MODERN

INDIAN
HISTORY
AN INTRODUCTION

BY AMIT VARIDHI KILHOR

Syllabus Prelim
s

Main
s
UNIT 3 - RISING RESENTMENT AGAINST COMPANY RULE
Chapter 6
People’s Resistance Against British Before 1857
Chapter 7 The Revolt of 1857
UNIT 4 - REFORM MOVEMENTS
Chapter 8
Socio-Religious Reform Movements:
Chapter 9
A General Survey of Socio–Cultural Reform Movements and
their Leaders
UNIT 5 -THE STRUGGLE BEGINS
Chapter 10
Beginning of Modern Nationalism in India
Chapter 11
Indian National Congress: Foundation and the Moderate Phase
UNIT 6 - NATIONAL MOVEMENT (1905–1918)
Chapter 12 - Era of Militant Nationalism (1905–1909)
Chapter 13 - First Phase of Revolutionary Activities
(1907–1917)
Chapter 14 - First World War and Nationalist
Response
UNIT 7 - ERA OF MASS NATIONALISM BEGINS
(1919–1939)
Chapter 15 - Emergence of Gandhi
Chapter 16 - Non-Cooperation Movement and
Khilafat Aandolan
Chapter 17 - Emergence of Swarajists, Socialist
Ideas, Revolutionary Activities and Other New Forces
Chapter 18 - Simon Commission and the Nehru
Report
Chapter 19
Civil Disobedience Movement and Round Table
Conferences
Chapter 20
Debates on the Future Strategy after Civil
Disobedience Movement
Chapter 21 - Congress Rule in Provinces
UNIT 8 - TOWARDS FREEDOM AND PARTITION (1939–
1947)
Chapter 22
Nationalist Response in the Wake of World War II
Chapter 23
Quit India Movement, Demand for Pakistan,
and the INA
Chapter 24
Post-War National Scenario
Chapter 25
Independence with Partition
UNIT 9 - INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE:
GOVERNANCE AND OTHER ASPECTS
Chapter 26 - Constitutional, Administrative, and
Judicial Developments
Chapter 27 - Survey of British Policies in India
Chapter 28 - Economic Impact of British Rule in
India
Chapter 29 - Development of Indian Press
Chapter 30 - Development of Education
Chapter 31 - Peasant Movements 1857–1947
Chapter 32 - The Movement of the Working Class
UNIT 10 - INDEPENDENCE AND AFTER
Chapter 33
Challenges before the Newborn Nation
Chapter 34 - The Indian States
Chapter 35 - Making of the Constitution for
India
APPENDICES
1. Personalities Associated with Specific Movements
Swadeshi Movement
Non-cooperation Movement
Civil Disobedience Movement
Quit India Movement
2. Governors-General and Viceroys of India:
Significant Events in their Rule
3. Indian National Congress Annual Sessions
4. Socio-Religious Reform Movements
(late 18th to mid-20th century)
5. Famous Trials of the Nationalist Period
6. Caste Movements
7. Peasant Movements
8. Newspapers and Journals
• 1600: Royal Charter forms the East India Company, setting in motion a process that ultimately
results in the subjugation of India under British rule.
• 1605: Akbar the Great dies at age 63. His son Jahangir succeeds him as fourth Mughal Emperor.
• 1613-14: British East India Company sets up trading post at Surat.
• 1615-18: Mughals grant Britain right to trade and establish factories in exchange for English navy's
protection of the Mughal Empire, which faces Portuguese sea power.

• 1647: Shah Jahan completes Taj Mahal in Agra

beside Yamuna River. Its construction has taken
20,000 laborers 15 years, at a total cost
equivalence of US$25 million.
• 1751: Robert Clive, age 26, seizes Arcot in modern Tamil Nadu as French and British fight for
control of South India.
• 1761: Afghan army of Ahmad Shah Durrani routs Hindu Maratha forces at Panipat, ending Maratha
hegemony in North India.

• 1764: British defeat the weak Mughal Emperor to

become rulers of Bengal, richest province of India.
• 1835: Civil service jobs in India are opened to Indians.
• 1835: Macaulay's Minute furthers Western education in India. English is made official government
and court language.
• 1857: First Indian Revolution, called the Sepoy Mutiny, ends in a few months with the fall of Delhi and Lucknow.
• 1876: British Queen Victoria (1819-1901), head of Church of England, is proclaimed Empress of India (1876-1901).

