ABSTRACT

A new phase in India’s history opened after the 1857 rebellion and the consequent dissolution of the East India Company. The era of the colonial Raj began with Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1 November 1858. This benign document set a new tone of authority and conciliation. 1 The queen promised, first, no further annexations of the remaining native states. This came too late for many nawabs who had by now been dethroned. The Mughal emperor had been exiled to Rangoon, Burma, and his successors had been executed. Although nearly 500 princely states, big and small, survived, relatively few large ones were under Muslim rulers. After 1858, the vast majority of Indian Muslims lived within the directly controlled territories of British India or within the Hindu princely states, the most prominent of which, Kashmir, was where a Hindu prince ruled over a Muslim majority (Map 9.1). The queen’s proclamation also promised that, with the exception of those landlords who had taken an active part in the rebellion, all the zamindars and subordinate categories of landlords could retain their lands and possessions. This meant a further lease of life for Muslim landed gentry, particularly in Punjab, Sind and the United Provinces (incorporating the pre-1856 nawabi of Awadh). 2 Muslim South Asia: 1858–1947 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203095225/d8adedaa-3e07-4924-b6b6-04f37668655f/content/map9_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>