Maratha Empire Main article: Maratha Empire The post-Mughal era was dominated by the rise of the Maratha suzerainty as other small regional states (mostly late Mughal tributary states) emerged, and also by the increasing activities of European powers (see colonial era below). There is no doubt that the single most important power to emerge in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Maratha Empire.[125] The Maratha kingdom was founded and consolidated by Shivaji, a Maratha aristocrat of the Bhonsle clan who was determined to establish Hindavi Swarajya (self-rule of Hindu people). By the 18th century, it had transformed itself into the Maratha Empire under the rule of the Peshwas (prime ministers). Gordon explains how the Maratha systematically took control over the Malwa plateau in 1720-1760. They started with annual raids, collecting ransom from villages and towns while the declining Mughal Empire retained nominal control. However in 1737, the Marathas defeated a Mughal army in their capital, Delhi inteslf, and as a result, the Mughal emperor ceded Malwa to them. The Marathas continued their military campaigns against Mughals, Nizam, Nawab of Bengal and Durrani Empire to further extend their boundaries. They built an efficient system of public administration known for its attention to detail. It succeeded in raising revenue in districts that recovered from years of raids, up to levels previously enjoyed by the Mughals. The cornerstone of the Maratha rule in Malwa rested on the 60 or so local tax collectors (kamavisdars) who advanced the Maratha ruler (Peshwa) a portion of their district revenues at interest.[126] By 1760, the domain of the Marathas stretched across practically the entire subcontinent.[127] The defeat of Marathas by British in three Anglo-Maratha Wars brought end to the empire by 1820. The last peshwa, Baji Rao II, was defeated by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. Sikh Empire (North-west) Harmandir Sahib or The Golden Temple is culturally the most significant place of worship for the Sikhs. Main article: Sikh Empire See also: History of Sikhism The Punjabi kingdom, ruled by members of the Sikh religion, was a political entity that governed the region of modern-day Punjab. The empire, based around the Punjab region, existed from 1799 to 1849. It was forged, on the foundations of the Khalsa, under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–1839) from an array of autonomous Punjabi Misls. He consolidated many parts of northern India into a kingdom. He primarily used his highly disciplined Sikh army that he trained and equipped to be the equal of a European force. Ranjit Singh proved himself to be a master strategist and selected well qualified generals for his army. In stages, he added the central Punjab, the provinces of Multan and Kashmir, the Peshawar Valley, and the Derajat to his kingdom. His came in the face of the powerful British East India Company.[128][129] At its peak, in the 19th century, the empire extended from the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north, to Sindh in the south, and Himachal in the east. This was among the last areas of the subcontinent to be conquered by the British. The first and second Anglo-Sikh war marked the downfall of the Sikh Empire. Other kingdoms There were several other kingdoms which ruled over parts of India in the later mediaeval period prior to the British occupation. However, most of them were bound to pay regular tribute to the Marathas.[127] The rule of Wodeyar dynasty which established the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India in around 1400 CE by was interrupted by Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the later half of 18th century. Under their rule, Mysore fought a series of wars sometimes against the combined forces of the British and Marathas, but mostly against the British, with Mysore receiving some aid or promise of aid from the French. The Nawabs of Bengal had become the de facto rulers of Bengal following the decline of Mughal Empire. However, their rule was interrupted by Marathas who carried six expeditions in Bengal from 1741 to 1748 as a result of which Bengal became a vassal state of Marathas. Hyderabad was founded by the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda in 1591. Following a brief Mughal rule, Asif Jah, a Mughal official, seized control of Hyderabad and declared himself Nizam-al-Mulk of Hyderabad in 1724. It was ruled by a hereditary Nizam from 1724 until 1948. Both Mysore and Hyderabad became princely states in British India. Around the 18th century, the modern state of Nepal was formed by Gurkha rulers. Colonial era (1500-1947) Main article: Colonial India In 1498, Vasco da Gama successfully discovered a new sea route from Europe to India, which paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce.[130] The Portuguese soon set up trading posts in Goa, Daman, Diu and Bombay. The next to arrive were the Dutch, the British—who set up a trading post in the west coast port of Surat[131] in 1619—and the French. The internal conflicts among Indian kingdoms gave opportunities to the European traders to gradually establish political influence and appropriate lands. Although these continental European powers controlled various coastal regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they eventually lost all their territories in India to the British islanders, with the exception of the French outposts of Pondichéry and Chandernagore, the Dutch port of Travancore, and the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu. Company rule in India Main articles: East India Company and Company rule in India Map of India in 1857 at the end of Company rule. In 1617 the British East India Company was given permission by Mughal Emperor Jahangir to trade in India.