Although the rebellion had shaken the British enterprise in India, it had not derailed it.

After the
war, the British became more circumspect. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the
rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a more practical level, it was felt that
there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indiansnot
just between British army officers and their Indian staff but in civilian life as well.1 The Indian
army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded. New
regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had
demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. From then on, the Indian army was to remain
unchanged in its organisation until 1947.2 The 1861 Census had revealed that the English
population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with
about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army.3 In 1880, the standing Indian Army
consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely
armies.4

Lastly, the British felt disenchanted with Indian reaction to social change. Until the rebellion,
they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on sati by Lord William
Bentinck.5 It was now felt that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be
changed easily; consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in
matters dealing with religion, even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the
instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows).6 This was exemplified further in Queen
Victoria's Proclamation released immediately after the rebellion. The proclamation stated that
'We disclaim alike our Right and Desire to impose Our Convictions on any of Our Subjects';7
demonstrating official British commitment to abstaining from social intervention in India.

1
Thomas George Percival Spear, A History of India, vol. 2: From the 16th Century to the 20th Century (Published
1990 by Penguin) 147.
2
ibid 145-146.
3
European Madness and Gender in Nineteenth-century British India. Social History of Medicine 1996 9(3):35782.
4
Robinson, Ronald Edward, & John Gallagher. 1968. Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism. Garden
City, N.Y.
5
Spear (n 1) 150.
6
ibid.
7
East India (Proclamations) <http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/mutiny/confpapers/Queen%27sProclamation.pdf> accessed
on 15 October 2017.
The population of the territory that became the British Raj was 100 million by 1600 and
remained nearly stationary until the 19th century. The population of the Raj reached 255 million
according to the first census taken in 1881 of India.8

Studies of India's population since 1881 have focused on such topics as total population, birth
and death rates, growth rates, geographic distribution, literacy, the rural and urban divide, cities
of a million, and the three cities with populations over eight million: Delhi, Greater Bombay, and
Calcutta.9

Mortality rates fell in 192045 era, primarily due to biological immunisation. Other factors
included rising incomes and better living conditions, improved better nutrition, a safer and
cleaner environment, and better official health policies and medical care.10

Severe overcrowding in the cities caused major public health problems, as noted in an official
report from 1938: In the urban and industrial areas ... cramped sites, the high values of land and
the necessity for the worker to live in the vicinity of his work ... all tend to intensify congestion
and overcrowding. In the busiest centres houses are built close together, eave touching eave, and
frequently back to back .... Space is so valuable that, in place of streets and roads, winding lanes
provide the only approach to the houses. Neglect of sanitation is often evidenced by heaps of
rotting garbage and pools of sewage, whilst the absence of latrines enhances the general
pollution of air and soil.11

Legal Modernisation

Singha argues that after 1857 the colonial government strengthened and expanded its
infrastructure via the court system, legal procedures, and statutes. New legislation merged the
Crown and the old East India Company courts and introduced a new penal code as well as new
codes of civil and criminal procedure, based largely on English law. In the 1860s1880s the Raj
set up compulsory registration of births, deaths, and marriages, as well as adoptions, property
deeds, and wills. The goal was to create a stable, usable public record and verifiable identities.

8
Anatole Romaniuk, "Glimpses of Indian Historical Demography." Canadian Studies in Population 40.34 (2014):
24851.
9
Khan, J.H. (2004). "Population growth and demographic change in India". Asian Profile. 32 (5): 44160.
10
Ira Klein, "Population growth and mortality in British India: Part II: The demographic revolution," p 33 <
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001946469002700102> accessed on 12 October 2017.
11
ibid 42.
However, there was opposition from both Muslim and Hindu elements who complained that the
new procedures for census-taking and registration threatened to uncover female privacy. Purdah
rules prohibited women from saying their husband's name or having their photograph taken. An
all-India census was conducted between 1868 and 1871, often using total numbers of females in
a household rather than individual names. Select groups which the Raj reformers wanted to
monitor statistically included those reputed to practice female infanticide, prostitutes, lepers, and
eunuchs.12

Murshid argues that women were in some ways more restricted by the modernisation of the laws.
They remained tied to the strictures of their religion, caste, and customs, but now with an overlay
of British Victorian attitudes. Their inheritance rights to own and manage property were
curtailed; the new English laws were somewhat harsher. Court rulings restricted the rights of
second wives and their children regarding inheritance. A woman had to belong to either a father
or a husband to have any rights.13

Government of India Act 1858

The Government of India Act 1858 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (21 &
22 Vict. c. 106) passed on August 2, 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British
East India Company (who had up to this point been ruling British India under the auspices of
Parliament) and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.14 Lord Palmerston, then-
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, introduced a bill for the transfer of control of the
Government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, referring to the grave defects
in the existing system of the government of India. However, before this bill was to be passed,
Palmerston was forced to resign on another issue. Later Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of
Derby (who would later become the first Secretary of State for India) introduced another bill
which was originally titled as An Act for the Better Government of India and it was passed on
August 2, 1858. This act provided that India was to be governed directly and in the name of the
Crown.

