[jiam17]

In the 19th century, Britian exploration lead to the establishment of British India.

The Indian population is much larger than British explorers. How can an entire group of people be subordinate to foreigners?

[soron]

Divide & Conquer.

I understand the Brits supported the local rulers, provided they bowed to the British Vice King.

[Torwan]

Technological advantage equals numbers.

And the british empire was extremely far advanced compared to the backwater kingdoms of India.

[politicsman500]

india wasn't advanced as Britain at the time...

[Ter]

For most of those years, it was the British East India Company that was in charge. A company. Making profit. And very few British people there to control the teeming masses.
Nowadays people don't want to be ruled by other people. It is the communists that gave them those ideas.

Ter

[unbalanced zealot]

[mod note] Please read the following for information about capital letters, thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_letter

[Bosnjak]

The british invented the steam machine, an invention as much as important, the wheel was. Britain made the most important step after the begining of farming, the industrialisation.

Britain was simply some centuries advanced. This allone can not explain why the British won.

More important. India was ruled by Muslims, but the majority population was Hindu, this made it easy for the British to divide and conquer.


I think British India was better governed then the modern India.

Look at the hole Infrastructure built in this time, some steam trains built in this era still drive arround in India today.

[Igor Antunov]

India was a hodge podge of various states before british companies moved in for the kill. The mughals had already collapsed.

And the british raj was very loose, various princelings and maharajas got to benefit from british protection just by signing a document and little else. It was a hands off protectorate. Being puppeted wasn't a big deal, they didn't have any way to project their own foreign policies anyway, these princely kingdoms were too small and weak.

The british tendrils spread over time, but once ghandi came and united the masses to a significant extent, the british stood no chance.

It was division that made india an easy target. As another example, China proved too difficult to fracture even by multiple powers despite it's crappy regime at the time, a regime which made foreign meddling possible. Once the weak and corrupted imperial regime fell the country was essentally freed from foreign molestation until the japanese tried their hand at it and got bogged down.

Point is india was just not india at the time of british conquest, it was many states. The british helped unite india.