India, Late Modern

The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East India Company sets the stage for changes essential to a modern state.

These include the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens.

Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—are introduced not long after their introduction in Europe.

However, disaffection with the company also grows during this time and sets off the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the rebellion rocks many regions of northern and central India and shakes the foundations of Company rule.

Although the rebellion is suppressed by 1858, it leads to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct administration of India by the British government.

Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protect princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest.

In the decades following, public life gradually emerges all over India, leading eventually to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.

The rush of technology and the commercialization of agriculture in the second half of the nineteenh century is marked by economic setbacks and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of far-away markets.

There is an increase in the number of large-scale famines and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment is generated for Indians.

There are also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially in the newly canaled Punjab, lead to increased food production for internal consumption.

The railway network provides critical famine relief, notably reduces the cost of moving goods, and helps nascent Indian-owned industry.

After the First World World, in which approximately one million Indians serve, a new period begins.

It is marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation, of which Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi will become the leader and enduring symbol.

During the 1930s, slow legislative reform is enacted by the British; the Indian National Congress wins victories in the resulting elections.

The next decade is beset with crises: Indian participation in the Second World War, the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism.

All are capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.

Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution, completed in 1950, which puts in place a secular and democratic republic.

It remains a democracy with civil liberties, an active Supreme Court, and a largely independent press.

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