Colonial India After Alexander the Great in 327-326 BC, the first European to reach India was the Portuguese Vasco da Gama in 1498. He discovered a new sea route which favoured direct Indo-European commercial contacts. The first European trading centre was established by the Portuguese in Kerala in 1502. The next to arrive were the Dutch, British, and French. In 1661, Portugal was at war with Spain and needed support from England. So it was arranged a marriage between Charles II of England and Princess Catherine of Portugal, who brought a generous dowry1, including the trading-post of Bombay. This was the real beginning of the British in India. Britain was present in the Indian sub-continent through the East India Company, a joint-stock company2 which had been given the monopoly for trade in the East Indies by Royal Charter3. It dealt in cotton, tea, silk, indigo dye4, saltpetre5 and opium. As the Mughal Empire disintegrated in the early 18th century, the unstable Indian kingdoms were manipulated6 by Europeans. The second half of the 18th century saw the French and the British fighting for dominance. The victory of the British over the French at Madras, Wandiwash and Pondicherry, along with British success in the Seven Years War, reduced French influence in India. After the battle of Buxar in 1764, the East Indian Company acquired the right of administration in Bengal from the Mughal Shah Alam II. This marked the beginning of its formal rule, which extinguished the Mughal power in a century. By the 1850s, the East India Company controlled most of the Indian sub-continent, exercising military power and administrative functions. Its policy was sometimes summed up as Divide and Rule , taking advantage of the hostility between various Princely States7 and religious groups. The first movement against the Company was the mutiny8 of a group of sepoys9, which turned into the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It took six months to suppress the rebellion, with heavy loss of life on both sides. As a result, the British East India Company was abolished and the British government assumed direct control over India. Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India and a governor-general was nominated. This period is called the British Raj (1858-1947), which means British Reign in Hindi. The Indian Rebellion gradually developed into the Indian Independence Movement and, during the years of World War I, it turned into a mass movement thanks to the pacifist Mahatma Gandhi. Along with the desire for independence, tension between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. Finally, weakened by World War II, the British promised that they would leave India. The British Indian territories obtained independence in 1947, after being partitioned into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. This period saw one of the largest mass migrations recorded in modern history, with Muslims and Hindus moving between the two newly created countries. Pakistan became an Islamic Republic by constitution in 1956. 1. dowry: money given by a woman s parents to the man she marries. 2. joint-stock company: owned by all the people who have shares in it. 3. charter: official permit. 4. indigo dye: dark blue substance used to change the colour of clothes. 5. saltpetre: a white powder used for making matches. 6. manipulate: to make someone think or behave as you want. 7. Princely State: under the rule of a prince. 8. mutiny: refusal to obey. 9. sepoy: an Indian soldier serving under a British or European officer.