Bertil Jessen 3.I        Kolding IB world school        October 29. 2007

        Extended Eessay

        Candidate: 001490-022

Ways to loose a colony

The British policies that lead to the Indian uprising in 1857

word count :3997


Abstract

This essay 'Ways to loose a colony' deals the British policies, and actions that caused greviences within the Indian society and eventually lead to the civic uprising in 1857. It aims to identify the cultural drifts, religious insensitivities, and capitalist reforms that had been several centuries underway in the Indian society, and to deduce how they influenced the contemporary Indian society, and mainly, why these factors sparked the malcontent amongst the native population that eventually lead to the Indian conflict of 1857. This paper will also investigate the  role of the Honourable East India company's as well as the Crown's motivation behind it's initiatives, in an effort to determine their goals with the new colony, and thereby reasons for possibly overlooking the concerns of the native population. To clarify these matters, the paper briefly presents the situation of colonial competition for the British in the 1600's, and elaborates upon how the Honourable East India company expanded. It also gradually determines the factors that agitated the Indian natives, and how British policies affected the Indian society. The paper covers the effects of  the introduction of the Pattern Enfield Rifle, the effects of Christian missionaries and the Doctrine of Lapse, an insight to the life of a sepoy, and gives an insight to the bias the natives where faced from the British. It deliberately leaves out the 1857 conflict as the main focus is the justification for the civil uprising and the validity of greviences with the British company rule. The results provide evidence that, the British lacked consideration for Indian sentiments and traditions, as well as respect for their religion, and show that the British passively were causes of famines through their negotiations with the Kshatriyaer.

Word count: 284


Contents

Introduction                 4

1. Luxury goods from colonies                                4

 2. English comprehension                                        6

3. Religious practices                                                7

4. Cash-crops                                                        7        

5. The Honourable East India company's expansion        9

6. Military life                                                 10

7. Christian initiatives                                            12

8. The Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle                                12

Conclusion                                                        13

Bibliography                                                        15

        

        Depending on the source, the conflict of 1857 in India is refered to as:

The great mutiny,

The sepoy rebellion, or last but not least

The first Indian war of independence.

Each term represents a different view of the initial motivations which sparked the war, usually dependent on location and nationality. The violence that escalated in 1857, was atrocious and is claimed to have been of a religious nature, or if viewed from certain British sides the results of immoral savages, roaming free. Many works deal with the motivation for the sepoy to keep fighting, but i have chosen to look at the initial reasons for the discontent that caused civilians aswell as sepoys to riot, and what limitations where imposed on the daily lifes of Indians.

 The aim of this paper is to identify the cultural drifts, religious insensitivities, and capitalist reforms that had been several centuries underway and deduce how they influenced the contemporary Indian society, and mainly, why these factors sparked the malcontentedness amongst the native population that eventually lead to the Indian conflict of 1857. This paper will also investigate the  role of the Honourable East India company's as well as the Crown's motivation behind it's initiatives, in an effort to determine their goals with the new colony, and thereby reasons for possibly overlooking the concerns of the native population.

In investigating the Indian struggle for independence it has become apparent that the conflict of 1857 had been many years underway, and that the native greviences were copious, allthough widely ignored. The actual battles of the conflict are described in detail, but do not give proper reasons for why civilians joined in and why the uprising occurred on such a large scale.

1. Luxury goods from colonies

        Britain was an expansionist empire, evident by their multitude of colonies, but were facing harsh competition, from other colonial powers such as France and the Netherlands, on imported goods. The French and Dutch had, by the 1600s, already established several trading posts along the southern coastline of India, and India was a very attractive colony due to it's wealth in natural resources, so various financial as well as political concerns put pressures on Queen Elizabeth, to establish British trade relations with the country.

Imports such as spices, from the Asian continent was, around the 1600's, subject to a relatively high demand in Europe. Spices had previously been hard to transport as they had to be sent by ships, which frequently encountered pirates, to Venice only to be transported across vast landmasses to reach consumers in other parts of Europe. The large costs of the transports and recurrent loss of shipments, meant that vast founds were lost, which could be requisitioned by, eliminating the middlemen in Venice, who were boasting huge profits, and by discovering direct ship lanes all the way to the western parts of Europe. The only alternative would be to allow, what was generally considered in the west to be, 'uncivilized' regimes to enjoy their wealth and use it in hedonistic ways. Which was an alternative that no western party could be happy with.

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        One interest-group in the British society, was the upper class merchants who, saw an opportunity to make a great profit in the strange Indian country. The natural wealth in resources were according to travellers aboundant, on the peninsula. The merchants managed to pressure Queen Elizabeth to grant a royal charter, which secured the company initially known as The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, exclusive rights to trade with India for 15 years. This venture became the first company with joint shareholding in history and was later known as The Honourable East India Company (HEIC). The ...

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