British India

British India refers to the rule of the British Empire in South Asia in areas that were for hundreds of years under the influence of the English and later the British. From the 1600s to 1858, those areas were run by the East India Company. From 1858 to 1947, they were the ruled directly by the British Empire under the British Raj. Some areas were under the direct rule of the Governor-General of India, who was appointed by the Government of the United Kingdom in London, and he was also called a viceroy since he represented the British monarch. The British monarch was also considered as the emperor or empress of India.

1909 map. Pink areas including Burma were ruled by the Government of India. Yellow areas had local rulers.

After 1876, when Queen Victoria became Empress of India, British India was part of the British Indian Empire, which also included hundreds of Indian princely states that had never been conquered by the British and still had control of their own affairs. They were ruled by local rulers who were under the protection of the British. They had almost half of the land and a quarter of the people of the British Indian Empire. That empire is sometimes called the British Raj.

British India included the entire regions of the present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma (1858–13th August 1947).

Provinces

Until independence in 1947, British India had seventeen provinces.

• Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Assam
• Baluchistan
• Bengal Province
• Bihar
• Bombay Province
• Central Provinces and Berar
• Coorg
• Delhi Province
• Madras Province
• North-West Frontier Province (1901–55)
• Panth-Piploda
• Orissa
• Punjab
• Sind Province
• United Provinces of Agra and Oudh

The partition of India split the former British India into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. Twelve provinces (Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces and Berar, Coorg, Delhi, Madras, Panth-Piploda, Orissa, and the United Provinces) became provinces in India. Three (Baluchistan, North-West Frontier, and Sindh) were in Pakistan. Two (Bengal and Punjab) were split between India and Pakistan.

In 1950, after the new Indian Constitution, the provinces in India were replaced by states and union territories. Pakistan kept its five provinces. East Bengal, which was renamed East Pakistan in 1956, became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Related pages

• British North America

Further reading

• Edney, Matthew H., and Matthew H. Edney. Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765–1843. Vol. 10. University of Chicago Press, 1997.