IGNOU HISTORY NOTES : India History From Mid 18th to Mid 19th Century - Social Policy and Indian Response

IGNOU HISTORY Study Notes for IAS, UPSC Exams

History India From Mid 18th to Mid 19th Century

Social Policy and Indian Response

Structure

25.0 Objectives
25.1 Introduction
25.2 Historiography of Colonial Policy Formation
25.3 Early Social Policy of the British
25.4 Changes in Colonial Social lntervention
25.4.1 lntanticide
25.4.2 Sati
25.4.3 Shvery
25.5 The British Policy and the lndian Response : An Assessment
25.6, Let Us Sum Up
25.7 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

25.0 OBJECTIVES

Aftdr reading this Unit you will learn :

• the factors which shaped the colonial social policy
• the early social policy of the British in lndia
• subsequent British intervention in lndian social practices, and
• the impact of British social policies, and the lndian response.

25.1 INTRODUCTION

Tha latter half of the 18th century saw the English East lndia Company emerge as a
victorious commercial military power in Bengal after its victories at the Battles of
Plassey and Buxar. The remaining decades of the 18th century and the early 19th
century witnessed the slow and halting transformation of the British Company from
trader-conquerors to rulers. This shift necessitated the establishment of institutional
inftjastructures and a definite policy perspective for governing the subject population.
This process was marked by an initial dependence on pre-colonial institutions and
mekhanisms of rule, followed by ad hoc modifications in them, finally culminating in
reordering af the institutions of government.
Economic and intellectual developments in-Britain, combined with the requirements
and limits of the newly established colonial government of lndia provide the context
for the formulation of state policies in colonial India. 

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