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| 1820–31 |
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| Various efforts to resist British political and cultural intrusion began to emerge. Mindful of their efforts to supplant the Mughals, the British paid closest attention to movements that attracted Indian Muslims. For instance, some Muslims of northern India, resentful of the new order and hostile to secular education in English as subversive to their faith, responded to the appeal of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid of Rae Bareilly (influenced by the reformism of Shah Wali-Ullah and the puritan ideas of Ibn `Abd-ul-Wahhab of Arabia) for a return to the ways prescribed in the Qur'an and a restoration of Muslim government in India. Mindful of the strength of the British, Sayyid Ahmad preached and organized a jihad (holy war) against the Sikh rulers of the Punjab (1826–31) and was killed in battle against them (1831). His followers, although dispersed, developed a well-knit organization and continued his movement until the 1870s, when by assassinations of British officials they provoked suppression by the government. | 1 |
| In Bengal, Titu Mir led a Muslim uprising against oppressive Hindu zamindars and was killed by government troops (Nov. 19, 1831). The Fara'izi (obligationist) reform movement launched early in the century by Haji Shari' at-Ullah became a radical sect under his son Dudhu Miyan. The moderate reforms of Karamat `Ali, a disciple of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid, meanwhile attracted widespread support among Bengali Muslims. | 2 |
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| 1820s–50s |
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| First India-wide police campaign was organized against the Thags (robbers known for ritually strangling their victims). New policing strategies, administrative arrangements, and legal procedures were introduced to suppress what was seen as a direct threat to the British ability to maintain order in their territories. Sir William Sleeman led the new department created for this purpose, the Thagi and Dacoity Department. Two legal innovations to control the Thags later paved the way for control of entire caste groups labeled “criminal” and, by the 1920s, of political protesters: the courts agreed to convict those who Sleeman could show had been members of a gang, even if he couldn't demonstrate that they had committed a particular crime; and the role of “approver” was created, in which someone (proved to be involved in a crime) could then give testimony to implicate others as fellow perpetrators. | 3 |
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| 1824–26 |
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| Following Burmese aggression the first Anglo-Burmese War led to British acquisition of Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim. | 4 |
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| 1827 |
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| Pretense of subordination to the Delhi emperor was abandoned, his name was removed from the coinage (1835). | 5 |
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| 1828–35 |
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LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK served as governor-general. Relative peace favored reform measures: sat was made a criminal offense (1829), inland transit duties were abolished (1835), tea and coffee production were added to that of indigo, roads and canals were planned (Grand Turk Road begun, 1839), and river and ocean steamship lines were encouraged. Administrative costs were cut; revenue settlement was inaugurated in the northwest provinces; more responsibility was given to Indian subordinate officials; and law revision and codification were undertaken by Thomas B. Macaulay (law member, 1834–38), whose Minute on Education (1835), along with the pressure of Hindu demands and administrative convenience, prompted the momentous decision to subsidize education primarily along Western lines through the medium of English. | 6 |
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| 1831–81 |
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| Mysore state was taken under direct British control, owing to misgovernment. | 7 |
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| 1833 |
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| Parliament renewed the company's charter for 20 years, abolishing its trade in India and China and restricting its functions to the administration of its Indian territories. European settlements in India were allowed, and funds for education (first provided, 1813) were substantially increased. | 8 |
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| 1830s–50s |
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| Export trade relied particularly (in related fluctuations) on opium, raw cotton, indigo dye, and cotton textiles. Around 1850 the fluctuations smoothed out, with cotton textile exports rising dramatically, cotton and opium declining, and raw cotton maintaining a steady rate. Altogether, these exports (and precious metals) yielded some 455 million rupees of surplus available for remittances home to Britain. But the crisis brought about in the 1850s had a long-term impact on the South Asian economy: the risks induced many Indian entrepreneurs to invest in land instead of business, and it ushered in a period of rising food prices that benefited cultivators but created shortages in some places. | 9 |
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| 1835–36 |
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| Sir Charles Metcalfe, governor-general, was followed by Lord Auckland (1836–42), Lord Ellenborough (1842–44), and Sir Henry Hardinge (1844–48). | 10 |
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| 1837 |
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| Persian was abandoned as the language of record and the courts, replaced by English and regional languages, a decision welcomed by the Anglicized Bengali Hindus but deplored by the Muslims, whose numbers in the administration steadily declined. | 11 |
| British officials, now trained initially in England (Haileybury College established, 1805) and increasingly accompanied by their wives, gradually became socially and intellectually more aloof from their Indian subjects. | 12 |
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| 1839–42 |
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| The FIRST ANGLO-AFGHAN WAR was a fiasco precipitated by Auckland's exaggerated fear of Russian influence in Afghanistan. Although 16,000 British and sepoy troops succeeded in occupying Kabul (1839–41), popular revolt brought on their evacuation (Jan. 6, 1842) and massacre (121 survivors). | 13 |
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| 1843 |
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| Annexation of Sind, following provocation of hostilities by Sir Charles Napier. | 14 |
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