Some Indians are unhappy with the heavy-handed…

Some Indians are unhappy with the heavy-handed rule of the British, who have embarked on a project of rapid expansion and westernization imposed without any regard for Indian tradition or culture, such as outlawing Sati (the ritual burning of widows) and child marriage.

The Indians also resent the economic policies of the East India Company.

Most of the country’s gold, jewels, silver and silk has been shipped off to Britain as tax and sometimes sold in open auctions, ridding India of its once abundant wealth in precious stones.

The land has been reorganized under the comparatively harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes.

In certain areas farmers have been forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and tea, resulting in hardship to the farmers and increases in food prices.

Local industry, specifically the famous weavers of Bengal and elsewhere, has also suffered under British rule.

Import tariffs are kept low, according to traditional British free-market sentiments, and thus the Indian market has been flooded with cheap clothing from Britain.

Indigenous industry simply cannot compete, and where once India had produced much of England's luxury cloth, the country is now reduced to growing cotton which is shipped to Britain to be manufactured into clothing, which is subsequently shipped back to India to be purchased by Indians.

This extraordinary quantity of wealth, much of it collected as 'taxes', has been absolutely critical in expanding public and private infrastructure in Britain and in financing British expansionism elsewhere in Asia and Africa.

The old Indian aristocracy has seen the steady erosion of their power.

The British have annexed several states per the Doctrine of Lapse, according to which, if a feudal ruler does not leave a male heir through natural process, i.e., his own child, not an adopted one, the land becomes the property of the British East India Company.

Nobility, feudal landholders, and royal armies have found themselves unemployed and humiliated due to British expansionism.

Even the jewels of the royal family of Nagpur has been publicly auctioned in Calcutta, a move that was seen as a sign of abject disrespect by the remnants of the Indian aristocracy.

Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India, had asked the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and his successors to leave the Red Fort, the palace in Delhi.

Later, Lord Canning, the next governor-general of India, announce in 1856 that Bahadur Shah's successors will not even be allowed to use the title of the king.

Such discourtesies are resented by the deposed Indian rulers.