History of the British Raj

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Government took over the administration from Company rule in India to establish the British Raj there. The British Raj was the period of Crown rule in India between 1858 and 1947, for around 200 years of British occupation. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria.

The British Raj in India lasted until 1947, when the British provinces of India, despite significant opposition, were partitioned into two sovereign dominion states (thus, undermining the idea of Dominion, as the original pre war British Dominions were not sovereign): the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, leaving the princely states to choose between them. Most of the princely states decided to join either the Dominion of India or the Dominion of Pakistan, except the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was only at the last moment that Jammu and Kashmir agreed to sign the "Instrument of Accession" with India. The two new dominions later became the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (the eastern half of which became the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1972). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire had been made a separate colony in 1937 and became independent in 1948.

The East India Company was an English and later British joint-stock company. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with Mughal India and the East Indies, and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia, and colonised Hong Kong after a war with Qing China.

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