Importance and Objectives of Queen

Victoria's Proclamation of 1858

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major insurgence in India against the rule of the British East India
Company, which performed as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on
May 10, 1857, in the form of a revolt of sepoys of the Company's army in the Garrison Town of Meerut,
in the northeast of Delhi. The rebellion posed a substantial risk to British power in that region and was
contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on June 20, 1858. On August 2, 1858, after Canning
officially announced the victory of British arms, the Parliament passed the Government of India Act,
transferring British power over India from the East India Company to the crown, liquidating the
company. Under this act, the Board of Control, which was responsible for looking after the affairs of the
colonial state of India, and the Court of Directors were discarded. The policy of a dual government,
introduced by Pitt’s India Act, was also removed. On November 1st,1858, a palatial Darbar was held at
Allahabad where a proclamation was unveiled openly by Lord Canning. Under this, it was declared that
subsequently India would be governed by and in the name of the British Monarch through a Secretary of
State. Hence, the remaining powers of the merchant company were entrusted to the Secretary of State
for India, a minister of Great Britain’s Cabinet, who would take the chair of the India Office in London
and be assisted and advised, especially in matters regarding finance, by an Indian Council, which
consisted initially of fifteen Britons.

Objectives and Importance of Proclamation of 1858:

A new British policy for the” Native Princes of India” was disclosed. It promised endless support for the
“native princes” and promised not to intervene in matters relating to religious belief or worship within
British India. It allowed freedom in having different religions. With this announcement, Lord Dalhousie’s
prewar policy of political unification through the annexation of the princely states was reverted. In
return for swearing allegiance to the British Crown, the Princes were freed and allowed to choose their
heirs. The statement affirmed the local prince’s status as royalty, as well as their rights and dignity.
The guarantee that the current geographical possessions will not be expanded was offered to the Indian 
public.The most significant outcome was that from this point forward, Indian Sepoys were enlisted in
the British Army's regular duty and took part in the world wars of the following century. There were 560
princely states scattered throughout India, which survived for nine decades of British rule because the
British feared another mutiny. The policy of nonintervention in matters relating to religious beliefs was
added due to fear of mutiny which Britons believed was activated by the reaction of Muslims and Hindus
to secularizing inroads of utilitarian positivism and the proselytizing of Christian missionaries.
The East India Company's Hindu Widow's Remarriage Act of 1856 and the crown's timid Age of Consent 
Act of 1891, which merely raised the age of statutory rape for "consenting" Indian brides from ten to
twelve years old, effectively put an end to British liberal socioreligious reform for more than three decad
es. The manifesto also identified the prosperity of India as the strength of the British and the satisfaction
of the Indians as the security of the monarch's power in India. Economically, it was a time of increased
commercial agricultural production, the rapid expansion of trade, early industrial development, and
severe famine. The total cost of the revolt of 1857 to 1859, equivalent to a normal year's revenue, was
charged to India and from the increased revenue sources was paid off in four years. The main source of
government revenue during this period was still land revenue, which was measured as a percentage of
the agricultural output of Indian soils and remained a "monsoon rain yearly bet". It provided about half
of British India's total annual income, the money needed to support the army. At the time, the second
most lucrative source of income was the government's continued monopoly on the opium trade, which
was second only to China. The third was the salt tax, also carefully guarded by the royal family as an
official monopoly reserve. Although a personal income tax was introduced during his five years to offset
wartime deficits, local government personal income was not added as a regular source of India's
revenue until 1886. During this period, Britain continued to adhere to a laissez-faire policy, in 1860 a
10% tariff was imposed to help pay off its war debts, but in 1864 a 7% tariff was imposed, and in 1875
reduced to 5% in 2012. The cotton import tax already mentioned was abolished by Governor Lytton in
1879 but was reimposed on British general goods and yarn imports until his 1894 when the value of
silver on the world market had fallen sharply. It was never done. Home country economic interests (e.g.
Lancashire textiles) Bombay's textile industry had by then developed over 80 power plants, owned by
Indian businessman Jamsetji (Jamshedji) N. Tata (1839–1904) The huge Empress factory was running at
full capacity in Nagpur and was in direct competition with the surrounding Lancashire factory. The
factory is a huge Indian market. The British factory owner decided in Calcutta again to the Indian
government that the factory would be manufactured in India. Mandated a "compensatory" 5 percent
excise tax on all fabrics, convincing many Indian factory owners and financiers that it was in their best
interests. financial support.

