Arrival of Europeans in India
Answer: Vasco da Gama was the first Portuguese navigator to discover the sea route between India and the West. He arrived in the port of Calicut, India in 1498 AD.
Answer: The English sailor who was able to circumnavigate the Earth by sea was Francis Drake.
Answer: The first English sailor to enter India was John Milden Hall in 1599 with a permit.
Answer: The English East India Company was founded in London in 1600 AD.
Answer: The East India Company had two objectives in settling in India:-
a) Trading.
b) Establishment of British rule.
6. Where and when
was the first British trading center established in India?
Answer: The first British trading center was established in 1611 at Moslipatnam, India.
7. What is Fort William ?
Answer: The Calcutta trading center was named Fort William in honor of King William III of England.
Answer: The period of British rule in occupied India can be divided into two parts:
a)
The first is from the fall of the Mughal Empire to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 AD.
b)
The second is from 1858 AD to the transfer of power to the Indians in 1947 AD.
Answer: The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act on 2 August This Act empowered the British Government to rule India directly.
Answer: In 1861, the British Parliament passed the Indian Councils Act. The purpose of this Act was to introduce educated Indians to the modern system of administration.
Answer: In 1608, King James I of England sent a petition to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir through a British merchant named Captain William Hawkins to trade with India. Hawkins reached the port of Surat through the estuary of the Tapti River.
Captain Hawkins spent about two years in the Mughal Empire trying to obtain some trade facilities from the Emperor. Captain Hawkins' offer of a trade treaty was rejected by Emperor Jahangir. In 1615, King James I of England sent another Englishman, Sir Thomas Rowe, back to Jahangir. Thomas Rowe was unable to conclude any trade agreements, but Emperor Jahangir allowed the English merchants to establish trading posts in Surat.
In 1715, a delegation of Englishmen led by John Sarman met the Mughal Emperor Farukhshiar and proposed another trade treaty. At that time, Emperor Farrukhsia was suffering from a serious illness. The ailing Emperor Farukhshiar was treated by Dr. Hamilton, the physician of the delegation. The Emperor showed kindness to the delegation. On this occasion, the English merchants obtained three decrees from the Emperor and the East India Company received royal permission to trade freely throughout India. The company also moved towards consolidating its future on Indian soil.
Answer: In 1611, the Company established a trading center at Moslipattam with permission from the Sultan of Golconda. In 1636, the Company opened a second trading post at Armagaon. In 1639, the trading center of Armagaon was moved to a place near Madras by an agreement with the King of Chandragiri and renamed Fort St. George.
In 1690, an officer of the Company named John Charnock signed an agreement with the Nawab of Bengal to establish a trading center in three villages namely Kali Ghat (Calcutta), Sutanuti and Govindpur for an annual rent of Rs.
Robert Clive, an ordinary employee of the East India Company, soon mastered the diplomatic arts of establishing a colonial empire in India. Clive planned to expel other foreign European companies from India in the interests of his company. He tried to make the local kings follow the Company by war or alliance. The Nawab of Bengal, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawab of Awadh, the Raja of Rajputana, etc., all had to give up their authority in alliance with the Company.
Answer: Robert Clive defeated Nawab Chiraj Udaula of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa at the Battle of Palachi in 1757 and laid the foundation stone of the British Empire in India.
The following are four arguments for the tactics by which he laid the foundation stone of the British Empire:
a) Robert Clive planned to expel other foreign European companies from India in the interest of his company.
b)
He tried to make the indigenous kings follow the Company through war or
alliance.
c) The Nawabs of Bengal, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawabs of Awadh, the Rajas of Rajputana, etc., each had to give up their authority by making alliances with the Company.
d) The British monarchy formed a permanent government and took some public welfare measures in order to maintain British rule in India.
Answer: The four causes of the sepoy mutiny are as follows:
1. The unrest of the royal class and the people created an atmosphere of rebellion.
2.
In 1835, the name of the Mughal Emperor was removed from the Company's coins.
3. At the same time, there was increasing discontent among the Indians in response to the displacement of the royal Persian language and the introduction of English in the administration.
4. The reactionary rule of Lord Delhousie redoubled the unrest in the minds of Indians of all faiths.
The famous sepoy mutiny was triggered as a result of the above reasons.
Answer: 1. The terrible upheaval of the Sepoy Mutiny created a strong disgust in the minds of the English people towards the English East India Company. The British were concerned about the anger and suffering of the Indians manifested through the rebellion, the deep distrust of the Indians against the foreign rulers and the terrible massacres caused by the attacks and counter-attacks. The British government was forced to pay close attention to the governance of India to prevent such a terrible situation from recurring in the future.
2. The Government of India Act was passed by the British Parliament on 2 August This Act gave the British Government the power to rule India directly.
3. As a social change, Indians were attracted to modern Western education away from the contemporary stagnation in Indian society.
