1. MUGHALS, THEIR CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS
Mughals establish close to an all-India empire, based in part on their revenue gathering mechanism. Resources of the empire are exhausted by 1707. Leads to many of the SUCCESSOR STATES, such as OUDH, MYSORE, HYDERABAD, PUNJAB, and of course the MARATHAs to assert their independence.
Important Dates and Events
1526 BABUR wins battle of Panipat to establish the Mughal Empire.
1556 AKBAR (Grandson of BABAR) succeeds to the throne and establishes an all India revenue collection bureaucracy. MANSABDARs are paid through the grant of lands called JAGIRs, usually in other parts of the Empire.
c.1640-1680 Emergence of the MARATHAs as an independent force.
1707 Death of AURANGZEB, the last of the "Great Mughals," followed by weaker rulers, with fewer resources at their command.
c.1740-1765 HYDERABAD, OUDH, and MYSORE assert independence.
2. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS LEADING TO BRITISH CONTROL
East India Company (EIC) and then British Crown emerge as new rulers of India. A gradual process, helped on by diplomatic maneuvers, e.g. the Subsidiary Alliance system, "legal" doctrines, e.g. Doctrine of Lapse, military conquests e.g. Sind and Punjab, and annexations based on "maladministration" by native rulers, e.g. of Oudh.
Important Dates and Events:
1757 Battle of Plassey - EIC defeats forces of Nawab (ruler) of Bengal.
1764 Battle of Buxar - Victory gains EIC right to DIWANI, collect revenue from Bengal.
1857 Revolt (sparked by soldiers' Mutiny) led by aristocracy, accompanied by peasant revolts. Only in North India.
1858 End of EIC government, direct takeover of the Government of India
by the British Crown.
3. ECONOMIC LOGIC OF COLONIALISM
Mercantile Phase: Initial interest in India only for trade, large profits to be made from India trade. Problem is trade deficit. Military victories and rights to collect revenue from India solve that problem. Characterized by some as the Drain of Wealth. Initially, brutal collection policy creates a famine in which 1/3 of the population of Bengal dies. Then, through the Permanent Settlement of 1793 actually creates a class of landowners in Bengal.
Phase of Industrial Capitalism: With the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England (late 1700s, but more evidently by 1810-1820. India important now as a captive market for British manufactures, leads to collapse of Indian handicraft industry in cotton weaving, for example. Termed the Deindustrialization of India.
Because PEASANTS can now be thrown off the land for non-payment of rent or tax, they are encouraged to produce for the market rather than for personal or family consumption. This Commercialization of Agriculture makes them dependent on vagaries of the market at terms very unfavorable to them.
Important Dates and Events
1765 DIWANI rights.
1770 Famine in Bengal.
1793 Permanent Settlement in Bengal - introduces private property in
land.
4. THE (RE)INVENTION OF TRADITION
Orientalists: Early EIC scholar-officials with an appreciative
eye towards what they believed were "authentic" Indian traditions. Their
reinterpretation of Indian traditions also served colonial needs, e.g.
the transformation of Indian law under influence of Orientalists like William
Jones. Inspired Indians like RAM MOHUN ROY.
Anglicists: Later EIC and Crown officials believed in the supremacy
of western ideas. Wished to build a class of Indians who would support
colonial rule because of their appreciation of such ideas. Exemplified
by Macaulay's ideas about education. Initiated western-style educational
institutions in India. Inspired movements like YOUNG BENGAL.
New Technologies of Power: Experiments with "modern" forms of
state power; less brutal, but more "disciplining." State now controls more
aspects of subjects' lives, power through knowledge about the colonized,
e.g. Census egun in 1871.
Race: With growth of ideas of scientific racism prejudices also "modernized." Operations like the Census based upon categories that reinforced some kinds of stereotypes, particularly based on race, religion, or ethnicity.