The British Raj is a term: "Raj" is a word in the Hindi language which means "rule", so "British Raj" means rule by the British Empire in India. This rule ended in 1947. It was over parts of what are now five countries, the Republic of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ceylon and Burma (now Myanmar). At that time, these countries were all part of the British Indian Empire, known at the time as the Indian Empire and sometimes called the "British Raj".

The term "British Raj" is used to talk of the direct British rule over areas which had been conquered by the British, known as British India. This includes the British influence over many independent princely states. These areas were governed by their own traditional rulers, but under the overall authority of the British crown.

Undivided India is another term which is used to mean the whole area of British rule, but it does not take in Burma, which from 1937 was a British colony on its own. The colony of Aden came under the same government in India from 1858 to 1937, and so did British Somaliland (now part of Somalia) from 1884 to 1898 and Singapore from 1858 to 1867.

The end of British rule created Pakistan. Later Bangladesh was created by Pakistan. British rule ended on 15 August 1947. Boundaries between India and Pakistan came into effect on the 18th of that month. Many people died as a result of the partition of the Indian Empire into these parts.

Jammu and Kashmir, like the other princely states, had not been under direct British rule. India and Pakistan have gone to war over this area, and it is now divided between them.

The 1861 census showed that the English population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with 84,083 European officers and men of the Army. In 1880, the standing Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.

Images for kids

Mahatma Gandhi (seated in carriage, on the right, eyes downcast, with black flat-top hat) receiving a big welcome in Karachi in 1916 after his return to India from South Africa
Gandhi at the time of the Kheda Satyagraha, 1918
Sidney Rowlatt, the British judge under whose chairmanship the Rowlatt Committee recommended stricter anti-sedition laws
Headlines about the Rowlatt Bills (1919) from a nationalist newspaper in India. Although all non-official Indians on the Legislative Council voted against the Rowlatt Bills, the government was able to force their passage by using its majority.
A. K. Fazlul Huq, known as the Sher-e-Bangla or Tiger of Bengal, was the first elected Premier of Bengal, leader of the K. P. P. and an important ally of the All India Muslim League.
Subhas Chandra Bose (second from left) with Heinrich Himmler (right), 1942
The series of stamps, "Victory", issued by the Government of India to commemorate the allied victory in World War II
Members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India meeting Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Far left is Lord Pethick Lawrence; far right is Sir Stafford Cripps
Percentage of Hindus by district, 1909
Percentage of Muslims by district, 1909
Sir Charles Wood (1800–1885) was President of the Board of Control of the East India Company from 1852 to 1855; he shaped British education policy in India, and was Secretary of State for India from 1859 to 1866.
Lord Canning, the last governor-general of India under Company rule and the first viceroy of India under Crown rule
Lord Salisbury was Secretary of State for India from 1874 to 1878.
Elephant Carriage of the Maharaja of Rewa, Delhi Durbar of 1903
One Mohur depicting Queen Victoria (1862)
The railway network of India in 1871, all major cities, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, as well as Delhi are connected
The railway network of India in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world
"The most magnificent railway station in the world." says the caption of the stereographic tourist picture of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888
The Queen's Own Madras Sappers and Miners, 1896
The global contribution to world's GDP by major economies from 1 CE to 2003 CE according to Angus Maddison's estimates. Up until the early 18th century, China and India were the two largest economies by GDP output.
The 1921 Census of British India shows 69 million Muslims, 217 million Hindus out of a total population of 316 million.
The University of Calcutta, established in 1857, is one of the three oldest modern state universities in India.
St. Paul's Cathedral was built in 1847 and served as the chair of the Bishop of Calcutta, who served as the metropolitan of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon.
The British Indian Empire and surrounding countries in 1909
Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, one of the principal leaders of the Great Uprising of 1857 who had lost her kingdom by the Doctrine of Lapse.
The proclamation to the "Princes, Chiefs, and People of India," issued by Queen Victoria on November 1, 1858.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, wrote one of the early critiques, The Causes of the Indian Mutiny.
A 1887 souvenir portrait of Queen Victoria as Empress of India, 30 years after the Great Uprising.
The 1909 Map of Indian Railways, the fourth largest in the world. Railway construction began in 1853.
Stereographic image of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, completed in 1888.
The Agra canal (c. 1873), a year from completion, was closed to navigation in 1904 to increase irrigation during a famine.
Lord Ripon, the Liberal Viceroy of India, who instituted the Famine Code. 1880
Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912), who proposed the idea of the Indian National Congress in a letter to graduates of Calcutta University.
Congress, Bombay, December 28, 1885. Third row (middle) (l. to r.) Dadabhai Naoroji, Hume, W. C. Bonerjee, and Pherozeshah Mehta.
Poverty and the Un-British Rule in India, 1901, by Naoroji, Member , British Parliament (1892–1895), and Congress president (1886, 1893, 1906).
Mehta, lawyer, businessman, and president of the sixth session of the Indian National Congress in 1890.
Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, 1899–1905, who partitioned the Bengal Presidency in 1905.
Congress moderate Sir Surendranath Banerjee led the opposition with the Swadeshi movement.
Tamil magazine, Vijaya, 1909, showing "Mother India" with her progeny and the slogan "Vande Mataram."
Lord Minto, the viceroy who replaced Curzon in 1906. The Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909 allowed separate Muslim electorates.
1909 Prevailing Religions, map of the British Indian Empire, 1909, showing the majority religions based on the Census of 1901
Hakim Ajmal Khan, a founder of the Muslim League, was to also become the president of the Indian National Congress in 1921.
Khudadad Khan, the first Indian to be awarded the Victoria Cross, hailed from Chakwal District, Punjab (present-day Pakistan)
Annie Besant shown with the Theosophists in Adyar, Madras in 1912 four years before she founded an Indian Home Rule League.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, seated, third from the left, supported the Lucknow Pact in 1916, ending the Muslim League-Congress rift.
Gandhi with Besant en route to a meeting in Madras in September 1921. Earlier, in Madurai, on 21 September 1921, Gandhi had adopted the loin-cloth in identification with India's poor.
Poster advertising a Congress non-co-operation "Public Meeting" and a "Bonfire of Foreign Clothes" in Bombay, early 1920s, and expressing support for the "Karachi Khilafat Conference"
Hindus and Muslims, with flags of Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, collecting clothes to be burnt as a part of the non-cooperation movement
Staff and students, National College, Lahore, founded in 1921 by Lala Lajpat Rai after the non-co-operation movement. Standing, fourth from right is Bhagat Singh.
British prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, three places to the right of Gandhi (to the viewer's left) at the 2nd Round Table Conference. Samuel Hoare is two places to Gandhi's right. Foreground, fourth from left, is B. R. Ambedkar representing the "Depressed Classes"
A second-day cancellation of the series "Inauguration of New Delhi", 27 February 1931, commemorating the new city designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker
A first-day cover issued on 1 April 1937 commemorating the separation of Burma from the British Indian Empire

British Raj facts for kids

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See also