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The East India Company

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Governor-General Lord Wellesley began expanding the Company's domain on a large scale, defeating Tippu Sultan, annexing Mysore in southern India, and removing all French influence from the subcontinent.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie launched the Company's most ambitious expansion, defeating the Sikhs in the Anglo-Sikh Wars and subduing Burma in the Second Burmese War. He also justified the takeover of small princely states such as Satara, Sambalpur, Jhansi, and Nagpur by way of the doctrine of lapse, which permitted the Company to annex any princely state whose ruler had died without a male heir. The annexation of Oudh in 1856 proved to be the Company's final territorial acquisition.

The East India Company (EIC), was an English and later British joint-stock company, which was formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent.Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

Hastings remained in India until 1784 and was succeeded by Cornwallis, who initiated the Permanent Settlement, whereby an agreement in perpetuity was reached with landlords for the collection of revenue. For the next 50 years, the British were engaged in attempts to eliminate Indian rivals.

Company rule in India

First War of Indian Independence

On December 31, 1600 Queen Elizabeth I of England granted a royal charter to the British East India Company to carry out trade with the East. Ships first arrived in India in 1608, docking at Surat in modern-day Gujarat.

By the mid-1600s, the Company had established trading posts in major Indian cities. In 1670 King Charles II granted the company the right to acquire territory, raise an army, mint its own money, and exercise legal jurisdiction in areas under its control.

By the last decade of the seventeenth century, the Company was arguably its own "nation" on the Indian subcontinent, possessing considerable military power and ruling the three presidencies.

On May 10, 1857 soldiers of the British Indian Army, drawn from the Indian Hindu and Muslim population, rose against British in Meerut, a cantonment northeast of Delhi. At the time, the strength of the Company's Army in India was 238,000, of whom 38,000 were Europeans. Indian soldiers marched to Delhi to offer their services to the Mughal emperor, and soon much of north and central India was plunged into a year-long insurrection against the British East India Company. Many Indian regiments and Indian kingdoms joined the uprising, while other Indian units and Indian kingdoms backed the British commanders and the HEIC.

British expansion across India

Four years later, British traders battled the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally, and gained the favor of the Mughal emperor Jahangir.

In 1615, King James I sent Sir Thomas Roe as his ambassador to Jahangir's court, and a commercial treaty was concluded in which the Mughals allowed the Company to build trading posts in India in return for goods from Europe.

Lord North's India Bill, The Regulating Act of 1773, by the British Parliament granted Whitehall, the British government administration, supervisory control over the work of the East India Company but did not take power for itself. This was the first step along the road to government control of India. It also established the post of Governor-General of India, the first occupant of which was Warren Hastings. Further acts, such as the Charter Act of 1813 and the Charter Act of 1833, further defined the relationship of the Company and the British government.

Starting of British rule in Sub Continent

Made by: Sara Sohail

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