The Honourable East India Company was chartered by Elizabeth I at the end of the sixteenth century for the purpose of extending trade into Asia as well as providing a cheap and diplomatically safe way of intruding into the Spanish Empire's (mostly Portuguese actually but the King of Spain was also King of Portugal at the time) backyard.
It's first captains were Elizabethan merchants seeking to gain profit. They were a pretty modest operation at the outset and were seen as minor players on their arrival to India where there had been multiple European trading companies already setting up shop (the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French). They got to set up a number of trading posts with the permission of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. The Company generally made nice with the Mughal rulers. Some storied incidents such as the pirate Henry Avery's raid on the Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai provoked the ire of Emperor Aurangzeb which led to a major diplomatic incident that had the company supplicate to the Mughals. Aurangzeb was a military expansionist, and this led to a series of rebellions within India, and the rise of competing empires such as the Marathas and the Nizams of Hyderabad as well as other Kingdoms in the East. The Mughal Empire suffered a major body blow in the 1739 Sack of Delhi by the Persian conqueror Nader Shah. This was the Shocking Defeat Legacy from which the Mughals never recovered from. The Emperor's power was disintegrating in the face of European powers and internal pressure. Because of this, the Company began to hire local mercenaries to defend its trading posts. From this seemingly innocuous policy The Raj was slowly born. From its victory in the 1757 Battle of Palashi to the 1857 Mutiny, a series of conflicts took place which led to the growing hegemony of the East India Company. The Company evolved into a state of its own that often was more like an ally than a subject of the British crown. The East India Company's security guards evolved into a full fledged army; indeed one larger then most European armies and just as well trained and armed. Each time a major war broke out, this provided a convenient excuse to gobble up possessions of the enemy and not coincidentally, to conquer local powers accused of being to sympathetic toward said enemy. By Waterloo, the Company - and by extension, Britain - was the only power in the subcontinent.
For most Indians in this period, the British at the outset didn't seem all that different from most local rulers in India. Them being outsiders and strangers was no big deal since it was the tradition of India of foreign conquerors coming to India and becoming Indian, i.e. building domains and kingdoms, recruiting locals and then largely taking over from previous rulers and continuing on as before. Furthermore, many people across India considered their local community and region a separate nation, and upon conquest and defeat in battle it was common for say, surviving Rajput Soldiers to join the Mughal army, Mughal soldiers to join the Maratha army, and so on and so forth. Many of the Indian rulers thought nothing of allying with the Company in internecine wars with each other. The British had guns, and they were okay arming one kingdom so long as they fought another kingdom that had guns sold to them by the French. In the 18th Century, many local rulers had armies trained and armed by Europeans, whether it's Tipu Sultan using French expertise, or the Sikh Empire of Raja Ranjitsinghji employing veterans from Napoleon's army turned soldiers of fortune after Waterloo. The East India Company however had an advantage in that thanks to the banking revolutions in England, and the liberal revolution after 1688, the Company developed a regular system of payment and line of credit. Which meant that they could pay soldiers on time, as well as other local businesses and moneylenders among others. This meant that they were more reliable partners in credit than the local kingdoms, whose problems with efficient finances mirrored that of continental European kingdoms in the period of the Age of Revolutions (i.e. tied to aristocratic land ownership, rituals, bloodline and traditions rather than straightforward financial transparency). As such sepoys and other soldiers remained loyal to the East India Company, because the money was on time, and everyone got paid. The Company officers and leaders in India during the 18th Century were also more warm towards India, some converted to Hinduism or Islam, took to local traditions and learned Indian languages. While tensions did exist, and ultimately the Company was extractive and greedy, it was a case of them being bosses who took an effort to being liked by their employees. This attitude however changed in the middle of the 19th Century.
After this came a number of small scale wars and counter-insurgencies and the major Indian Rebellion of 1857. This was caused by discontent in the ranks and a feeling that the Company's Vast Bureaucracy was unsympathetic to their cultural traditions (demonstrably true - see the Greased Cartridges Incident
). A number of regiments revolted and declared themselves for the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (at that point a figurehead for a Vestigial Empire) as well as a series of rival feudal kings who were chafing under the Company's annexation policies by which it would nullify existing claims to the throne using the "doctrine of lapse" (i.e. the EITC used the lack of heir as an excuse to claim territory, and if there were heirs present, they would arbitrary declare those claims illegitimate with more or less zero reasons other than Screw the Rules, I Make Them! and simple racism). The most storied of these include Tatya Tope and Rani Laxmibhai of Jhansi, the latter of which captured the Victorian imagination as a Lady of War and is an Icon of Rebellion in India.
