Separatist movements of India the ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1925, and he was the reigning monarch at the conclusion of British rule in the subcontinent in 1947. With the impending independence of India, the British announced that the British Paramountcy over the princely states would end, and the states were free to choose between the new Dominions of India and Pakistan or to remain independent. It was emphasized that independence was only a `theoretical possibility' because, during the long rule of the British in India, the states had come to depend on British Indian government for a variety
Presidencies and provinces of British India India Company had become the paramount political and military power in south Asia, its territory held in trust for the British Crown. Company rule in Bengal from 1793, however, ended with the Government of India Act 1858 following the events of the Bengal Rebellion of 1857. From then known as British India, it was thereafter directly ruled by the British Crown as a colonial possession of the United Kingdom, and India was officially known after 1876 as the Indian Empire. India was divided into British India, regions that were directly administered by the British, with Acts established and passed in