HISTORY OF INDIA

The early history of India is obscurely written in the myths of Sanskrit literature, but the first fact of any certainty is that about the year 2000 B.C., or even earlier, an Aryan people of comparatively high civilization descended from the mountain regions of the north-west into the plains of India and subdued the original inhabitants there. The expedition of Alexander the Great to the Indus in B.C.326 gives us a momentary glimpse of that part of India; but between his invasion and the Mohammedan conquest there is little authentic political history of India. In the 3rd century B.C. Buddhism was established throughout India, but it afterwards entirely gave way to Brahmanism. The first six centuries of the Christian era were occupied by struggles between the native dynasties and invaders from the north-west. In the 8th century the tide of Mohammedan conquest began with Kasim's advance into Sind (711 A.D.. But the Mohammedans were again driven out in 828, and for more than 150 years afterwards the strong feudal and tribal organizations of the northern Hindu kingdoms were a battier to the Mussulman advance. At length in the year 1001 Mahmud of Ghazni reduced the Punjab to a province of Ghazni, and the Mohammedan power was gradually extended into Southern India. In 1398 Timur or Tamerlane led a great Mogul (or Mongol) invasion of India, and after sacking Delhi retired into Central Asia. In 1526 Sultan Baber, a descendant of Tamerlane, founded the Mogul Empire in India. His grandson Akbar reigned from 1556 to 1607, and extended his power over most of the peninsula, being distinguished by his justice and his tolerance in matters of religion. His son Jehanghir received an ambassador from James I. in 1615. During the reign of his successor, Shah Jehan, famous for his architectural magnificence, the Mahrattas began to be formidable in Southern India. Shah Jehan was deposed in 1658 by his youngest son Aurengzebe, who made war successfully with the Afghans, the Rajputana tribes, and the rising power of the Mahrattas .The Sikhs, a Hindu sect, formed a religions and military commonwealth in the Punjab in 1675. On the death of Aurengzebe in 1707 the Mogul empire began to decline, Mohammedan viceroys like the Nizam and the ruler of Oudh asserting their independence, while the great Hindu states of the Sikhs, the Rajputs, and the Mahrattas began to harass the decaying empire. In 1738 Nadir Shah of Persia swept down on Hindustan, sacked Delhi, and carried away sixty millions sterling of treasure. The two immediate successors of Aurengzebe, Bahadur Shah and Jahandar Shah, were incapable rulers, practically under the control of the vizier Zulfikar Khan. The three following were mere names under cover of which Husain Ali, governor of Behar, and Abdulla governor of Allahabad, controlled affairs. During the reign of Mohammed Shah the Mahrattas, who had already subdued the Deccan, wrung first Malwa (1743) then Orissa (1751) from the feeble grasp of the Mogul emperor. The same year saw the first inroad of the Afghan prince Ahmed Shah, followed in quick succession by three other invasions, to repel which the assistance of the Mahrattas was obtained. In 1761 the decisive battle of Panipat was fought between the Afghans and the Mahrattas, and ended in the defeat of the latter. The victor Ahmed Shah still recognized the Emperor Shah Alam, but the dignity was little more than nominal. Shah Alam was succeeded in 1806 by Akbar II., who was succeeded in turn by Mohammed Bahadur Shah, the last Mogul emperor, who died at Rangoon a British state prisoner in 1862.

In the beginning of the 16th century the Portuguese, following in the wake of Vasco da Gama had established factories and fortresses on the coasts of Malabar, and soon extended their power over nearly all the ports and islands on the coasts of Persia and India. In 1595 the Dutch gained a footing in India. The English East India Company had formed commercial settlements in India as early as 1613, Surat being the chief station. A grant of a small territory around Madras was received from the Rajah of Bijnagar in 1639, on which was erected the fort of St. George. Madras became a presidency in 1654. Calcutta, ultimately the seat of government in India, was settled in 1690, and became a presidency in 1707. The English early came into collision with the Portuguese and Dutch, but it was the struggle with the French in India, whose first settlements were founded in 1604, for influence over the native princes, that led step by step to the establishment of the British empire in India. The first conflict with the French took place in 1746, when the English lost Madras, which was, however restored by the treaty of Aix-la-Cbapelle. In 1751 Dupleix, the French governor at Pondicherry, was powerful enough to place creatures of his own on the thrones of the Deccan and the Carnatic. The English supported rival candidates, and the result was a second war, which left English influence predominant in the Carnatic, though the French still controlled the Deccan. The most memorable incident in this war was Clives capture of Arcot. About this time important events took place in Bengal, then a subordinate presidency to that of Madras. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula (Surajah Dowlah), attacked the English settlement at Calcutta with a large army, forced it to capitulate, and thrust the prisoners, to the number of 146, into the Black Hole or common prison of the garrison, a room 18 feet square, with two small windows. After a night of unparalleled suffering only twenty-thee were found alive in the morning. Clive was at once sent with an armament from Madras, recovered Calcutta, attacked and took the French settlement at Chandernagore, routed the Nawab's army at the battle of Plassey (23d June, 1757), and placed Mir Jaffier on the vice-regal throne, with consent of the Mogul court In the south the English were equally victorious, A force despatched by Clive took Masulipatam, and the victory gained by Coote at Wandewash on 22d January, 1760, completed the destruction of the French power in India.