[132] Gradually their increasing influence led the de jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty free trade in Bengal in 1717.[133] The Nawab of Bengal Siraj Ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of the Bengal province, opposed British attempts to use these permits. The First Carnatic War extended from 1746 until 1748 and was the result of colonial competition between France and Britain, two of the countries involved in the War of Austrian Succession. Following the capture of a few French ships by the British fleet in India, French troops attacked and captured the British city of Madras located on the east coast of India on 21 September 1746. Among the prisoners captured at Madras was Robert Clive himself. The war was eventually ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle which ended the War of Austrian Succession in 1748. In 1749, the Second Carnatic War broke out as the result of a war between a son, Nasir Jung, and a grandson, Muzaffer Jung, of the deceased Nizam-ul-Mulk of Hyderabad to take over Nizams throne in Hyderabad. The French supported Muzaffer Jung in this civil war. Consequently, the British supported Nasir Jung in this conflict. Meanwhile, however, the conflict in Hyderabad provided Chanda Sahib with an opportunity to take power as the new Nawab of the territory of Arcot. In this conflict, the French supported Chandra Sahib in his attempt to become the new Nawab of Arcot. The British supported the son of the deposed incumbent Nawab, Anwaruddin Muhammad Khan, against Chanda Sahib. In 1751, Robert Clive led a British armed force and captured Arcot to reinstate the incumbent Nawab. The Second Carnatic War finally came to an end in 1754 with the Treaty of Pondicherry. In 1756, the Seven Years War broke out between the great powers of Europe, and India became a theatre of action, where it was called the Third Carnatic War. Early in this war, armed forces under the French East India Company captured the British base of Calcutta in north-eastern India. However, armed forces under Robert Clive later recaptured Calcutta and then pressed on to capture the French settlement of Chandannagar in 1757. This led to the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, in which the Bengal Army of the East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the French-supported Nawabs forces. This was the first real political foothold with territorial implications that the British acquired in India. Clive was appointed by the company as its first Governor of Bengal in 1757.[134] This was combined with British victories over the French at Madras, Wandiwash and Pondichéry that, along with wider British successes during the Seven Years War, reduced French influence in India. Thus as a result of the three Carnatic Wars, the British East India Company gained exclusive control over the entire Carnatic region of India.[135] The British East India Company extended its control over the whole of Bengal. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company acquired the rights of administration in Bengal from Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II; this marked the beginning of its formal rule, which within the next century engulfed most of India and extinguished the Moghul rule and dynasty.[136] The East India Company monopolized the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called the Permanent Settlement which introduced a feudal-like structure in Bengal, often with zamindars set in place. By the 1850s, the East India Company controlled most of the Indian sub-continent, which included present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their policy was sometimes summed up as Divide and Rule, taking advantage of the enmity festering between various princely states and social and religious groups.[137] The Hindu Ahom Kingdom of North-east India first fell to Burmese invasion and then to British after Treaty of Yandabo in 1826. The rebellion of 1857 and its consequences Main article: Indian rebellion of 1857 Viceroy Lord Canning meets Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, March 9, 1860 The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large-scale rebellion by soldiers employed by the British East India in northern and central India against the Companys rule. The rebels were disorganized, had differing goals, and were poorly equipped, led, and trained, and had no outside support or funding. They were brutally suppressed and the British government took control of the Company and eliminated many of the grievances that caused it. The government also was determined to keep full control so that no rebellion of such size would ever happen again. It favoured the princely states (that helped suppress the rebellion), and tended to favour Muslims (who were less rebellious) against the Hindus who dominated the rebellion.[138] In the aftermath, all power was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown, which began to administer most of India as a number of provinces; the John Companys lands were controlled directly, while it had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India, which consisted of the Princely states ruled by local royal families. There were officially 565 princely states in 1947, but only 21 had actual state governments, and only three were large (Mysore, Hyderabad and Kashmir). They were absorbed into the independent nation in 1947-48.