How was the administration of India organized during the time of British colonization?

The history of India knows many periods of decline and prosperity. This amazing country is now rich, using its natural treasures, it quickly pinched, finding themselves under the heel of the next conquerors. This was also the case with the British, who ruled there quite recently. In general, India is a unique case (the first one in the new history), when the state has been completely turned into a colony.

What is even more interesting, the British managed to capture India relatively easily, in many ways taking advantage of the contradictions and sales among the local nobility. They finally occupied the country in 1849, when they defeated the Sikhs in Punjab. But how was the administration of India organized? After all, no one has had experience with such huge colonies!

Start the creation of the administrative unit

To pick up India, India started another East India company. Simply put, the victory over the Sikhs was more of an exemplary act, as the country became a colony long before those events. The first governor-general was (1774-1785) W. Hastings, protege of traders.

For a long time they ruled the newfound colony at their own discretion, and the metropolis from such arbitrariness did not fall very much. Everything changed after the model-demonstration process took place over Hastings, after which the traders were decisively dismissed from management.

Since the management of India was organized by the leadership of the East India Company, which was far from delighted with this turn of events, they began to be pressured, hinting at the need to transfer the reins of government to the hands of the queen and parliament.

By 1813 the company had the status of an administrative center only, which did everything to send as much wealth and resources to the UK as possible.

Consequences of mismanagement

How was the administration of India organized during this period? In general, there was nothing special: the governor-general was appointed, as well as the provincial governors. They were responsible for collecting taxes, for suppressing uprisings. The entire administrative structure was "decommissioned" from other English colonies. But once again it is worth repeating that India is a big country and very difficult.

The British practically did not take into account either its caste, or the disagreements between the peoples who inhabited this territory, not to mention their religious preferences. The results of inept policy did not take long to manifest, manifested in the form of a revolt of sepoys, which began in May 1857.

By the way, it happened again because of the disregard for the faith of the British and the culture of their conquered subjects: it was strange to expect something else after the introduction of packages for cartridges soaked in beef fat. And this is in India, where the cow is the embodiment of God on earth!

Disbanding of the trading company

After the most severe suppression of the Sipaev revolt (there is a corresponding picture in Vereshchagin), it was necessary to search for the guilty. More precisely, the "scapegoats". The culprit was the East India Company, which was immediately disbanded. It happened in 1858.

At that time, India officially, on the rights of normal citizenship, was accepted into the British Empire. Of course, Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress , at that moment reigned on the throne. The governor-general's post was abolished, but the vice-king of India appeared. The solution of the urgent tasks in the administration of the colony (it remained India anyway) was entrusted to the newly established profile ministry in the parliament. A lot of important reforms were carried out.

Military reform

As one might expect, the Sipay regiments were completely disbanded. The number of Englishmen in the army increased significantly, they began to use mercenaries from among Sikhs and Gurks. Thus, British India received at its disposal a powerful force that could "roll out" any discontent even before it grew into new uprisings.

Other changes

The Queen promised to respect the related continuity among the local rulers, agreeing not to interfere with the succession of the throne. The British finally began to take into account the characteristics of the caste system, forbade the appointed manager to arbitrarily raise the cost of land leases. This is how the administration of India was organized in those years.

But all this became just a screen: in 1835 it was decided to educate the sons of the Indian nobility in England. That they, remaining on blood by Indians, in a shower have turned to Englishmen. Already in two decades, the Calcutta, Bombay and Madras universities began to work, where the new elite forged. Throughout India, the number of different schools and colleges in which teaching was conducted by English professors in the English language was constantly increasing.

And this is not to mention the fact that many of the offspring of especially wealthy families were educated in the same Oxford. So there was truly British India: all the more or less significant posts in the bodies of local self-government received exactly such people who in everything agreed with the policy of the mother country and did not stand on ceremony, if necessary, with their own fellow tribesmen.