“The government of the territories now in the possession or under the government of the [British] East India Company, and all powers in relation to government vested in or exercised by the said Company in trust for Her Majesty [then Queen Victoria], shall cease to be vested in or exercised by the said Company, and all territories in the possession or under the government of the said Company, and all rights vested in or which if this act had not been passed might have been exercised by the said Company in relation to any territories, shall become vested in Her Majesty [Queen Victoria], and be exercised in her name …”
– “Government of India Act 1858,” as passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (incidentally, India had then been ruled by the British East India Company since the 1757 Battle of Plassey – which was more than a century earlier than this act)
India owes its independence from the British Empire to people like Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi was able to free India from British rule, without the nation suffering anything like a full-scale war. There was some amount of violence therein on both sides, but it surely would have been much bloodier without the steadfast efforts of people like Mr. Gandhi. India had actually been ruled by the British since the 1757 Battle of Plassey. Starting in that year, they would now be ruled by a private corporation: the British East India Company. (More about that company in a later post.) But, in 1857 (nearly a century after that battle), the locals had fought a war to free India from the now-notorious rule of that company. This revolt is known by various names – from the Indian Rebellion, to the “Indian Mutiny” (a British name), to the “Sepoy” Rebellion (a local Indian name). Incidentally, the term “Sepoy” refers to a type of Indian infantryman. But, whatever one calls the uprising, the rebellion was soon crushed in 1858. This was more than a decade before Mr. Gandhi’s birth. Thus, that revolt had failed to free India from British rule. But, significantly, the rebellion did change which of the British institutions would now get to control India. That is, control passed from the British East India Company to the British Crown. Thus, Queen Victoria would now have direct control over India. This was the situation in India, when Mr. Gandhi was born there. Specifically, Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 – the year that the Suez Canal opened in Egypt. The Suez Canal (eventually) would also be controlled by the British Empire, making it easier for the British to send their troops to India. This was because British ships no longer had to go around Africa, but could take a shortcut through the Suez Canal in Egypt. (But that’s a subject for another post.) Regardless, these things would affect the relationship between Britain and its distant colony in India. Gandhi actually spent the earliest years of his life in India. But, in his mid-twenties, he would instead set sail for South Africa in 1893 – which, at that time, was yet another province of the British Empire. This is where the Ben Kingsley movie “Gandhi” begins.
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