In Bengal Mir Jaffier soon found himself unable to meet the exorbitant claims of his allies, and in 1760 he was deposed in favour of his son-in-law Mir Kasim, who agreed to pay the balance due by Mir Jaffier as well as grant the districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong to the English. But disputes soon led to a war, in which Mir Kasim was worsted and forced to flee. The British retained the collectorship or fiscal administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, under the fiction of a grant from the Mogul emperor. A nominal native ruler, however, was still appointed in the shape of a nawab, who received an allowance of £600,000, and the actual collection of the revenues was still left to the native officials. This system of double government established by Clive was abolished in 1772 by Warren Hastings, who appointed English officers to collect the revenues and preside in the courts, and thus laid the foundations of the present system of British administration in India. In 1774 Hastings was made governor-general of India. Amongst the notable measures of his vigorous rule were the refusal of the £300,000 of the Bengal tribute to the Mogul emperor, the sale of the province of Allahabad and Kora (assigned by Clive to the emperor in 1765) to the Nawab of Oudh, and the loan of British troops to the same nawab for the subjection of the Rohilla Afghans. For these and other acts, such as the extortion of heavy fines and forfeitures from the Begum of Oudh and the Rajah of Benares, Hastings was impeached on his return to England. In 1778 the intrigues of the Bombay government led to the first war with the Mahrattas, in which the British arms were only saved from disgrace by the achievements of the Bengal army which Hastings sent to the aid of the other presidency; and in the war with the Sultan of Mysore the diplomatic skill of Hastings, and the valour of the Bengal troops under Sir Eyre Coote, again won victory for the British. In 1786 Lord Cornwallis succeeded Hastings as governor. His rule is memorable chiefly for the war with Tippoo Sultan of Mysore, which terminated in the sultan having to surrender one-half of his dominions to the British and their allies. Sir John Shore succeeded as governor-general in 1793. He wee followed by the Marquis of Wellesley, who arrived in 1798, and whose policy eventually made the British power paramount from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Under him Tippoo of Mysore was completely overthrown (1799) and the second Mahratta war successfully concluded, Sir Arthur Wellesley (latterly Duke of Wellington) having won the victory of Assaye (23d Sept. 1803), and General Lake that of Laswaree (lst. Nov. 1803). In 1805 Lord Cornwallis went out as governor-general for the second time. He died soon after his arrival, and was succeeded by Sir George Barlow, and he by Lord Minto, in 1807. In 1809 some disturbances at Travancore and Cochin led to these regions being placed under British control, During the governorship of the Earl of Moira (Marquis of Hastings, 1814 - 23) there was a war with the Goorkhas of Nepaul, which after a short struggle ended with the cession to the British of Kumaon ; and another with the three great Mahratta. princes, the Peshwa of Poona, the Rajah. of Nagpur, and Holkar of Indore. The Peshwas territory was annexed; the other Mahratta princes were compelled to accept alliances placing them under British protection. A new province, the nucleus of what are now the Central Provinces, was formed out of territory recovered from the Pindaris. In 1823 Lord Amherst succeeded as governor-general. During his administration the fist Burmese war arose, and was concluded in 1826 by the cession to the British of the provinces of Aracan and Tenasserim. Under Lord William Bentinck's rule (1828- 35) administrative reform and the moral elevation of the people of India were chief subjects of consideration. In 1836 Lord Auckland assumed the governorship. Two years later the Afghan war broke out, and terminated in the disastrous British retreat. During Lord Ellenborough's administration Sind was annexed. Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) Hardinge succeeded in 1844, and the year following the Sikhs, originally a religious sect who had conquered the Punjab, crossed the Sutlej in great force. Four hotly-contested battles, at Mudki, Firozshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon, left the British masters of the field. Part of the Sikh territory was annexed, and the infant Dhuleep Singh recognized as rajah of the rest. In the governor-generalship of the Marquis of Dalhousie (1848 - 56), a new war broke out with the Sikhs, and after their final defeat by General Gough at Gujerat, 21st February, 1849, the Punjab was annexed to the British dominions. This was immediately followed by the second Burmese war, ending in the annexation of Pegu, 20th June, 1853 . The Indian states of Sattara, Jhansi, and Nagpur were, on the failure of the native succession, annexed to the British possessions, 1852-56, and Oudh also brought directly under British rule, During the same administration the extensive scheme of Indian railways and telegraphs and steamship connection with Europe via the Red Sea was planned and inaugurated, the Ganges Canal opened, and the Punjab Canal begun.

