Residencies of British India not maintain military forces other than for internal policing or else form diplomatic alliances with other States. The Residents attempted to modernize these Native States through promotion of European notions of progressive government. The first Native States to enter such subsidiary alliances included Arcot, Oudh and Hyderabad. Before the Rebellion of 1857, the role of the British Resident in Delhi was more important than that of other Residents, because of the tension that existed between the declining Mughal Empire and the emerging power of the East India Company. After the establishment of Crown rule of British India in 1858, the
British Raj India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern part of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its own independence in 1948. The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, except for small holdings by other European nations such as Goa and Pondicherry. This