Editing New Imperialism (section)

==South Asia==

===India===
[[File:IndiaPolitical1893ConstablesHandAtlas.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Map of [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|British India]]]]

In the 17th century, the British businessmen arrived in India and, after taking a small portion of land, formed the [[East India Company]]. The British East India Company annexed most of the subcontinent of India, starting with Bengal in 1757 and ending with Punjab in 1849. Many princely states remained independent. This was aided by a [[power vacuum]] formed by the collapse of the [[Mughal Empire]] in India and the death of Mughal Emperor [[Aurangzeb]] and increased British forces in India because of colonial conflicts with France. The invention of [[clipper|clipper ships]] in the early 1800s cut the trip to India from Europe in half from 6 months to 3 months; the British also laid cables on the floor of the ocean allowing telegrams to be sent from India and China. In 1818, the British controlled most of the Indian subcontinent and began imposing their ideas and ways on its residents, including different succession laws that allowed the British to take over a state with no successor and gain its land and armies, new taxes, and monopolistic control of industry. The British also collaborated with Indian officials to increase their influence in the region.

Some Hindu and Muslim [[sepoy]]s rebelled in 1857, resulting in the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857|Indian Rebellion]]. After this revolt was suppressed by the British, India came under the direct control of the British crown. After the British had gained more control over India, they began changing around the financial state of India. Previously, Europe had to pay for Indian textiles and spices in bullion; with political control, Britain directed farmers to grow cash crops for the company for exports to Europe while India became a market for textiles from Britain. In addition, the British collected huge revenues from land rent and taxes on its acquired monopoly on salt production. Indian weavers were replaced by new spinning and weaving machines and Indian food crops were replaced by cash crops like cotton and tea.

The British also began connecting Indian cities by railroad and telegraph to make travel and communication easier as well as building an irrigation system for increasing agricultural production. When Western education was introduced in India, Indians were quite influenced by it, but the inequalities between the British ideals of governance and their treatment of Indians became clear.{{clarify|date=July 2014}} In response to this discriminatory treatment, a group of educated Indians established the [[Indian National Congress]], demanding equal treatment and [[self-governance]].

[[John Robert Seeley]], a Cambridge Professor of History, said, "Our acquisition of India was made blindly. Nothing great that has ever been done by Englishmen was done so unintentionally or accidentally as the conquest of India". According to him, the political control of India was not a conquest in the usual sense because it was not an act of a state.{{citation needed|date=July 2014}}

The new administrative arrangement, crowned with Queen Victoria's proclamation as [[Emperor of India|Empress of India]] in 1876, effectively replaced the rule of a monopolistic enterprise with that of a trained civil service headed by graduates of Britain's top universities. The administration retained and increased the monopolies held by the company. The India Salt Act of 1882 included regulations enforcing a government monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt; in 1923 a bill was passed doubling the salt tax.<ref>[[History of the British salt tax in India]]</ref>