[139] British Raj (1858-1947) Main article: British Raj The British Indian Empire at its greatest extent (in a map of 1909). The princely states under British suzerainty are in yellow. Reforms When the Lord Curzon (Viceroy 1899-1905) took control of higher education and then split the large province of Bengal into a largely Hindu western half and Eastern Bengal and Assam, a largely Muslim eastern half. The British goal was efficient administration but Hindus were outraged at the apparent divide and rule strategy. When the Liberal party in Britain came to power in 1906 he was removed. The new Viceroy Gilbert Minto and the new Secretary of State for India John Morley consulted with Congress leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale. The Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 provided for Indian membership of the provincial executive councils as well as the Viceroys executive council. The Imperial Legislative Council was enlarged from 25 to 60 members and separate communal representation for Muslims was established in a dramatic step towards representative and responsible government. Bengal was reunified in 1911.[140] Meanwhile the Muslims for the first time began to organise, setting up the All India Muslim League in 1906. It was not a mass party but was designed to protect the interests of the aristocratic Muslims, especially in the north west. It was internally divided by conflicting loyalties to Islam, the British, and India, and by distrust of Hindus.[141] Famines During the British Raj, famines in India, often attributed to failed government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78 in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died[142] and the Indian famine of 1899–1900 in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.[142] The Third Plague Pandemic started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading plague to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[143] Despite persistent diseases and famines, the population of the Indian subcontinent, which stood at about 125 million in 1750, had reached 389 million by 1941.[144] The Indian independence movement Main articles: Indian independence movement and Pakistan Movement See also: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Indian independence activists Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bombay, 1944. The numbers of British in India were small, yet they were able to rule two-thirds of the subcontinent directly and exercise considerable leverage over the princely states that accounted for the remaining one-third of the area. There were 674 of the these states in 1900, with a population of 73 million, or one person in five. In general, the princely states were strong supporters of the British regime, and the Raj left them alone. They were finally closed down in 1947-48.[145] The first step toward Indian self-rule was the appointment of councillors to advise the British viceroy, in 1861; the first Indian was appointed in 1909. Provincial Councils with Indian members were also set up. The councillors participation was subsequently widened into legislative councils. The British built a large British Indian Army, with the senior officers all British, and many of the troops from small minority groups such as Gurkhas from Nepal and Sikhs. The civil service was increasingly filled with natives at the lower levels, with the British holding the more senior positions.[146] From 1920 leaders such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began highly popular mass movements to campaign against the British Raj using largely peaceful methods. Some others adopted a militant approach that sought to overthrow British rule by armed struggle; revolutionary activities against the British rule took place throughout the Indian sub-continent. The Gandhi-led independence movement opposed the British rule using non-violent methods like non-cooperation, civil disobedience and economic resistance. These movements succeeded in bringing independence to the new dominions of India and Pakistan in august 6th, 1947. Independence and partition (1947-present) Main articles: Partition of India, History of the Republic of India, History of Pakistan, and History of Bangladesh Along with the desire for independence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. The Muslims had always been a minority within the subcontinent, and the prospect of an exclusively Hindu government made them wary of independence; they were as inclined to mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the foreign Raj, although Gandhi called for unity between the two groups in an astonishing display of leadership. The British, extremely weakened by the Second World War, promised that they would leave and participated in the formation of an interim government. The British Indian territories gained independence in 1947, after being partitioned into the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. Following the controversial division of pre-partition Punjab and Bengal, rioting broke out between Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in these provinces and spread to several other parts of India, leaving some 500,000 dead.[147] Also, this period saw one of the largest mass migrations ever recorded in modern history, with a total of 12 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims moving between the newly created nations of India and Pakistan (which gained independence on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively).[147] In 1971, Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan and East Bengal, seceded from Pakistan.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:52:05 +0000
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