Britain’s major contribution to India’s economic development throughout the era of Crown rule was the
railroad network that spread so swiftly across the subcontinent after 1858 when there were barely 200
miles (320 km) of track in all of India. By 1869 more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of steel, the track had
been completed by British railroad companies, and by 1900 there were some 25,000 miles (40,000 km)
of rail laid. By the start of World War I (1914–18), the total reached 35,000 miles (56,000 km), almost
the full growth of British India’s rail net. Initially, the railroads proved a mixed blessing for most Indians,
since by linking India’s agricultural, village-based heartland to the British imperial port cities of Bombay,
Madras, and Calcutta, they served both to accelerate the pace of raw-material extraction from India and
to speed up the transition from subsistence food to commercial agricultural production. Middlemen
hired by port-city agency houses rode the trains inland and induced village headmen to convert large
tracts of grain-yielding land to commercial crops. When British demand was high, such as during the
American Civil War (1861-1865), large amounts of silver were offered as payment for raw materials.
After the end of the Civil War, however, the Indian market collapsed when raw cotton was brought back
from the southern United States to factories in Lancashire. Millions of farmers accustomed to grain
production found themselves going through the ups and downs of the global market economy. They
were unable to turn commercial agricultural surpluses back into food during the years of depression,
and between 1865 and 1900 India experienced a series of protracted famines, and in 1896 the plague
introduced bubonic plague spread from Bombay, where infected rats were bought from China. Although
the subcontinent's population rose dramatically from about 200 million in 1872 (the year of the first
nearly global census) to over 319 million in 1921, the population remained It may have declined slightly
during 1905.The spread of railways also hastened the destruction of India's indigenous handicraft
industry. Trains of cheap industrial goods shipped from England flooded the interior towns for
distribution to the villages, thereby undermining the cruder products of Indian artisans. Entire artisan
villages lost their traditional markets to neighboring farming villagers, forcing the artisans to abandon
their looms and spinning wheels and return to earth to earn a living.By the end of the 19th century,
India's population had grown A larger proportion (perhaps more than three-quarters) of the population
became directly dependent on agriculture than at the beginning of the century, and population
pressure on arable land increased during this period. Railroads also provided the military with quick and
relatively safe access to all parts of the country in times of emergency, and were eventually used to
transport grain for famine relief. British India multiplied past its organisation borders to each the
northwest and the northeast in the course of the preliminary section of crown rule. The turbulent tribal
frontier to the northwest remained a persevering with supply of harassment to settled British rule, and
Pathan (Pashtun) raiders served as a regular entice and justification to champions of the “forward
school” of imperialism withinside the colonial places of work of Calcutta and Simla and withinside the
imperial authorities places of work at Whitehall, London. Russian growth into Central Asia withinside the
1860s furnished even more tension and incentive to British proconsuls in India, in addition to on the
Foreign Office in London, to enhance the frontier of the Indian empire past the Hindu Kush mountain
variety and, indeed, as much as Afghanistan`s northern border alongside the Amu Darya. Lord Canning
(ruled 1856–62), however, became a long way too preoccupied with seeking to repair tranquillity inside
India to keep in mind embarking on whatever extra formidable than the northwest frontier punitive
excursion policy (generally called “butcher and bolt”), which became usually seemed because the
simplest, most inexpensive technique of “pacifying” the Pathans.The Indian government, the greatest
imperial bureaucracy in the world from 1858 to 1909, was a paternal tyranny that was becoming more
and more centrally
controlled.With the passage of the Indian Councils Act in 1861, the viceroy's Executive Council was trans
formed into a toy cabinet run on the portfolio system, with each of the five ordinary members in charge 
of a different division of the Calcutta government: the home, revenue, military, finance, and law depart
ments. The head of the military served as an extra member of that council. After 1874, a sixth ordinary 
member was appointed to the viceroy's Executive Council, initially to oversee the Department of Public 
Works, which was renamed Commerce and Industry after 1904. Although the viceroy's secondary title of 
"Governor-General-in-Council" remained the official title of the government of India. Even though the
British Crown had a hold over the Administration of India, due respect was remunerated to the customs
and ancient rites of the people of India. In the declaration, various social issues such as racial
discrimination were objectified. As a way to fulfill the promise of prosperity and racial equality, the
Indian Civil Service post was created. The examination consisted of many obstacles such as the age limit
which was between 17 and 22 and Britain as an exam center and examination was only given by males,
by 1869 only one Indian had managed to overcome these obstacles. These promises of equality were
not fulfilled in actual implementation by the envious and uneasy bureaucrats. The Natives of India were
granted status similar to that of the British subjects.

To sum it up, In order to conserve a setting of peace and prosperity in the nation, Britain decided to
replace the continual hold of the East India Company over India with the permanent power of the British
Crown. The proclamation had noticeable impacts on the East India Company and the treaties with the
princes. The declaration was guided by the guiding principles of religion and justice and that there won’t
be any interference in Indian society, amidst these sensitive topics. Further, the declaration objectified
various societal issues like racial discrimination that prevailed in the country and focused on removing all
these evil of underdevelopment. After the commencement of the Proclamation act, the ruling principle
of Britain was changed. Two new directives were introduced for handling Indian affairs and rule over it.
One was colonial rule and the other was divide and rule. However, not all promises listed in the
proclamation of 1858 were fulfilled and the people of India had to pay the price for it.