4.
After the Sepoy Mutiny, the direct rule of the British Government gradually
instilled a sense of unity in the minds of the Indians.
6. Name four
administrative changes brought about by the Government of India Act.
Answer: The four administrative changes brought about by the Government of India Act are as follows:
1. The transfer of all responsibility for the governance of India to the Government of England resulted in the abolition of the authority of the Board of Control and the Board of Directors associated with India during the Company's reign.
2.
Under the new Act, all responsibilities and powers relating to the governance
of India were vested in a member of the British Cabinet. The Minister directly
involved in the Government of India is called the 'Secretary of India'
3. According to the Government of India Act, the Governor General remained the supreme ruler of India but was given the title of Viceroy.
4. This Act delegated the power to appoint the Viceroy and the Governor to the British Government and subordinated the Company's armed forces to the British Government.
Answer: Lord Canning's two major reforms are as follows:
1. Lord Canning introduced the Wood's Education Reform Scheme in India to improve the education system and opened an education department under a Secretary in each province.
2. Experimentally, income tax was imposed on people earning Rs. 500 or more per annum.
Answer: Two qualities of the Indian Council Act:
1.
The inclusion of indigenous representatives for the first time in the history
of modern administration in India was introduced by the Indian Councils Act of
1861 AD.
2. The Act authorized the Viceroy to nominate the members of his Central Legislature from a minimum of six to a maximum of twelve.
1. This Act gave the newly formed Provincial Legislative Assemblies some legal powers of their own, although in reality these powers were only nominal.
2. The Governor-General was given the power to issue his own ordinances. He could exercise any kind of power without having anything to do with the council.
Answer: The proposal for fiscal decentralization, which came into force on 14 December 1870, gave the provinces the responsibility of education, health, registration, prisons and police. Lord Ripon advocated a change in local administration that would improve administrative efficiency as well as adopt local government as a means of political education. He emphasized on spreading education among Indians and introducing Indians to modern administration and encouraging the intelligent persons of the society to carry out their basic tasks with their own hands.
In 1882, Lord Ripon established a Local Board in each sub-division on a historic proposal.
Lord Ripon directed that the proposals for autonomy be implemented throughout India. His instructions were carried out by the chief governors of the provinces in two ways. Local Boards were formed at the district level in some provinces and at the sub-divisional level in others. Local Boards were formed at the sub-divisional level in Assam.
Like rural areas, urban areas were subject to local autonomy. The 1882 Local Autonomy Proposal created municipalities and municipalities in urban areas. The Autonomy Act of 1885 empowered only the District Commissioners to preside over the Local Boards.
Answer: The Charter of 1833 agreed to the appointment of Indians to high positions of government. The Act directed Indians to make qualifications for appointment to public service posts. In 1833, he created two posts of Deputy Magistrate and in 1843, Deputy Collector.
The Charter of 1853 provided for the conduct of competitive examinations for the public service. Indians were also allowed to sit for the examination. The examination was held in England and very few Indians were able to sit for it.
Until 1865, the maximum age limit for candidates to sit for the Public Service Examination was 22 years. However, in 1866, the maximum age limit was raised to 21 years. As a result, very few Indians were able to sit for the examination.
During
the tenure of Viceroy Lord Lytton, the age of candidates for the Indian Public
Service was reduced from 21 to 19 years. Bandopadhyay sent a lawyer named
Lalmohan Ghosh to England to consult Indians on the age limit for public
service candidates. The Government of England was forced to accept Ghosh's
argument and raise the age of candidates in the Indian Public Service to 22
years.
During the tenure of Lord Lytton, the British Government enacted an Act on the Indian Public Service. According to this Act, one-sixth of the public service posts reserved for committed Englishmen were filled by Indians nominated by the local government.
The Montague - Samsford Report suggested that it was a declared policy of the Government to conduct public service examinations simultaneously in England and India.
The Lee Commission was set up by the British Government in 1923 to implement the Montague-Samsford Report and the provisions of the Government of India Act, The Lee Commission proposed the immediate setting up of a Public Service Commission in India and advised to increase the proportion of Indians in public service posts to 50 per cent within 15 years.
Answer: Three differences between the civil service in British India and independent India are as follows:
1.
In British India, the maximum age limit for candidates to sit for the Public
Service Examination was 22 years. However, the minimum age limit for candidates
sitting the examination in independent India is 21 years.
2. Before India became independent, there was a system of recruitment in the public service on the basis of merit.
After India's independence, arrangements were made to conduct open competitive examinations at the all-India level.
3. Before India became independent, no Public Service Commission was formed here and Indian people went to England to sit for the Public Service Examination.
However, after India gained independence, the All India Public Service Commission and the State Public Service Commissions were formed at the provincial level.
Editing By:- Lipi Medhi
