abolished in official correspondence (1835); the government's weight was thrown behind English-medium education and Thomas Babington Macaulay's Codes of Criminal and Civil Procedure (drafted 1841–2, but not completed until the 1860s) sought to impose a rational, Western legal system on the amalgam of Muslim, Hindu and English law which had been haphazardly administered in British courts. The fruits of the Bentinck era were significant. But they were only of general importance in so far as they went with the grain of social changes which were already gathering pace in India. The Bombay and Calcutta intelligentsia were taking to English education well before the Education Minute of 1836. Flowery Persian was already giving way in north India to the fluid and demotic Urdu. As for changes in the legal system, they were only implemented after the Rebellion of 1857 when communications improved and more substantial sums of money were made available for education.
Raj, the: British sovereignty in India before 1947 (also called, the British Raj). The word is from Hindi rāj 'reign'
raj: (often cap; in India) rule, esp. the British rule prior to 1947
As the (Mughal) empire began to decline in the mid-eighteenth century, some of these regional administrations assumed a greater degree of power. Amongst these ... was the East India Company, a British trading company established by Royal Charter of Elizabeth I of England in 1600. The Company gradually expanded its influence in South Asia, in the first instance through coastal trading posts at Surat, Madras and Calcutta. (The British) expanded their influence, winning political control of Bengal and Bihar after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. From here, the Company expanded its influence dramatically across the subcontinent. By 1857, it had direct control over much of the region. The great rebellion of that year, however, demonstrated the limitations of this commercial company's ability to administer these vast territories, and in 1858 the Company was effectively nationalized, with the British Crown assuming administrative control. Hence began the period known as the British Raj, which ended in 1947 with the partition of the subcontinent into the independent nation-states of India and Pakistan.
Between 1858, when the British East India Company transferred power to British Crown rule (the "British Raj"), and 1947, when India gained independence, English gradually developed into the language of government and education. It allowed the Raj to maintain control by creating an elite gentry schooled in British mores, primed to participate in public life, and loyal to the Crown.
During the British East India Company's domination of the Indian subcontinent (1757–1858) and the subsequent British Raj (1858–1947), it was Western-style education that came to be promoted by many as the base upon which a national and uniform education system should be built.
Table 14. Muslim India: outline chronology
Mughal Empire ... 1526–1858
Akbar I ... 1556–1605
Aurengzeb ... 1658–1707
British victory at Plassey ... 1757
Britain becomes paramount power ... 1818
British Raj ... 1858–1947
The rebellion was put down by the end of 1858. The British government passed the Government of India Act, and began direct Crown rule. This era was referred to as the British Raj (though in practice much remained the same).
The film opens with what is a lengthy prologue, contextualising the time and place through a detailed voice-over by Amitabh Bachchan. We are told that the year is 1893. This is significant as it was the height of the British Raj, a period of crown rule lasting from 1858 to 1947.
More than 500 Indian kingdoms and principalities [...] existed during the 'British Raj' period (1858–1947) The rule is also called Crown rule in India
[...] by 1909 the Government of India, reflecting on 50 years of Crown rule after the rebellion, could boast that [...]
In part, the Mutiny was a reaction against this upheaval of traditional Indian society. The suppression of the Mutiny after a year of fighting was followed by the break-up of the East India Company, the exile of the deposed emperor and the establishment of the British Raj, and direct rule of the Indian subcontinent by the British.
Company rule in India lasted effectively from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 until 1858, when following the 1857 Indian Rebellion, the British Crown assumed direct colonial rule of India in the new British Raj.
portal to educational sources available in the India Office Records
The standard of the Viceroy...served as the official flag of British India after 1861
In August [1921], the new viceroy, Lord Reading, declared his government's intention of retaining the Union Jack, with the Star of India as the flag for India
The growth of the army in India also led to many army chaplains. After the change in the Charter in 1813, Anglican missionaries began to work across North India. The missionaries translated the Book of Common Prayer into various Indian languages. The first Anglican diocese was Calcutta in 1813, and bishops from India were at the first Lambeth conference. In 1930 the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon became an independent Province and created its own Book of Common Prayer, which was translated into several languages.
The three dioceses thus formed have been repeatedly subdivided, until in 1930 there were fourteen dioceses, the dates of their creation being as follows : Calcutta 1814; Madras 1835; Bombay 1837; Colombo 1845; Lahore 1877; Rangoon 1877; Travancore 1879; Chota Nagpur 1890; Lucknow 1893; Tinnevelly 1896; Nagpur 1903; Dornakal 1912; Assam 1915; Nasik 1929.
Media related to British Raj at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to British Raj at Wikiquote
British Raj travel guide from Wikivoyage
The dictionary definition of british raj at Wiktionary
.jpg/1280px-Pherozeshah_Mehta_(portrait).jpg)
![One rupee coins showing George VI, King-Emperor, 1940 (left) and just before India's independence in 1947 (right)[i]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/GeorgeVIKingEmperorIndia1940and1947.jpg/1280px-GeorgeVIKingEmperorIndia1940and1947.jpg)
![Flag of the Governor General of India, held at the National Maritime Museum in London. The central badge was based on the Star of India; this flag was also used by the provincial governors.[173]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Flag_of_the_Governor_General_of_India_RMG_RP-35-18_(crop).jpg/1280px-Flag_of_the_Governor_General_of_India_RMG_RP-35-18_(crop).jpg)
![Ensign of the Royal Indian Marine, held at the National Maritime Museum in London.[174] The same design also served as the jack of the Royal Indian Navy.[175]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Ensign_of_the_Royal_Indian_Marine_(1927-1947)_RMG_RP_18_21.jpg/1280px-Ensign_of_the_Royal_Indian_Marine_(1927-1947)_RMG_RP_18_21.jpg)
![The Viceroy's Star of India banner being used to represent India at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.[176]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Viceroy_of_India_Flag_hoist.jpg/1280px-Viceroy_of_India_Flag_hoist.jpg)
