british raj
The British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The region was, less commonly, also known as the Indian Empire. The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognized by the British as independent states. The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria, and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.
viceroy
A viceroy is a regal official who runs a country, colony, or city province (or state) in the name of and as representative of the monarch.The title was originally used by the Crown of Aragon, where beginning in the 14th century it referred to the governors of Sardinia and Corsica. The absolutist kings of Spain came to appoint numerous viceroys to rule over various parts of their vast Spanish Empire in Europe, the Americas, and overseas elsewhere.
impact on mughal empire
In the early sixteenth century, India was invaded by Babur, leader of the Mughals. The Mughal economy functioned on an elaborate system of coined currency, land revenue and trade. This pre-colonization period was a mark for a vast period of social change in India. The majority of the Hindu population was continuously repressed by their Mughal emperors. The Mughals were often known to use brutal tactics to conquer their new found empires, but with India they had a rather different approach, they had policy's to integrate their culture with that of the Indians, this approach succeeded in some areas which had failed before, like with the short-lived sultans of Delhi.
benefits for britain
Before the British came, India was one of the richest countries in the world. In 1800, India, China and Egypt were economically more developed than Britain. Indeed the British had nothing for sale that was of interest to the Indians or Chinese. When the British left in 1947, India was poor and industrially backward. Britain did bring free trade to India and China. Britain had extracted large surpluses from India, and forced it into a free-trade pattern, which obliged India to export commodities and become a dumping ground for British manufactures. The wealth transfer was financed by a persistent trade surplus of India, which was sent back to Britain or spend to expand the British Empire.
indian national congress
The Indian National Congress, or INC, is one of the two major political parties in India. The Organization was founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Monomohun Ghose, Mahadev Govind Ranade and William Wedderburn. It has been suggested that the idea was originally conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after a Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884. The Congress met once a year during December.