Is India still British territory? English Claim since 1612!
The status of Indians is one of the most debated issues these days after Queen Elizabeth died. We’ll see what decision King Charles 3 will take about India. After all, India is their colony and land. Will he set the Indians free?
Did the Indians get their freedom or is it still a British colony? Do the British still have claims on Indians? If not, why can Indians easily get a British visa and travel easily in British regions? Why did the Indians surrender their Land to the British?
Since 1612, he surrendered his lands to the British in order to free themselves from Turkish rule and accepted English slavery. So why? The Turks did not mistreat them and even brought them freedom. Now they live in slavery conditions in filth and disgrace.
BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY
Its original name is British East India Company. It was established on 31 December 1600 by British merchants with a royal charter to get a share from the Far East and India spice trade, which was monopolized by Portugal and Spain, and over time, it became one of the largest trade organizations in the world and the representative of British colonialism in Asia. It is seen that the company continued this representation of the company as an autonomous state with its activities, location and influence, especially in India, until 1858, when the government ended its monopoly privilege and dissolved its organization.
The company made its first voyage to the East Indies (Malaysia-Indonesia) in 1601. After this profitable expedition, he also decided to explore trade opportunities with India, and in 1612 he received the privilege of entering Surat, the port of Gujarat, from the Mughals. The company, which also had military power and organized expeditions to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Japan, defeated the Portuguese fleet in 1622 in the Strait of Hormuz, together with the Persians, and took control of the Gulf region and the Indian route.
However, he could not show this success against the Dutch in the Far East and had to withdraw from the East Indies region. Thereupon, the company’s trade organization, which focused its attention more on India, gradually developed. After Sûret and Masulipatam, he headed to Bengal and chartered Madras in 1639. Bombay in 1661. It was received as a wedding gift from the Kingdom of Portugal due to Charles’ marriage to Princess Catherine de Bragance, and the port city of Calcutta was founded in 1690.
The establishment of another English East India Company in 1698 caused confusion, but in 1709 the two companies merged. Meanwhile, the rivalry with the Dutch East India Company in the Far East accelerated again and relations became tense in time, leading to war.
XVIII. The company, which made a great progress in its trade volume in the first half of the century, obtained the privilege of acting on behalf of the state and representing the regions it traded in by arranging its relations with the British government. In 1717, he won capitulation rights from the Mughals and rose to a very powerful position in the country. In the 1740s, upon the French attempts to enter India, he got involved in local throne fights and engaged in military actions in order to protect his property and privileges.
Reinforcing its troops in the region, the company, which had de facto dominated Bengal with the Plassey victory in 1757, started to manage it on its own behalf from 1765. However, since this experience in Bengal was very burdensome, he started to lose money and sought help from the British government. With the Indian law enacted in London in 1773, the status of the company in India was tied to a principle and a governor general was sent and the company was taken under control along with all the colonial lands; With a new law passed in 1784, some problems encountered in practice were eliminated.
Thus, the company and Indian politics came completely under the control of the British government. The trade monopoly privilege of the company, which started to lose its weight gradually after this date, was also abolished with two laws enacted in 1813 and 1833. In this period, the company turned into an administrative institution rather than a commercial institution. As a matter of fact, by the 1850s, Delhi and the Punjab region were also under the control of the company, and the final limits of British dominance in India were almost clear.
Likewise, along with Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong, approximately one fifth of the world’s population at that time came under the domination of the company, so that the company became the world’s largest trade organization, as well as a state function with the administrative, financial and legal structure it established in the regions under its management.
This situation developed especially against the Islam that has prevailed for centuries in India, and the political, economic and cultural conditions of the Muslims worsened with the expansion of the company. Because, when the traditional structure based on agriculture in the economic field deteriorated with the British inclination to money-based commercial activities, the lands were forced to be sold, and the sense of trust in the minority society was lost in a psychological collapse due to the loss of political dominance.
In the cultural field, the loss of resources and patronage had stopped the progress of the connoisseurs of science and art. On the other hand, XIX. The transformation of the language of education to English with the turn of the century caused the Muslim potential trained in Urdu and Persian to become unemployed, and the damages caused by this situation were felt in the long run. Increasing missionary activities were also targeting Muslims because they were at a certain cultural level. The Mughal State, which gradually lost its power, could not prevent the expansion of the company, and the British were making themselves accepted with the image that they were operating on behalf of the Mughal State in regions where Muslim domination was strong.
In this process, the most important Muslim power that opposed the existence of the company was the Sultanate of Meysur in the south. But XVIII. Meysûr Ruler Tîpû Sultan, who wanted to expel the British from their lands by seeking support from Ottoman, Iran, Afghanistan and even European states at the end of the century, could not find the support he hoped for and was martyred on May 4, 1799 while fighting against them with his insufficient forces (Tipû Sultan’s Ottoman sultans Abdulhamid I and III. For the letters he wrote to Selim and the answers he received, see BA, Nâme Book, nr. 9, pp. 178-211; Bayur, XII/47 [1948], pp. 619-652).
The heavy tax policies of the British, the disdain of the local people by the company employees, the worsening economic situation, the offensive activities of the missionaries, the complexity of the legal procedure and the loss of political dominance caused the Muslims to react and in 1857 they tried to expel the British from the country. A military movement was launched. However, the company bloodily suppressed this move with the support of the UK government.
After the re-establishment of dominance in the country, the British government revoked the company’s status in India, taking the country under direct rule and colonizing it (1858); The legal existence of the company lasted until 1873. The India Office Library and Records in London, which has an indispensable position in the historical studies of the former British colonial countries and especially India, was established by the East India Company in 1801.
Why did the Indians enjoy being slaves? Why did they betray the Turks who protected them?
I think the answers to this need to be sought in sociology. I think science needs to explain why such smart people are led to a senseless betrayal. Basically, because of the mistake they made, they lost everything, even their selves and courage.
They believed so much in the caste system that the British established for them that they never improved either economically or sociologically.