British Raj

The British Raj was the period of direct British Crown rule over much of the Indian subcontinent, from 1858 until independence and partition in 1947.

Government of India Act 1858: A British law that transferred governance of India from the East India Company to the Crown. It formally established Crown rule after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
East India Company: An English and later British trading corporation that acquired extensive territorial power in South Asia. Its rule preceded the Crown regime and supplied many of its institutions.
Queen Victoria: The British monarch whose government assumed direct rule over India in 1858. Her title as Empress of India embodied the Crown’s imperial sovereignty.
Partition of India: The 1947 division of British India into the independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Partition accompanied independence and ended the Raj amid mass migration and violence.
Company rule in India: The East India Company’s exercise of territorial government in India before the Crown takeover of 1858. It contrasts corporate sovereignty with the Raj’s formal government by the British Crown.
Viceroy of India: The Crown’s chief representative and head of British India’s colonial administration. Viceroys exercised central authority in the Raj on behalf of the monarch.
Indian Rebellion of 1857: A major uprising against East India Company rule across parts of northern and central India. The rebellion prompted the transfer of power from the Company to the Crown.
Lord Curzon: British viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, associated with administrative reforms and the partition of Bengal. His Bengal partition helped intensify organized opposition to colonial rule.
Bengal famine of 1943: A famine in Bengal during the Second World War that killed millions of people. It exposed the human costs of wartime policy and colonial administration.
British India: The territories administered directly by the British government in India, distinct from princely states. It was the Raj’s directly governed territory, not the whole political landscape under British paramountcy.

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