Europeans, British Expansion and the Revolt of 1857

The European companies

Company	First factory or base	Notes
Portuguese	Calicut (Vasco da Gama, 1498); Goa captured by Albuquerque (1510)	Introduced tobacco and the printing press; the Cartaz system of sea passes
Dutch (VOC, 1602)	Masulipatnam (1605), Pulicat	Defeated by the English at Bedara (1759)
English (EIC, 1600)	Surat (1613; Jahangir's farman after Thomas Roe)	Madras (Fort St George, 1639), Bombay (from the Portuguese, 1668), Calcutta (Fort William, 1690s)
Danish	Tranquebar, Serampore
French (1664)	Pondicherry	Dupleix; Carnatic Wars; defeated at Wandiwash (1760)

The three Carnatic Wars (1746–63) decided the Anglo-French contest in the south in favour of the English.

Conquest of Bengal and Bihar

• Battle of Plassey (1757): Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daula through the treachery of Mir Jafar. The trigger was the "Black Hole" incident and the misuse of dastaks (duty-free trade permits).
• Mir Qasim moved his capital to Munger, tried to stop the misuse of dastaks, and fought the English.
• Battle of Buxar (22 October 1764): Hector Munro defeated the combined army of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula (Awadh) and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. Buxar was the decisive battle.
• Treaty of Allahabad (1765): the Company got the Diwani (right to collect revenue) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
• Dual government (1765–72): the Company held the revenue, while the Nawab carried the administrative burden. The Bengal famine of 1770 killed about one-third of the population. Warren Hastings ended dual government in 1772.

Wars of expansion

• Anglo-Mysore Wars:
  • First (1767–69).
  • Second (1780–84): Hyder Ali died during the war; the Treaty of Mangalore ended it.
  • Third (1790–92): Treaty of Srirangapatnam; Tipu lost half his territory.
  • Fourth (1799): Tipu died at Srirangapatnam.
• Anglo-Maratha Wars:
  • First (1775–82): Treaty of Salbai.
  • Second (1803–05): followed the Treaty of Bassein (1802).
  • Third (1817–18): the Peshwa's office was abolished.
• Anglo-Sikh Wars:
  • (1845–46) and (1848–49). Punjab was annexed in 1849 under Dalhousie.
• Instruments of expansion:
  • Subsidiary Alliance (Wellesley, 1798): the Indian ruler paid for British troops stationed in his state, accepted a British Resident, and gave up foreign relations. The Nizam signed first.
  • Doctrine of Lapse (Dalhousie): states without a natural heir were annexed: Satara (1848), Jaitpur, Sambalpur, Baghat, Udaipur, Jhansi (1853) and Nagpur (1854). Awadh (1856) was annexed for "misgovernance".

Constitutional development to 1858

• Regulating Act, 1773: the Governor of Bengal became Governor-General (Warren Hastings); a Supreme Court at Calcutta was set up (1774).
• Pitt's India Act, 1784: set up the Board of Control, creating dual control by the Company and the Crown.
• Charter Acts:
  • 1813: ended the Company's trade monopoly (except tea and the China trade) and gave ₹1 lakh for education.
  • 1833: made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India (William Bentinck) and ended all of the Company's trade.
  • 1853: introduced open competition for the civil services.

British land revenue systems

System	Year and author	Area	Features
Permanent Settlement (Zamindari)	1793, Cornwallis	Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Benares	Zamindars became owners; revenue fixed for ever (about 89% of rent to the state at first); sunset law
Ryotwari	1820, Thomas Munro, Alexander Read	Madras, Bombay, Assam	Direct settlement with the cultivator; periodic revision; high rates
Mahalwari	1822, Holt Mackenzie; revised by Bird and Thomason	North-West Provinces, Punjab, Central India	Settlement with the village community (mahal)

Economic impact

• De-industrialisation: Indian handicrafts, especially textiles, were ruined by one-way free trade and British machine-made goods.
• Commercialisation of agriculture: indigo, opium, cotton and jute.
• Indigo was forced on peasants in Bengal (the Indigo Revolt, 1859–60; the play Neel Darpan) and in Bihar (Champaran).
• Famines: recurring, and handled badly. The Famine Commissions were Strachey (1880), Lyall (1898) and MacDonnell (1901).
• Drain of wealth: the transfer of wealth to Britain through home charges, salaries, pensions, interest and profits. The theory was set out by Dadabhai Naoroji (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India), R. C. Dutt and M. G. Ranade.
• Railways (1853) and the telegraph mainly served colonial trade and control.

Early resistance

• Peasant and tribal revolts:
  • Sanyasi–Fakir rebellion (Bengal), described in Bankim Chandra's Anandamath.
  • Chuar (Midnapore–Manbhum).
  • Paika (Odisha, 1817).
  • Kol (1831–32) and Santhal Hul (1855–56) in Jharkhand.
  • Wahabi movement, based at Patna.
  • Faraizi movement (Bengal).
• Sepoy mutinies: Vellore (1806) and Barrackpore (1824).

The revolt of 1857

Causes

• Political: the Doctrine of Lapse, the annexation of Awadh, and the end of the Mughal titles.
• Economic: heavy revenue, ruined artisans, and loss of land by the taluqdars.
• Socio-religious: fear of conversion, reform laws (abolition of sati, 1829; widow remarriage, 1856), and the General Service Enlistment Act (1856), which made sepoys liable to serve overseas.
• Military: low pay, racial discrimination, and the loss of the overseas allowance (bhatta).
• Immediate cause: the greased cartridges of the Enfield rifle. Mangal Pandey at Barrackpore (29 March 1857).

Course of the revolt

• It began at Meerut on 10 May 1857. The rebels marched to Delhi and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar emperor.

Centre	Leader	British commander
Delhi	Bahadur Shah II, Bakht Khan	John Nicholson, Hodson
Kanpur	Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope	Colin Campbell
Lucknow	Begum Hazrat Mahal	Henry Lawrence, Havelock, Campbell
Jhansi	Rani Lakshmibai	Hugh Rose
Bihar (Jagdishpur, Arrah)	Kunwar Singh, with his brother Amar Singh	William Taylor, Vincent Eyre
Faizabad	Maulvi Ahmadullah
Bareilly	Khan Bahadur Khan

Bihar in 1857

• Patna saw Peer Ali, a bookbinder, hanged by Commissioner William Tayler.
• Danapur sepoys rebelled on 25 July 1857 and joined Kunwar Singh, then about 80 years old.
• He won at Arrah, fought across UP, and recaptured Jagdishpur on 23 April 1858. He died soon after of his wounds.

Why the revolt failed

• It was limited to parts of north and central India.
• The Punjab, the south and most princely states stayed loyal or neutral.
• There was no common leadership or programme, and the rebels had poorer arms.
• The educated middle class did not support it.

Aftermath

• The Government of India Act, 1858 ended Company rule.
• A Secretary of State for India was appointed, with a 15-member Council of India.
• The Governor-General also became the Viceroy; Canning was the first.
• Queen Victoria's Proclamation (1 November 1858) promised no annexations and religious non-interference.
• The army was reorganised: a higher ratio of European troops, and "divide and rule" by recruiting from the "martial races".

How historians describe 1857

• V. D. Savarkar: The Indian War of Independence (1909).
• R. C. Majumdar: neither the first, nor national, nor a war of independence.
• S. N. Sen: Eighteen Fifty-Seven (1957).

Exam tip: BPSC repeatedly asks about Buxar (1764), the Permanent Settlement in Bihar, and Kunwar Singh and Peer Ali. JPSC links this period to the Kol and Santhal revolts; see the Jharkhand history unit.