• 1885: A group of middle-class intellectuals in India,

some of them British, found the Indian National
Congress to be a voice of Indian opinion to the British
government. This was the origin of the later Congress
Party.
• 1896: Nationalist leader, Marathi scholar Bal
Gangadhar Tilak (1857-1920) initiates Ganesha
Visarjana and Sivaji festivals to fan Indian nationalism.
He is first to demand complete independence, Purna
Svaraj, from Britain.
• 1947: India gains independence from Britain August 15.
Expansion and
Consolidation of • Was the British Conquest
British Power in India Accidental or Intentional?
 • year 1740, when the Anglo-
When did the British French struggle for
Period Begin in India? supremacy in India began
• 1757, when the British
defeated the Nawab of
Bengal at Plassey, as the
designated date
• 1761, the year of the Third
Battle of Panipat when the
Marathas were defeated by
Ahmad Shah Abdali,
 • Superior Arms, Military, and Strategy
• Better Military Discipline and Regular
Causes of British Salary
Success in India • Civil Discipline and Fair Selection System
• Brilliant Leadership and Support of
Second-Line Leaders - Clive, Warren
Hastings, Elphinstone, Munro, Marquess of
Dalhousie, etc., displayed rare qualities of
leadership. The English also had the advantage of
a long list of secondary leaders like Sir Eyre Coote,
Lord Lake, and Arthur Wellesley, who fought not for
the leader but for the cause and the glory of their
country
• Strong Financial Backup
• Nationalist Pride
British Conquest of
Bengal • Bengal on the Eve of British Conquest
• Bengal, the richest province of the Mughal Empire included
present-day Bangladesh, and its Nawab had authority over the
region constituting present-day states of Bihar and Odisha.

