The Modern History of India roughly begins from the 17th century that saw a gradual decline of Mughal Empire and establishment of British as dominating power in India. The Britishers ruled India for almost two centuries and finally India got independence from all European invaders in 1947 after years of firm battle against British.
Although British overpowered all other European powers in India, it was not the only European ruler of India. The real pioneers to reach India were the Portuguese. Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor who first reached Indian soils in 1948, much before Mughals and marked the beginning of a Colonial Era in India. Over a period of time Portuguese established strong trade relation with India especially in the market of spices.
The Dutch first shipped to India in 1595, but unlike Portuguese Dutch bore India’s picture only as an essential trade route to cover trade links in Asia. There was no attempt from Dutch to gain military control in India. It is believed that Dutch actually gained a reasonable monopoly as far as the spice trade in India was concerned.
The East India Company of British was chartered in 1600 almost along with Dutch but soon realized that Dutch was unwilling to share trade benefits in East Indies. In India Portuguese was already at a good trade relation. Finally what proved a winning stride was the old trump card of the British, their naval supremacy. Then Mughal Emperor Jehangir Received the first British ambassador Sir Thomas Roe in 1612.
Under Roe’s effective communication a treaty was signed between the Mughals and British according to which British became their unspoken, unsaid, naval aide. By 1674 Bombay came to the British as part of the dowry of Charles II's Portuguese queen Catherine, and from here they never looked back.
Adding to the British advantage was the gradual decline of Mughals after the death of Aurengzeb. Soon after the death of Aurengzeb, India was invaded by Afghans. During the time when British were slowly moving towards gaining powers in India, they had to deal with their long time enemies French.
During 1746-48 the French and English finally came to blows in the first Carnatic War (1746-48) in the Deccan. Rising above all major fights and battles British slowly captured entire India after the major battles like battle of Plassey that turned the trading power to a ruling power.
India was under British rule for over 2 centauries. Many acts and amendments were passed by the Britishers which slowly started to build an anti-British sentiment in India. During the major famine in Bengal in 1769, British did nothing to save about a million people from dying. The Regulatory act brought the administration control under Governor General and added many parliamentary controls to the cap of Britishers.
Under different governors various unpopular acts like the Doctrine of lapse, policy of Divide and Rule, Jalliawalla Bagh Massacre, hurting the religious sentiments of sepoys by asking them to put animal fat in mouth in form of cartridges, torturing the freedom fighters in cellular jails saw some exceptionally firm leaders rise against brutalities and movements for freedom.
Leaders like Mahatama Gandhi, Lala Lajpat rai, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Bhagat Singh, Mangal Pandey, Bal Gangadhar tilak, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Sukhdev etc rose at different junctions to fight against the British cruelties on Indian people. Civil Disobedience Movement, salt Satyagrah, Chori-Chaura, Formation of INA etc were some of the many measures taken under the move to Freedom.
The First war for independence was in 1857 called the “Sepoy Mutiny”. Years ahead saw swing of patriotic outrage that ultimately ended in Independent India in 1947.
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