How the British Empire Colonized India

The Indian subcontinent was subjugated by an island more than 20 times smaller in size. This
unimaginable conquest of what would become the jewel in the British crown greatly empowered
the British Empire. By the middle of the 19th century, British rule led to a new wave of South
Asian nationalist movements the effects of which are still felt to this day, but we're not going to
be delving into too much detail about the consequences of British rule. Our goal is to evaluate
what actions taken by the British and Indians alike paved the way for British rule.
In the first place in order to understand how the British were able to take control of India
we need to go back to New Year's Eve in 1600 well into the reign of Elizabeth I. It was her
signature on a Royal Charter granted to a group of adventure merchants later known as the East
India Company that would change the destinies of two nations forever. However, at the time, the
company's leaders were not yet interested in trading directly with the reigning Indian power of
the time instead they focused on competing with the Dutch, French, and Portuguese in the East
Indies.
Over time the East India Company after being driven out of the East Indies shifted its
focus onto the Indian subcontinent. In 1640 a company representative succeeded in securing a
grant of land in southern India, a pivotal moment as it marks the first time that Indian land was
owned directly by the English. It was on this land that they constructed fort St. George, the
settlement that grew around this region became the thriving city of Madras now known as
Chennai and home to over seven million people. As more and more company-owned forts and
settlements sprang up all over the Indian subcontinent, the English became a leading exporter of
spices which in the words of Brien Gardner author of the East India Company had a considerable
place in life. Men were prepared to die in search of them and many did. No gift was more
acceptable, and to be well supplied was a mark of status. Wealth could be measured in spices.
The French, Danish, and Dutch all became similarly active in Indian Affairs from the
17th century onwards with the Portuguese already established in the region. As the 18th century
commenced the Europeans became increasingly involved in Indian Affairs. They could afford to
because the Mughal Empire which once ruled over not just the majority of India but also parts of
modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh was on the decline. In the wake of very
costly wars of conquest, the Mughals suffered from repeated invasions by Persians, Afghans, and
other Indians. In 1739 the Mughal capital Delhi was sacked by the Persian ruler Nader Shah
following the decisive battle of Colonel, and in 1748 Nader Shahs Protégé, the Afghan Ahmed
Shah Durrani also led his armies into Mughal territory beginning his own invasion. Due to these
factors, by the middle of the 18th century, the Mughal emperor took the role of a figurehead to
many newly empowered local rulers. However, as the Mughals weakened the Maratha Kingdom
in the central west of India was carving out an empire of its own. Despite never eclipsing the
Mughal Empire at its height, the Maratha Empire remained a dominant power in India for
another 80 years or so.
As all this was happening the East India Company began to overshadow its European
competitors devoting substantial profits to raising a private army in an effort to contend with the
Maratha Empire and Bengal. By now the East India Company benefited greatly from the
country's imposing navy which enabled it to ferry more and more men to India than its European
competitors. As much as the company's military aided in its growth it was the laissez-faire policy
that won over many local rulers to their side many of whom benefited financially from their
dealings with the company and did not perceive their sovereignty to be at risk.
 Of all the Europeans who have established themselves in India, the British and French
based in the South were now preeminent but under the daring Robert Clive, the British East India
Company's army was able to defeat both the Bengalese and their French allies at the Battle of
Plassey during the Seven Years War which by the 1760s allowed them to assert control over
much of the Indian subcontinent unchecked through direct territorial possession or indirect
tributary arrangements. To quote Gardner once more by the Treaty of Paris 1763 the French forts
taken by the company were returned to them. Some of them had been razed to the ground but the
French never recovered and only six years later the French East India Company collapsed
although the stations remained in the possession of France.
During the British advance into the Indian heartland, it encountered staunch resistance
from the Sikh Empire and other Indian states not interested in doing business with the English.
The Duke of Wellington, who would later go on to defeat Napoleon won several victories against
these states. His brother Richard WA Leslie acted as governor-general of India. Consequently,
by the turn of the 19th century, the Wesley brothers had succeeded in leaving behind them the
foundations of an empire greater even that of Akbar himself.
As the middle of the 19th century drew closer and Indian national consciousness began to
take form as a company, rule resulted in a wider array of social and economic reforms being
demanded from increasingly alienated local rulers. These sentiments culminated in the Indian
rebellion of 1857 also known as the Sepoys mutiny which was brutally suppressed and
concluded with the formal dissolution of the Mughal Empire and the transfer of power from the
British East India Company to Britain itself.
Power now rested in the hands of the British crown directly and as the 19th century
continued India's resources and the livelihoods of its people were exploited to fuel the industrial
revolution in Britain leading to a series of famines that shook the Indian economy to the core and
left millions of Indians dead.
One thing was certain the British Empire now had millions of new subjects under its rule
in India. An imperial expansion wouldn't stop there. To conclude, the political vacuum left by
the Mughal Empire in the wake of repeated invasions, the failure of other Indian states
particularly the Maratha Empire to fill that vacuum and unify India, the failure of other European
powers to stop the British military and industrial superiority, and the governing policy of the East
India Company allowed Britain to take over the Indian subcontinent