• Exports from Bengal to Europe consisted of raw products such

as saltpetre, rice, indigo, pepper, sugar, silk, cotton textiles,
handicrafts, etc.
• The Company paid a sum of Rs 3,000 (£ 350) per annum to the
Mughal emperor who allowed them to trade freely in Bengal. In
contrast, the Company's exports from Bengal were worth more
than £ 50,000 per annum.
• Between 1757 and 1765, the power gradually got transferred
from the Nawabs of Bengal to the British.
• British Occupation of Bengal
THE beginnings of British political sway over India may be traced to the battle of
Plassey in 1757, when the English East India Company‟s forces defeated Siraj-ud-
Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. The earlier British struggle with the French in South India
had been but a dress rehearsal. The lessons learnt there were profitably applied in
Bengal.
• Bengal was the most fertile and the richest of India‟s provinces. Its industries and
commerce were well developed. As has been noted earlier, the East India Company
and its servants had highly profitable trading interests in the province. The Company
had secured valuable privileges in 1717 under a royal farman by the Mughal Emperor,
which had granted the Company the freedom to export and import their goods in
Bengal without paying taxes and the right to issue passes or dastaks for the
movement of such goods. The Company‟s servants were also permitted to trade but
were not covered by this farman. They were required to pay the same taxes as Indian
merchants.
• This farman was a perpetual source of conflict between the Company and the Nawabs
of Bengal. For one, it meant loss of revenue to the Bengal Government. Secondly, the
power to issue dastaks for the Company‟s goods was misused by the Company‟s
servants to evade taxes on their private trade. All the Nawabs of Bengal, from Murshid
Quli Khan to Alivardi Khan, had objected to the English interpretation of the farman of
1717. They had compelled the Company to pay lump sums to their treasury, and firmly
suppressed the misuse of dastaks. The. Company had been compelled to accept the
authority of the Nawabs in the matter, but its servants had taken every opportunity to
evade and defy this authority
• Alivardi Khan and the English
• In 1741, Alivardi Khan, the Deputy Governor of Bihar, killed the
Nawab of Bengal Sarfaraz Khan in a battle and certified his
position as the new Subahdar of Bengal.
• He died in April 1756 and was succeeded by his grandson, Siraj-
ud-daula.
• ➢ Challenges Before Siraj-ud-daula
• There was a dominant group in his court comprising Jagat Seth,
Omichand, Rai Ballabh, Rai Durlabh and others who were
opposed to him. To these internal rivals were added the threat to
Siraj's position from the ever-growing commercial activity of the
English company.
• Impulsive by nature and lacking experience, Siraj felt insecure,
and this prompted him to act in ways which proved
counterproductive.
The Battle• of Plassey
Black Hole Tragedy Siraj-ud-daulah is believed to have imprisoned 146 English
persons who were lodged in a very tiny room due to which 123 of them died of
suffocation.
• The Battle, the arrival of a strong force under the command of Robert Clive forged
a secret alliance with the traitors of the nawab—
Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh, Jagat Seth (an influential banker of Bengal)
and Omichand.
• Under the deal, Mir Jafar was to be made the nawab who in turn would reward the
Company for its services. So the English victory in the Battle of Plassey (June 23,
1757) was decided before the battle was even fought.
• Siraj-ud-daula was captured and murdered by the order of Mir Jafar’s son,
Miran. Mir Jafar became the Nawab of Bengal. He gave large sums of money plus
the zamindari of 24 Parganas to the English.
• The Battle of Plassey had political significance for it laid the foundation of the
British empire in India, it has been rightly regarded as the starting point of British
rule in India.
• The battle established the military supremacy of the English in Bengal.
Mir Kasim and the
Treaty of 1760
• Mir Kasim, the son-in-law of Mir Jafar, and the Company was
signed in 1760
• Important features of the treaty were as follows:
(i) Mir Kasim agreed to pay off the outstanding dues to the
Company.
(ii) Mir Kasim promised to pay a sum of rupees five lakh towards
financing the Company's war efforts in southern India.
(iii) It was agreed that Mir Kasim's enemies were the company's
enemies, and his friends, the company’s friends.
(iv) It was agreed that tenants of the nawab’s territory would not be
allowed to settle in the lands of the Company, and vice-versa.
• A pension of Rs 1,500 per annum was fixed for Mir Jafar. Mir Kasim
shifted the capital from Murshidabad to Munger in Bihar. The move
was taken to allow a safe distance from the Company at Calcutta.
The Battle of Buxar
Prelude to the Battle
• By an imperial Farman, the English company had obtained the
right to trade in Bengal without paying transit dues or tolls.
• The combined armies of Mir Kasim, the Nawab of Awadh, and
Shah Alam II were defeated by the English forces under Major
Hector Munro at Buxar on October 22, 1764, in a closely
contested battle.
• The victory made the English a great power in northern India and
contenders for supremacy over the whole country.
• After the battle, Mir Jafar, who was made Nawab in 1763 agreed
to hand over the districts of Midnapore, Burdwan, and Chittagong
to the English for the maintenance of their army.
The Treaty of Allahabad
• Robert Clive concluded two important treaties at Allahabad in August
1765—one with the Nawab of Awadh and the other with the Mughal
Emperor, Shah Alam II.
• Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula agreed to:
(i) Surrender Allahabad and Kara to Emperor Shah Alam II.
(ii) Pay Rs. 50 lakh to the Company as war indemnity and
(iii) Give Balwant Singh, Zamindar of Banaras, full possession of his
estate.
• Shah Alam II agreed to:
(i) Reside at Allahabad, to be ceded to him by the Nawab of Awadh,
under the Company’s protection.
(ii) Issue a Farman granting the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to
the East India Company instead of an annual payment of Rs. 26 lakh
and
(iii) A provision of Rs. 53 lakh to the Company in return for nizamat
functions (military defence, police, and administration of justice) of the
said provinces.
Dual Government in
Bengal (1765–72)
• Dual Government in Bengal (1765-72)
• Robert Clive introduced the dual system of government, i.e.,
the rule of the two—the Company and the Nawab—in
Bengal in which both the Diwani, i.e., collecting revenues, and
Nizamat, i.e., police and judicial functions, came under the
control of the company.
• The Company exercised Diwani rights as the diwan and the
Nizamat rights through its right to nominate the deputy
subahdar. The Company acquired the Diwani functions from
the emperor and Nizamat functions from the subahdar of
Bengal.
• The dual system led to an administrative breakdown and
proved disastrous for the people of Bengal.