Tag: history

The East India Company Act 1784 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain intended to address the shortcoming of the Regulating Act of 1773.

Sati is a practice of burying alive the widows of Hindus. It was a social evil that prevailed in India society. Sati pratha was made illegal in 1829 by Bengal Sati Regulation of 1829 under Governor Generalship of William Bentinck.  It was mainly due to fierce campaign and lobbying of Raja Rammohan Roy and others that sati practice was formally banned.

Provisions of the Regulating Act:

1)    A  Court of Directors was created at London to oversee the affairs of EIC in India.  

2)    The Governor of Bengal/Fort William was elevated to the statue of Governor General of Bengal /Fort William  and governors of Madras and Bombay presidencies were brought under the control of Governor General of Bengal.

3)  The institution of Governor General-in-council was created with Governor General as head and with four other members to carry out Legislative & Executive functions.

Lord Ripon is regarded to have been the father of local self-government in India. He formulated the local self government and laid the foundations of representative institutions in India. His scheme of local self government developed the Municipal institutions which had been growing up in the country ever since.

William Bentick served as the Governor-General of India from 1828 to 1835. He abolished the Sati system in 1829 with the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. According to a regulation of December 1829, he declared the practice of Sati illegal and punishable by Criminal Courts as 'Culpable Homicide'. This decision was supported by an enlightened community of Indian society.

Lord Dalhousie served as the Governor General of India from 1848 to 1856. His eight year rules were full of improvement and reforms.  He passed Widow Remarriage Act in 1855 which legalized the marriage of Hindu Widows. However this reform became one of the reasons to annoy the people of India.

Before 1850, it was in practice that if any person became a convert, he was deprived of his ancestral property.  This system checked the speed of  conversions in India.But Dalhousie passed the Religious Disability Act in 1850 which enabled the Hindu convert to inherit his ancestral property.

The railway was introduced by Dalhousie who served as Governor General of India from 1848-1853. The first railway line was introduced by Dalhousie on 16th April 1853 from Mumbai to Thane. It was a 14 carriage train hauled by three locomotives: the Sahib, Sindh and Sultan.

Lord Dalhousie served as Governor General of India from 1848 to 1856. During this period Dalhousie was successful in annexing Punjab to the British administration. He annexed many states by 'Doctrine of Lapse'. During his governorship first railway line between Mumbai to Thane was opened in 1853 and in the same year Calcutta and Agra were connected by Telegraph.