2. LEQ: How did Britain gradually extend its
control over most of India, despite
opposition?
3. In the 1600s the
British East India
Company gained
trading rights on the
fringe of the Mughal
empire.
As the Mughal empire
declined, the British
gained control. By
the mid-1800s
the company controlled
three-fifths of India.
The Mughal Empire
4. India was a land of great diversity. Britain
exploited that diversity to gain control.
India was home to many cultures and peoples.
When the Mughal empire began to crumble, these
groups could not unite to expel outsiders.
Britain took advantage by encouraging competition
between rival princes.
5. • sati – Hindu custom that called for a widow to join her
husband in death by throwing herself on his funeral fire
• Roads were improved and
The East India
banditry was reduced.
Company’s goal
was to make • They pushed for social
money, which changes such as the ending
it did, but slavery and the caste system.
British policies
aimed to • Sati, the practice of a
improve India wife’s killing herself on her
as well. husband’s funeral fire,
was banned.
6. • sepoy – Indian soldier hired by the British East
India Company; sepoys rebelled in 1857
British insensitivity to local customs led to the
bloody Sepoy Rebellion in 1857.
• The sepoys were Indian soldiers
hired to fight for the British.
• The British issued a number
of rules that angered the sepoys
and finally provoked them
to rebel.
7. Sepoys were ordered For high-caste Hindus, such
to serve overseas. travel was forbidden.
The sepoys saw this violation
Company rules
allowed Hindu
of Hindu practice as an
widows to remarry.
attempt to Christianize them.
New rifles were The cartridges were greased
issued in 1857. To with cow or pig fat. Cows
load the rifle one had were sacred animals
to bite off the end of to Hindus, and pigs were
a bullet cartridge. forbidden to Muslims.
8. When sepoys were ordered to load their rifles
they refused. These resisters were arrested for
failing to follow orders.
The sepoys rose in
British troops
rebellion against the
retaliated, killing
British. Some
thousands of
massacred British
unarmed Indians.
civilians.
9. After the Sepoy Rebellion, Britain took control
of India from the East India Company.
• British troops were sent
to India, and Indians
were taxed to pay for
them.
• Indians were angered at
how Britain extracted
great wealth from India.
10. • viceroy – British official who ruled in India in the
name of the queen
Parliament set up a system of colonial rule
called the British Raj.
• A British viceroy ruled in the queen’s name.
• High officials were British, but Indians held
lower posts.
• With some local cooperation, India became the
crown jewel of the British empire.
11. British rule brought some benefits to India.
Britain revised • They promoted equality and
the legal justice regardless of caste.
system. • There was more peace and order.
Britain built • Indians were able to travel and
rail and communicate more easily.
telegraph
• Indians began to unite.
lines.
Upper class • The upper classes benefited from
Indians a British education.
benefited the • Indian prices and landowners
most. grew wealthy from trade.
12. • deforestation – the destruction of forest land
However, changes When Britain flooded
favored the British. India with machine
Britain felt they were made textiles, it
helping India to ruined India’s
modernize, but policies prosperous hand-
favored the British. weaving industry.
The British encouraged farmers to grow cash crops.
This led to deforestation, shortages of food, and
terrible famine.
13. Indians were divided in their attitudes toward
modernization and Britain.
The upper class Hindu and
and educated Muslim religious
Indians adopted leaders opposed
more modern British-style
ways. modernization.
14. • Ram Mohun Roy – Indian reformer who founded
Hindu University in Calcutta; sought to reform but not
replace Indian culture
Ram Mohun He founded Hindu College,
Roy tried to which provided an English-
combine the style education. He saw the
old and the need to reform practices
new in the such as sati, castes, and
early 1800s. child marriages.
Roy saw the value of European ideas and reform, but
he wanted to preserve Indian culture as well.
15. The British were also divided in their attitudes
toward Indian culture.
As Indian classics Paternalistic
were translated, English leaders
many Englishmen such as historian
gained respect for Thomas Macaulay
Indian literature had little respect
and religious for other cultural
ideas. traditions.
16. British leaders assumed that providing Indians
with a British education would lead them to accept
British culture and rule.
• In 1855 the Indian National
The opposite took Congress met to propose self-
place; educated rule and democracy.
Indians returned
home and began • Fearful that Hindus might
nationalistic dominate any government,
movements. Muslims began talking about
a separate state.
17. LEQ: How did Britain gradually extend its
control over most of India, despite opposition?
The British East India Company
exploited Indian diversity and used
its monopoly to extend control over
most of India; then the British
government took over.