The East India Company proved shockingly incompetent at managing this crisis which it had more or less created and entirely deserved, and the spectacle of a non-white army attacking English lives and property was incredibly alarming to Victorian Britain and its white supremacist assumptions as well as its prestige as the world's unquestioned superpower. It would simply not do for them to be humiliated internationally by a bunch of darkies in some heathen land. So the Crown sent its own troops to suppress the mutiny with what modern historians consider to be the most punitive expedition unleashed in the history of the British Army. At the time, the English newspapers which controlled the global media favored the English side and focused on the atrocities of the mutineers namely at Cawnpore where English women and children were killed and their bodies dumped in the grave. Indian historians both in the lead-up to Independence, and after the war, focus on the far greater atrocities of the British Army, which involved the sacking and looting of Delhi and Lucknow, with much Rape, Pillage, and Burn of villages, and casualties of citizens in the thousands. Overall, while British casualties are estimated to be 6000, the number of Indians who died at British hands is considered to be 800,000 making it perhaps the darkest chapter in British colonial history. It culminated in the exile of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zaffar into exile in Yangon (Rangoon) in modern day Myanmar, while his children, the heirs of the Mughal Throne were summarily executed by British officers and their bodies buried unceremoniously at Delhi's Khooni Darwaza (Bloody Gate in Englishnote ). The Mutiny was the End of an Age. It marked the end of the East India Company as a N.G.O. Superpower and in so far as the Mutiny was a revolt against the company, it did succeed in toppling the government. It was also the most significant military revolt by Indian rulers, and it was the last time Indian kings and rulers commanded soldiers and armies in battle, and it marked the end of Indian feudalism. After this, the English government ruled directly under Queen Victoria who was bestowed the title Empress of India by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, making the new colony the Empire of India, allowing the Monarch to be an Empress.
The British Indian Army (as it is referred to in Wikipedia) fought in a number of local wars, notably in actions against tribesmen in Afghanistan and along its borders. During the Great Game, the Indian Army would have been responsible for providing the primary defense of the colony if the Russians decided to invade India. Assuming of course that "The Great Game" was ever really a thing or that Russians seriously planned to invade India beyond idle Wish Fulfillment exaggerated by British factors out of boredom or in search of promotion. It also performed gallantly in World War I and World War II. It was in these wars that the Gurkhas became famous for their ferocity and valour, as well as being eternally optimistic. It also produced the image of the mustachioed, exotic Indian soldier with lilting accents and total obedience to his British officers, as well as being utterly steadfast on the field. The statement was that you didn't see their backs until they were dead. Their contribution (and for that matter, that of Imperial forces in general) is often overlooked by Western Media, much to the chagrin of the Nepalis and the Indians. Their grievance is understandable, considering that they contributed over two million men for the British Empire's war machine - all volunteers. And who were the ones picking up the slack - with roughly a million other Imperial troops (Australians, New Zealanders and Burmese forming the bulk of them) as the British Regulars were recovering after fighting the Axis. And being instrumental in driving back Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps, and were the ones to give Field Marshal Harold Alexander the distinction of being the first General to conquer Rome from the south since Flavius Belisarius. In recent years, there's been much more acknowledgements of the contribution made by these soldiers to the Imperial War Effort but rarely in popular culture.
Their contributions are likewise neglected even in post-colonial India, and to an extent, in Pakistan. In India, the role of Indians in the British Army is contentious because said army was often turned against the Indian population, including at the 1919 massacre in Amritsar, and other similar events. In post-colonial India, the Sepoy Rebels of 1857 are heroes and the Indian Government has taken the step to declare as "repugnant" all actions committed by the army in service to the British Empire in actions against India and other colonial enterprises, including service in Egypt and China during the Opium Wars.
The Indian Army had what the British considered a number of colourful eccentricities, and what most others would consider orientalist exotcization that did more harm than good. More specifically, it smoothly adapted the famous British regimental system to harness local ethnic loyalties into the government's service. One controversial aspect of this was the Martial Race theory which held that certain cultures provided better soldiers. Those who favoured this claimed that these were people who grew up in tough places where they Had to Be Sharp. Others point out that this was simple bigotry that helped the English Divide and Conquer. Of course, not all of the Army was from "Martial Races" and some notable regiments like the Bombay, Bengal and Madras Sappers and Miners - who are generally regarded as the absolute best - were from "non-Martial" cultures. This "dilution" paled compared to the institution of Subhash Chandra's Bose rebel Indian Nationalist Army which despite being numerically smaller, and allied with Imperial Japan was the first Indian army without caste and religious segregation that was also open to women. The modern Indian army resembles Bose's structure more than the British.
