Modern Indian History (1757 to 1947)

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies I.

Modern Indian history (from A.D. 1757 to A.D. 1947): Significant events, personalities and issues, etc.

Topics in detail

The period runs from the Battle of Plassey to Independence. The national movement after 1885 has its own page (The Freedom Struggle); this page covers the growth of British rule, its institutions and its effects, and Indian responses up to the rise of organised nationalism.

Expansion of British power

• Decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of regional states: Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad, Mysore, the Marathas, the Sikhs
• Battle of Plassey (1757) and Battle of Buxar (1764); the Treaty of Allahabad (1765) and the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa
• Anglo-Mysore wars (Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan), Anglo-Maratha wars, Anglo-Sikh wars
• Wellesley's Subsidiary Alliance and Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse; the annexation of Awadh (1856)

Constitutional and administrative development

• Regulating Act, 1773; Pitt's India Act, 1784; Charter Acts of 1813, 1833 and 1853
• Government of India Act, 1858: the end of Company rule, the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy
• Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892 and 1909 (Morley-Minto reforms and separate electorates)
• Government of India Act, 1919 (dyarchy in the provinces) and Government of India Act, 1935 (provincial autonomy, a proposed federation)
• Civil services, police, army and judiciary under Cornwallis and his successors

Economic impact of British rule

• Land revenue systems: Permanent Settlement (1793), Ryotwari and Mahalwari settlements
• Commercialisation of agriculture, rural indebtedness and recurring famines
• Decline of handicrafts and the debate on de-industrialisation
• The drain of wealth (Dadabhai Naoroji, R. C. Dutt)
• Railways (first passenger line, 1853), posts and telegraph; the rise of modern industry (cotton, jute, iron and steel)

Education and the press

• The Charter Act of 1813 grant, Macaulay's Minute (1835), Wood's Despatch (1854) and the universities of 1857
• Hunter Commission (1882) and later education policy
• Growth of the Indian press and vernacular newspapers; the Vernacular Press Act, 1878

Social and religious reform

• Raja Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj; the abolition of sati (1829)
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856
• Prarthana Samaj, Arya Samaj (Dayanand Saraswati), Ramakrishna Mission (Swami Vivekananda), Theosophical Society
• Aligarh Movement (Sayyid Ahmad Khan), the Deoband school
• Jyotiba Phule and the Satyashodhak Samaj; Narayana Guru; movements of the depressed classes

Revolt of 1857

• Causes: political, economic, social and religious, military
• Centres and leaders: Meerut, Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar), Kanpur (Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmibai), Bareilly (Khan Bahadur Khan), Jagdishpur (Kunwar Singh)
• Reasons for failure; nature of the revolt; the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 and the changes that followed

Peasant and tribal resistance

• Sanyasi and Fakir rebellion; Kol, Santhal (1855-56) and Munda (Birsa Munda) uprisings
• Indigo revolt (1859-60), Pabna agrarian leagues, Deccan riots (1875)

Overlaps

Uttar Pradesh's role in 1857 and its freedom fighters are in General Studies V. The constitutional Acts lead into the Indian Constitution in General Studies II.