Harrow International School Bangkok
Until the rebellion, they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on sati by Lord William Bentinck. The 1909 Map of Indian Railways, the fourth largest in the world. British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows). This was exemplified further in Queen Victoria’s Proclamation released immediately after the rebellion. British commitment to abstaining from social intervention in India.
The Indian National Congress estimated three times the number of dead. Historians consider the episode was a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India. Dyer was removed from duty but he became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the Raj. In 1920, after the British government refused to back down, Gandhi began his campaign of non-cooperation, prompting many Indians to return British awards and honours, to resign from the civil services, and to again boycott British goods.
The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44% during Mughal times to 54% by the end of colonial period. A significant fact which stands out is that those parts of India which have been longest under British rule are the poorest today. Up until the early 18th century, China and India were the two largest economies by GDP output. The global contribution to world’s GDP by major economies from 1 CE to 2003 CE according to Angus Maddison’s estimates.
Effective from 1 April 1936, the Government of India Act created the new provinces of Sind (separated from the Bombay Presidency) and Orissa (separated from the Province of Bihar and Orissa). Burma and Aden became separate Crown Colonies under the Act from 1 April 1937, thereby ceasing to be part of the Indian Empire. From 1937 onwards, British India was divided into 17 administrations: the three Presidencies of Madras, Bombay and Bengal, and the 14 provinces of the United Provinces, Punjab, Bihar, the Central Provinces and Berar, Assam, the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Orissa, Sind, British Baluchistan, Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, Coorg, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Panth Piploda. The Presidencies and the first eight provinces were each under a governor, while the latter six provinces were each under a chief commissioner.
Now as the trials began, the Congress leadership, although ambivalent towards the INA, chose to defend the accused officers. The subsequent convictions of the officers, the public outcry against the convictions, and the eventual remission of the sentences, created positive propaganda for the Congress, which only helped in the party’s subsequent electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout British India. Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition.
