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In general, the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to refer also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. [140] The term has also been used to refer to the "British in India". [141]
The British Raj was the period of British Parliament rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, for around 89 years of British occupation. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria .
By the middle of the century, the British had already gained direct or indirect control over almost all parts of India. British India, consisting of the directly ruled British presidencies and provinces, contained the most populous and valuable parts of the British Empire and thus became known as "the jewel in the British crown".
The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, [7] was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. [8] Until its independence , India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom.
In 1984 the British government signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with China and agreed to turn over Hong Kong and its dependencies in 1997. British rule ended on 30 June 1997, with China taking over at midnight, 1 July 1997 (at end of the 99-year lease over the New Territories, along with the ceded Hong Kong Island and Kowloon).
Policies of company rule in India led to the Indian Rebellion of 1857. India was afterwards ruled directly by the British Crown, in the British Raj. After World War I, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi.
A map of the British Indian Empire in 1909 during the partition of Bengal (1905–1911), showing British India in two shades of pink (coral and pale) and the princely states in yellow. At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a governor or a lieutenant-governor.
The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British colonial rule.It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed.