Aftermath of the Indian rebellion of 1857

Shaken by the events of the Indian rebellion of 1857, Britain dissolved the East India Company and transferred ruling power over India to the Crown. The princely states were mostly kept intact, though they lost their private armies and were more closely watched. The all-British units were doubled in number. After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect regarding rapid modernisation. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indians—not just between British army officers and their Indian staff but in civilian life as well. The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded.^[45] New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. The Indian units lost their artillery. From then on, the Indian army was to remain unchanged in its organisation until 1947.^[46] The 1861 Census had revealed that the British population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army.^[47] In 1880, the standing Indian Army consisted of 66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.

Administrative control of India came under the prestigious Indian Civil Service which had administrative control over all districts outside the princely states. At first all-British, it included increasing proportions of Indians, and totalled about 1000 men. They were very well organised, well-educated and professional, and avoided the bribes and inside deals that had made for great wealth among the officials of the defunct East India Company.^[49]

The British decided that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm".^[45] They too were rewarded in the new British Raj by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.^[46] At the same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).