British Influence in India

COLONIZATION AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION HIST 1301 | History British Influence in India Following their Seven Years' War triumph, the British concentrated on extending their rule over India. The king of Bengal, a territory in northeast India, who had favoured the French, was overthrown in 1757 by the armies of the British East India Company, under the command of Robert Clive. After winning, the British East India Company came to rule over an area bigger than the island of Britain. After the British took Pondicherry four years later, the French were essentially eliminated from the race to control the Indian trade. The Indigenous peoples of India were the only real source of resistance after 1761. At Buxar in 1764, an army under the leadership of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II was routed by a considerably larger force headed by British and Indian soldiers under the British East India Company. Following Buxar, the Mughals continued to rule over parts of northern and western India, but they essentially gave the British East India Company authority over most of southern and eastern India. In 1765, the British East India Company was granted the authority to levy taxes in Bengal as part of this. The Company was able to further rule India thanks to the enormous income it received from tax collecting. By 1799, forces led by the Company had overthrown the Maratha Empire in central India and by 1818, the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. The British colonial administration of India brought economic benefits to both Britain and the British East India Company. The firm was first established in 1600 by investors who concentrated on trading spices. But when the profit and cost of spices declined, the company focused on textiles made by extremely talented Indian weavers. Ultimately, the corporation changed its strategy when the value of hand-woven fabric started to decline in the early nineteenth century and started exchanging Indian-produced opium for Chinese-grown tea, which by the late eighteenth century was becoming an increasingly desirable consumer commodity. Indirect rule, in which colonial forces collaborated with Indigenous elites and let local leaders to exert some authority, was the norm for the British East India Company. Indian elites supported the international and commercial strategies of the corporation in return for British backing of their authority. Above all, they made sure that the Native Americans continued to supply the British East India Company with troops and taxes. Indian troops known as "sepoys," who were frequently commanded by British commanders, upheld and guarded British laws and territory in India. Through the use of indirect rule, which frequently operated within preexisting power structures, the British government was able to sustain the elites who had long dominated India. On the other hand, the British disturbed customs in regions where Indigenous leaders rejected colonisation, drove out elites who refused to comply, and took direct control of such regions. Indian society was riven by British control, with factions within many Indigenous groups supporting various uprisings against foreign authority and others desiring to work with the British. There was also division among Indians who resisted the British between those who preferred violent resistance and those who thought nonviolent resistance offered more opportunities. Due to pressure from religious groups on the British Parliament in 1813, the British East India Company granted missionaries restricted entry into India. The Company had previously prohibited Christian missionaries out of concern that their activities would spark unrest and impede trade, but this policy was reversed. The new approach did not sit well with anybody and brought British Christians, Indian Muslims, and Hindus together in an unexpected coalition. Their only common ground was that the British East India Company ought not to govern India. Because of the East India Company's position on missionary work, British Christians were against its control. Hindus and Muslims in India resisted Company control because they wanted to be self-governing.