Make Your Way 5, Schulbuch mit Audio-CD und CD-ROM

The history of India Match the sentence halves correctly. Historical background 5 1 By the middle of the 19th century 2 Britain at first ruled India 3 The East India Company was the only legal British trading company 4 The Company’s only job between 1833 and 1857 5 The Indian “Mutiny” 6 India was a colony 7 India gave Britain raw materials and 8 The railways and the administration that the British built up 9 The Indian fight for freedom 10 Mahatma Gandhi was 11 In his campaigns he told Indians 12 India was divided into two separate states 13 At the time of independence a until 1813. b a big market for industrial goods. c not to obey the British Government. d Britain controlled the whole of India. e serving British interests. f when it won its independence. g was governing India. h an important leader in the fight for independence. i meant the end of the East India Company. j India was not a very well developed country. k through the East India Company. l lasted about a century. m were two of the advantages of British rule. When the Portuguese first started trading there at the beginning of the 16th century, India was known as a rich country, with a civilisation that was many thousands of years old. Other Europeans followed – the Dutch, the British and the French. By about 1760, Britain had become the most important European power in India. Over a period of about another century, the British spread their control to the whole of the subcontinent. However, India was not ruled directly by Britain, but by the British East India Company, which had a monopoly on trade with India until 1813. In 1833 the Company stopped trading; from then on its only job was governing India. The end of the Company came after a rebellion was started by Indian soldiers in 1857 (known by the British as the Indian “Mutiny”). After the rebels were defeated, Britain ruled India directly and declared all Indians British citizens. As a colony, India was used mainly for British inter- ests. Britain’s industries got their raw materials there and it was a huge market for British goods. The development of a strong administration, the use of English as the official language and the building of railway lines helped Britain to govern India and make more profit from it. From the middle of the 19th century, Indian national- ists fought for the freedom of their country, a fight that lasted until 1947. Its most famous leader was Mahatma Gandhi, with his peaceful campaigns of civil disobedience. Independence came, however, only at a price: the country was divided into two separate states, India with a Hindu majority, and Pakistan with a Muslim majority. The job of the country’s new leaders was now to develop India to serve Indian interests after almost 200 years of British rule. 68 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv