Concept

British Raj

Overview

The British Raj ( RAHJ; from Hindustani rāj, 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the period of rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 1858 to 1947. It is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. India was a participating state in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947 when the British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh in the 1971 Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its independence in 1948. It was renamed Myanmar in 1989. The Chief Commissioner's Province of Aden was also part of British India at the inception of the British Raj and became a separate colony known as Aden Colony in 1937 as well.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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When the home government and Parliament are swayed by such partial influences in the exercise of the power reserved to them in the last resort, the intermediate body is the certain advocate and champion of the dependency before the imperial tribunal. The intermediate body, moreover, is, in the natural course of things, chiefly composed of persons who have acquired professional knowledge of this part of their…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
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We declared that our faith stood pledged by the treaty of 1762 to obtain payment of the Rajah's tribute to the Nabob, and that for the insuring such payment the fort of Tanjore should be garrisoned by our troops. We directed that you should pay no regard to the article of the treaty of 1771 which respected the alienation of part of the Rajah's dominions; and we declared, that, if the Nabob had not a just title to…
Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03
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The British government in India being a subordinate and delegated power, it ought to be considered as a fundamental principle in such a system, that it is to be preserved in the strictest obedience to the government at home. Administration in India, at an immense distance from the seat of the supreme authority; intrusted with the most extensive powers; liable to the greatest temptations; possessing the amplest means…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
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British Raj

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