Key Points at a Glance

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Required Indian rulers to maintain a British force at their own expense
Required acceptance of a British Resident at their court
In return, Britain guaranteed protection from external and internal threats
States absorbed: Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Awadh (1801), Maratha chiefs (1802)
Ended the independence of Indian rulers without formal annexation

Denied Indian rulers the right to adopt heirs — adopted sons could not legally inherit feudatory states
States lapsed: Satara (1848), Jaitpur and Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853), Nagpur (1854)
Annexation of Awadh (1856) added on separate grounds of "misgovernance"
Dispossessed rulers became core leadership of the 1857 revolt

Fixed land revenue in perpetuity with zamindars who gained hereditary ownership rights
Peasants (ryots) were reduced to mere tenants with no ownership
Transferred agricultural surplus to a new zamindar class loyal to the British
Created chronic rural indebtedness and deepened agrarian poverty

Ryotwari (Thomas Munro, Madras 1820; Elphinstone, Bombay): revenue settled directly with individual cultivators (ryots) who held occupancy rights
Mahalwari (William Bentinck, northern India): revenue settled with villages (mahals) collectively with joint liability
Three systems together covered all of British India

First railway line (Bombay to Thane, 21 miles) inaugurated on 16 April 1853 under Lord Dalhousie
By 1900, India had 25,000 miles of railway
Served British imperial purposes: raw material to ports, troop movement, market integration
Critics: railways deepened economic drain; defenders: created unified national market

Articulated by Dadabhai Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901)
Supplemented by R.C. Dutt in The Economic History of India (1902)
Naoroji estimated Britain drained at least £30 million annually through "Home Charges"
Home Charges included: civil/military pensions, railway debt interest, India Office costs, remitted profits

Established by the Charter Act of 1833; competitive examinations introduced by the Government of India Act 1853
Examinations were held only in London until 1922 (simultaneous exams in India and England allowed after that)
Lord Macaulay's 1835 "Minute on Education" pushed English as the medium of instruction
Shaped a colonial bureaucracy that became the IAS after independence

Argued that "a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia"
Recommended English-medium education to create "a class Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect"
Transformed India's educated elite but also produced the intellectual leaders of the independence movement
Naoroji, Gokhale, Tilak, and Banerjee all used Western ideas of liberty to demand self-rule

Transferred power from the East India Company to the British Crown after the 1857 revolt
Promised non-interference in religious matters and equal employment opportunities for Indians
Promised respect for existing treaties with Indian princes
Created the framework for direct Crown rule (British Raj) until 1947

Created elected local bodies (municipalities and district boards) with elected Indian majorities
First significant devolution of power to Indians
Also associated with the Ilbert Bill controversy (1883) — attempt to allow Indian judges to try European defendants
European community opposed the Ilbert Bill, forcing its withdrawal

Indian Councils Act 1892: allowed Indians to be nominated to legislative councils
Indian Councils Act 1909 (Morley-Minto Reforms): introduced limited elections
Controversially introduced separate electorates for Muslims — deepened communal identity
This separate electorate policy eventually contributed to Partition

Bengal divided into East Bengal (Muslim-majority) and West Bengal (Hindu-majority)
Ostensibly for administrative efficiency; nationalists saw it as deliberate "divide and rule"
Triggered the Swadeshi Movement — boycott of British goods, promotion of Indian products
Reversed at the Delhi Durbar (1911) under King George V; capital also shifted from Calcutta to Delhi