Indian History From the Mughal Empire and British

Indian History From the Mughal Empire and British India to the Independence.

The Mughal Empire

Babar, the great grandson of Tamerlane and on mother's side was descended from the Genghiz Khan, came to India in 1526 at the request of an Indian governor who sought Babar's help in his fight against Ibrahim Lodi, the last head of the Delhi Sultanate. Babar defeated Lodi at Panipat, not far from Delhi, and so came to establish the Mughal Empire in India. Babar ruled until 1530, and was succeeded by his son Humayun. Babar (1526-1530)

Akbar the Great - Akbar the Great, Humayun's son, who is conventionally described as the glory of the empire. - Akbar reigned from 1556 to 1605, and extended his empire as far to the west as Afghanistan, and as far south as the Godavari river. Akbar, though a Muslim, is remembered as a tolerant ruler, and he even started a new faith, Din-i-Ilahi, which was an attempt to blend Islam with Hinduism, Christianity, Jainism, and other faiths.

Indian Festivals The Holi Festival. Krishna, Radha and Gopis playing Holi. Chamba miniature, 26x22 cm. Collection: London, Victoria and Albert Museum.

- Akbar was succeeded by his son Salim, who took the title of Jahangir. In his reign (1605-1627), Jahangir consolidated the gains made by his father. The courtly culture of the Mughals flourished under his rule. Shortly after his death in October 1627, his son, Shah Jahan, succeeded to the throne. Shah Jahan left behind an extraordinarily rich architectural legacy, which includes the Taj Mahal and the old city of Delhi, Shahjahanabad. He apparently lay dying in 1658. Jahangir and Shah Jahan

Aurangzeb -Aurangzeb (1658-1707), who was favored by powerful men more inclined o turn the Mughal Empire into an Islamic state subject to the laws of the Sharia. -It is Aurangzeb who triumphed, and though the Mughal Empire saw yet further expansion in the early years, by the later part of the seventeenth century the empire was beginning to disintegrate. -After Aurangzeb's death, many of his vassals established themselves as sovereign rulers, and so began the period of what are called "successor states". -The Mughal Empire survived until 1857, but its rulers were, after 1803, pensioners of the East India Company.

The Mughal Empire (1526 – 1707) Source: F. Robinson, Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (Oxford, 19822), p.59.

BRITISH INDIA

-On 31 December 1600, Elizabeth, acceded to the demand of a large body of merchants that a royal charter be given to a new trading company, "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East-Indies.“ -Between 1601-13, merchants of the East India Company took twelve voyages to India, and in 1609 William Hawkins arrived at the court of Jahangir to seek permission to establish a British presence in India. -Sir Thomas Roe gained Jahangir's permission to build a British factory in Surat (1619), and in 1639, this was followed by the founding of Fort St. George (Madras). The East India Company

Gateway of India, Bombay

-In 1757, on account of the British victory at Plassey, where a military force led by Robert Clive defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah, the East India Company found itself transformed from an association of traders to rulers exercising political sovereignty over a largely unknown land and people. -Less than ten years later, in 1765, the Company acquired the Diwani of Bengal, or the right to collect revenues on behalf of the Mughal Emperor, in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. -In the 1840s and 1850s, under the governal-generalship of Dalhousie and then Canning, more territories were absorbed into British India. -The territory was bound to "lapse" into British India upon the death of the ruler. Such was the fate of Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Jhansi (1853), Nagpur (1854), Awadh [spelled as Oudh], (1856).

-Shortly after the annexation of Awadh, the Sepoy Mutiny (1857-58), broke out. This was by far the greatest threat posed to the British since the beginnings of their acquisition of an empire in India in 1757 Delhi was recaptured by British troops in late 1857. The Emperor Bahadur Shah, last of the Mughals, was put on trial for sedition and predictably convicted, and by mid-1858 the Rebellion had been entirely crushed. The East India Company was abolished. India became a Crown colony, to be governed directly by Parliament, and henceforth responsibility for Indian affairs would fall upon a member of the British cabinet, the Secretary of State for India, while in India itself the man at the helm of affairs would continue to be the Governor-General, the representative of the monarch as the of India. Indian Rebellion

larger numbers of Indians joined government service in 1885 the Indian National Congress, at first an association comprised largely of lawyers and some other professionals, was founded In 1905 was provoked the first major resistance to British rule and administrative policies in the aftermath of the Rebellion of 1857-58. It is during the Swadeshi movement that Indians deployed various strategies of non-violent resistance, boycott, strike and non-cooperation. The Muslim League was founded in 1907, on the supposition that the interests of the Muslims could not be served by the Indian National Congress. The capital of the country was shifted as well from Calcutta to Delhi, where a new set of official buildings designed to reflect imperial splendor led to the creation of New Delhi.

An English baby girl being carried on a palanquin by Indian bearers, on the road fo Nainital. Photograph dated 1904

On the conclusion of the war, the British sought to introduce draconian legislation to contain the activity of people presumed to be political extremists. Mahatma Gandhi led the non-cooperation movement against the British in 1920-22, as well as a campaign of civil disobedience in 1930-31, and in 1942 he issued the call to the British to “Quit India”. Negotiations for some degree of Indian independence, led by Gandhi, first took place in 1930 at the Round Table Conferences in London, but shortly thereafter the Congress decided to adopt a resolution calling for purna swaraj, or complete independence from British rule. Mahatma Gandhi

The Way to Independence -The British Prime Minister Clement Atlee declared that the British would grant India its independence, negotiations were commenced with all the major political parties and communities, including the Sikhs, the Congress, and the Muslim League. -In launching Direct Action Day in 1946, which led to immense communal killings in Calcutta, the Muslim League sought to convey the idea that an undivided India was no longer a possibility; and the eventual attainment of independence from British rule on 15 August 1947 was accompanied not only by the creation of the new state of Pakistan, comprised of Muslim-majority areas in both the eastern and western parts of India, but by the unprecedented horrors of partition.

Influences of British rule in contemporary India The elites of the country write and converse largely in English, and are connected amongst themselves, and to the larger world outside, through the English language. The Constitution of India, howsoever noble a document, has been decisively shaped by the Government of India Act of 1935. India inherited from the British its present university system, and the origins of the summer migration of the middle class and elites to hill stations date back to the early nineteenth century. Social institutions such as clubs and gymkhanas, which persist down to the present day, were a critical part of British life. In sports, the abiding passion remains cricket (once a preeminently colonial game), and the favorite drink of the Indian middle class male remains scotch and soda.

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