12
Radhika Singha, "Colonial Law and Infrastructural Power: Reconstructing Community, Locating the Female
Subject", Studies in History, (Feb 2003), 19#1 pp. 87126.
13
Tazeen M. Murshid, "Law and Female Autonomy in Colonial India", Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh: Humanities, (June 2002), 47#1 pp. 2542.
14
Wolpert, Stanley (1989). A New History of India (3d ed.), pp. 23940. Oxford University Press
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 forced the British Government to pass the Act. The Act was
followed a few months later by Queen Victoria's proclamation to the "Princes, Chiefs, and
People of India," which, among other things, stated, ""We hold ourselves bound to the natives of
our Indian territories by the same obligation of duty which bind us to all our other subjects."

Provisions of the Bill

The Company's territories in India were to be vested in the Queen, the Company ceasing to
exercise its power and control over these territories. India was to be governed in the Queen's
name.

The Queen's Principal Secretary of State received the powers and duties of the Company's Court
of Directors. A council of fifteen members was appointed to assist the Secretary of State for
India. The council became an advisory body in India affairs. For all the communications between
Britain and India, the Secretary of State became the real channel.

The Secretary of State for India was empowered to send some secret despatches to India directly
without consulting the Council. He was also authorised to constitute special committees of his
Council.

The Crown was empowered to appoint a Governor-General and the Governors of the
Presidencies.

An Indian Civil Service was to be created under the control of the Secretary of State.

Hereto all the property and other assets of the East India Company were transferred to the
Crown. The Crown also assumed the responsibilities of the Company as they related to treaties,
contracts, and so forth.15

The Act ushered in a new period of Indian history, bringing about the end of Company rule in
India. The era of the new British Raj would last until Partition of India in August 1947, at which
time all of the territory of the British Raj was granted dominion status within the Dominion of
Pakistan and the Union of India.16

15
"Official, India". World Digital Library. 18901923.
16
ibid.
The East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873

The East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873 was of an Act of the Parliament of the
United Kingdom, passed in 1873, that formally dissolved the British East India Company.

It was one of the East India Loans Acts 1859 to 1893.17

By the time of the Act's passing, the company had already effectively ceased to exist, with its
governmental responsibilities having been transferred to the Crown by the Government of India
Act 1858. The company's 24,000-man military force had also been transferred to the authority of
the Crown (subsequently being incorporated into the Indian Army), leaving it with only a
shadow of the power it had wielded years earlier.

Indian Councils Act 1909

The Indian Councils Act 1909 (9 Edw. 7 c. 4), commonly known as the Morley-Minto Reforms
(or as the Minto-Morley Reforms), was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that
brought about a limited increase in the involvement of Indians in the governance of British India.

John Morley, the Liberal Secretary of State for India, and the Conservative Viceroy of India,
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, believed that cracking down on the
uprising in Bengal was necessary but not sufficient for restoring stability to the British Raj after
Lord Curzon's partitioning of Bengal. They believed that a dramatic step was required to reassure
loyal elements of the Indian upper classes and the growing Westernised section of the
population.

They produced the Indian Councils Act of 1909 (Morley-Minto Reforms). They did not go any
significant distance toward meeting the Indian National Congress demand for 'the system of
government obtaining in Self-Governing British Colonies'.

The Act was important for the following reasons:

17
The Short Titles Act 1896, section 2(1) and Schedule 2.
It effectively legitimised the election of Indians to the various legislative councils in India for the
first time. Earlier, only a limited number of Indians were appointed to legislative councils. The
majorities of the councils remained British government appointments. Moreover, the electorate
was limited to specific classes of Indian nationals.

The introduction of the electoral principle laid the groundwork for a parliamentary system even
if this was contrary to the intent of Morley, as stated by Burke and Quraishi:

To Lord Curzon's apprehension that the new Councils could become 'parliamentary bodies in
miniature', Morley vehemently replied that, 'if it could be said that this chapter of reforms led
directly or indirectly to the establishment of a parliamentary system in India, I for one would
have nothing at all to do with it'. But he had already confessed in a letter to Minto in June 1906
that while it was inconceivable to adapt English political institutions to the 'nations who inhabit
India. The spirit of English institutions is a different thing and it is a thing that we cannot escape,
even if we wished... because the British constituencies are the masters, and they will assuredly
insist... all parties alike... on the spirit of their own political system being applied to India.' He
never got down to explaining how the spirit of the British system of government could be
achieved without its body.