The administration of Viscount Canning (1856 - 61) was distinguished by a short war with Persia, and especially by the great Sepoy mutiny. Several outbreaks among the native soldiers took place during March, 1857. The first formidable revolt, however, was at Meerut on 10th May, where the Sepoys of the 3rd Light Cavalry, assisted by the 11th and 20th Regiments of infantry, rose and massacred the Europeans. They then fled to Delhi, where they were immediately joined by the native garrison. Here another massacre took place, and the dethroned descendant of the Moguls once more assumed the sovereignty. The revolt spread rapidly through the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh, down into Lower Bengal. Only in the Punjab the prompt measures of the governing officials in disarming the Sepoys prevented an outbreak, and the Sikh population continued steadily loyal Wherever the mutiny broke out it was attended with savage excesses; women were outraged, and Europeans without distinction of age or sex barbarously murdered . At Cawnpore the revolted Sepoys were headed by Nana Sahib, the heir of the last Peshwa of the Mahrattas. After a heroic but fruitless attempt to defend themselves, the Europeans capitulated on the sworn promise of Nana Sahib to allow them to retire to Allahabad. On the 27th the survivors, about 450 in number, were embarking when they were attacked by the Nana's troops, and the men indiscriminately massacred. The women and children, 125 in number, were carried back to Cawnpore and kept till the 15th of July, when they were all cut to pieces on the approach of Havelock's army. Cawnpore was stormed the day following. At Lucknow Sir Henry Lawrence had the foresight to fortify and provision the Residency, where the garrison held out till relieved by Havelock and Outram on 25th Sept. But Havelock was in turn besieged, and was with difficulty relieved (Nov. 17) by Sir Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde. Delhi, meanwhile, had fallen, chiefly owing to the skill and valour of Sir John Lawrence. By May, 1858, when Bareilly was taken, Sir Colin Campbell and Sir Hugh Rose had restored order, and the mutiny was at an end.

In 1858 the direct sovereignty of India, and the powers of government hitherto vested in the East India Company, were vested in the British crown. Lord Canning returned to England early in 1862, and was succeeded by the Earl of Elgin, who died in 1863. Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence was governor-general from 1863 to 1868. when he was succeeded by the Earl of Mayo, who did much to develop the material resources of the country by removing the restrictions upon trade between the different provinces, and constructing roads, canals, and railways. He was assassinated by a Mohammedan fanatic in the Andaman Islands, 8th February, 1872. Lord Northbrook became viceroy in 1872. During his administration a famine in Lower Bengal, successfully obviated by a vast organization of state relief (1874), the dethronement of the Gaekwar of Baroda for disloyalty (1875), and the tour of the Prince of Wales through India (1875 - 76), were the chief events. In 1876 Lord Lytton was appointed viceroy, and on January 1,1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi. In 1877 - 78 another disastrous famine occurred, and despite the most strenuous efforts of the government over five million persons are said to have perished. In 1878 the intrigues of Shir Ali, amir of Afghanistan, with Russia, led to a declaration of war on the part of the British. After two Campaigns Abdurrahman Khan was established on the Afghan throne by British arms. In 1880 Lord Ripon succeeded as viceroy; being followed in 1884 by Lord Dufferin, under whose rule took place the annexation of Upper Burmah on 1st January, 1866. He was followed by the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Elgin, and Viscount Curzon.