History of the British Raj into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now a smaller "Union of India", became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General. History of the British Raj The history of the British Raj refers to the period of British rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule
Indirect rule Subject) of domination by a tiny group of foreigners of huge populations is laid out in Lugard's influential work, "The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa". The largest application of Indirect rule was in British Asia, in hundreds of pre-colonial states, first seen at work under the East India Company's system of subsidiary alliances in the Indian subcontinent. The areas thus brought into the British sphere of influence became known as the Indian Princely States. Subsequently, the same principle was applied in strategic regions on the sea routes to India, especially in the Persian Gulf protected states. In the British