British colonial rule in India.

 

The British government took direct control of India in 1858 after the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Before that the British government exercised control of India through the British East India Company from 1757.

At no time were there more than 100,000 Britons in India. All the governance was done with the complicit help of the Indians, who helped to subjugate a vast land and its people. There's no doubt that they did this to further and promote their own self interests.

Colonial rule during the British Raj, was made easier because the Indians were divided among themselves by religion, cast and tribe. It was a case of divide and conquer, separate and rule and the British were excellent at doing that. Many Indians seem to have looked up to their British colonial rulers, who they called Pukka Sahib. Hindu culture is hierarchical and many Indians wanted to join the white man's club.

In E.M. Forster's novel 'A Passage to India', Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate in Chandrapore, tells his mother Mrs Moore, that "all Indian's regardless of their caste will always forget their back collar-studs and this is one of the reasons we don't admit him to our clubs." His mother, says Ronny's sentiments are those of a god. Ronny, tells his mother, "Indians like gods."

To this day, many wealthy Indians and Pakistani's send their children to English public schools and Oxford and Cambridge to be educated in the ways of the Pukka Sahib. The British went to India to exploit the country and its people, but the British gave the Indians cricket, railways and the telegraph. When British colonial rule ended in India in 1947 and country was partitioned, the Indians didn't attack the English but attacked one another.