To divide the Hindu-Muslim unity, with the help of some Pro-British Muslim leaders, the British
conceded the so-called demand of Muslim leaders for separate electorates. The Act of 1909
stipulated that in councils and in the imperial legislature, for the number of reserved seats to be
in excess of their relative population (25 percent of the Indian population), and that only
Muslims should vote for candidates for the Muslim seats ('separate electorates').

The concessions were a constant source of strife from 1909 to 1947. British statesmen generally
considered reserved seats as regrettable in that they encouraged communal extremism, as
Muslim candidates could not appeal for Hindu votes and vice versa. As more power was shifted
from the British to Indian politicians in 1919, 1935 and afterward, Muslims were ever more
determined to hold on to or even expand the reserved seats and their weightage. However, Hindu
politicians repeatedly tried to eliminate reserved seats, as they considered them to be both
undemocratic and hindering the development of a shared Hindu-Muslim national feeling.
In 1906, Morley announced in the British parliament that his government wanted to introduce
new reforms for India in which the locals were to be given more powers in legislative affairs.
Thus, a series of correspondences started between him and Lord Minto, the Governor General of
India. A committee was appointed by the Government of India to propose a scheme of reforms.
The committee submitted its report, and after the approval of Minto and Morley, the Act of 1909
was passed by the British parliament, commonly known as the Morley-Minto Reforms.

Major provisions[edit]

The Act amended the Indian Councils Act 1861 and the Indian Councils Act 1892:[1]

1. The members of the Legislative Councils, both in the centre and in the provinces, were to be
of four categories: ex officio members (Governor General and the members of their Executive
Councils), nominated official members (those nominated by the Governor General and were
government officials), nominated non-official members (nominated by the Governor General but
were not government officials) and elected members (elected by different categories of Indian
people).

2. The maximum number of nominated and elected members of the Legislative Council at the
Center was increased from 16 to 60, excluding ex officio members.

3. The maximum number of nominated and elected members of the provincial legislative
councils, under a governor or lieutenant governor, was also increased. It was fixed as 50 in
Bengal, Bombay, Madras, United Provinces, and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and 30 in Punjab,
Burma, and any lieutenant-governor province created thereafter. Legislative councils were not
created for provinces under a chief commissioner.18

4. The right of separate electorate was given to the Muslims.19

18
Ilbert, Sir Courtenay Peregrine. "Appendix I: Indian Councils Act, 1909", in The Government of India. Clarendon
Press, 1907. pp. 430.
19
ibid.
5. Official members were to form the majority but in provinces, nonofficial members would be
in majority.

6. The members of the Legislative Councils were permitted to discuss budgets, suggest
amendments and even vote on them except items that were included as non-vote items. They
were also entitled to ask supplementary questions during the legislative proceedings.

7. The Secretary of State for India was empowered to increase the number of the Executive
Councils of Madras and Bombay from two to four.

8. Two Indians were nominated to the Council of the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs.

9. The Governor-General was empowered to nominate one Indian member to his Executive
Council.

Government of India Act, 1935

The Government of India Act, 1935 was originally passed in August 1935 (25 & 26 Geo. 5 c.
42), and is said to be the longest Act (British) of Parliament ever enacted by that time. Because
of its length, the Act was retroactively split by the Government of India Act, 1935 (Re-printed)
(26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8 c. 1) into two separate Acts:

The Government of India Act, 1935 (26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8 c. 2), having 321 sections and 10
schedules.

The Government of Burma Act, 1935 (26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8 c. 3), having 159 sections and 6
schedules.

References in the literature on Indian political and constitutional history are usually to the
shortened Government of India Act, 1935 (i.e. 26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8 c. 2), rather than to the text
of the Act as originally enacted.

The most significant aspects of the Act were:

the grant of a large measure of autonomy to the provinces of British India (ending the system of
diarchy introduced by the Government of India Act, 1919)

provision for the establishment of a "Federation of India", to be made up of both British India
and some or all of the "princely states"

the introduction of direct elections, thus increasing the franchise from seven million to thirty-five
million people

a partial reorganization of the provinces:

Sindh was separated from Bombay

Bihar and Orissa was split into separate provinces of Bihar and Orissa

Burma was completely separated from India

Aden was also detached from India, and established as a separate Crown colony

membership of the provincial assemblies was altered so as to include any number of elected
Indian representatives, who were now able to form majorities and be appointed to form
governments

the establishment of a Federal Court

However, the degree of autonomy introduced at the provincial level was subject to important
limitations: the provincial Governors retained important reserve powers, and the British
authorities also retained a right to suspend responsible government.

The parts of the Act intended to establish the Federation of India never came into operation, due
to opposition from rulers of the princely states. The remaining parts of the Act came into force in
1937, when the first elections under the act were also held.