At Partition, it split itself to give birth to Indians with Iglas and Pakistanis with Panters. The Partition of India would in fact be part of the ultimate legacy of the British Indian Army and their eugenicist fixation of martial races and divide and conquer tactics. A significant region for recruitment for the British Army was in fact Punjab which was split during the event, and a major part of the violence of Partition was carried out by World War II veterans on both the Indian and Pakistani side, who had become demobbed on Allied Victory and promptly found service as one of many marauders who committed ethnic cleansing, rape, and looting both sides of the border.
Rudyard Kipling is the Trope Namer because he frequently wrote about this subject. The British Public largely didn't care much about the Indian Subcontinent outside of money and cool museum artifacts and Crystal Palace displays of the Koh-I-Noor. Kipling, born in Bombay, felt connected to India and the British Presence in India which he felt most of the public didn't value as highly as the did their victories against European enemies like Napoleon or the Tsar of Russia in The Crimean War. While successful in his time, post-imperial England would ultimately see his reputation and his life's work largely discredited, and most would say that the British public had better instincts about their indifference and skepticism to wars and conflicts where the British were quite obviously not the underdog in any true sense, but were in fact the biggest bullies in the playground.
Tropes associated with Kipling's Finest :
- Bayonet Ya: British were fond of the bayonet as were British trained native troops India. This is worthy of special note though, because the tough logistics of India and the resulting ammunition shortage made both Crown and Company regiments more close combat happy then usual.
- Bling of War : With regiments representing scores of tribes and castes, and wearing the traditional costumes of each, they looked awesome on parade.
- Mighty Whitey: Until Independence almost all the officers were British. Mainly because Asian-born officers were not allowed until well into the twentieth century and they had a lot of red tape to cut through first even after that.
- Multinational Team: The structure of the British India Army included people from all the castes and even some who weren't from India. In practice, different groups and regiments had separate messes, dining arrangements and didn't socialize at all, which suited the British fine since this prevented the likelihood of another Sepoy Uprising.
- Opposing Combat Philosophies: The Military technology match up between Europeans and Asians was roughly equal in the eighteenth century. Everyone had guns and cannons (the Mughals importing it from their contacts in the Ottoman Empire) and the states down South getting theirs from the Portuguese. India had some of the finest cavalry in the world. The major problem was attrition, the British could raise money and pay their soldiers on time, while the Indian rulers struggled to maintain credit and a steady system of pay.
- Old Shame: The Indians with Iglas regard battle honours from this era (mainly those deemed to have been oppressive towards India or her neighbours) as "repugnant" and do not commemorate them. These include Carnatic, Assaye, and the Mysore and Punjaub campaigns. As well as the participation of the British Indian Army in Egypt (during Napoleon's campaign) and China (during the Opium Wars and beyond), which they see as aiding in the colonialist subjugation of other nations.
- Organizational Purpose Drift: The Company was founded in 1600 as a commercial trading corporation, chartered by Elizabeth I, for the purpose of extending trade into Asia. However, they quickly transformed into a political and military power in South Asia, particularly in their namesake of India. What began as a merchant venture drifted into taxation, diplomacy, warfare (they had a security force of over 250,000 men, more than twice the size of the British standing army at the time), and even outright governance of large territories until they were acting essentially as a sovereign power (minting currency, maintaining their own courts/judges, signing treaties, etc.). Its evolution from a for-profit trading company into a quasi-state is one of the most dramatic institutional shifts in history, as well as leading to its ultimate downfall. Growing political entanglements, allegations of corruption, and general mismanagement led the British Parliament to curtail the Company’s autonomy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After its forces became involved in the 1857 Indian Rebellion (an event partly fueled by resentment toward Company rule), the British government dissolved the institution entirely and assumed direct control over its territories.
- Puppet State: A number of troops were contributed by officially independent rajahs who were allied to the British government. In practice they had their economy and foreign policy entirely controlled by the English.
- Rival Turned Evil:
- From the perspective of the British Empire, the Indian National Army in World War II were a group of Indian nationalists who formed an army that had the goal of forming an independent country with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, ergo they were collaborators It is not clear what kind of country it might have become. On one hand, Bose and his followers did have some authoritarian and Fascist tendencies. On the other hand, they also disregarded the complex race rules that characterized the British India and all ethnicities of India served equally among its ranks (British, on the other hand, carefully segregated various ethnic groups in India among its ranks and carefully drew distinction between "Martial" races and others.)
- The 1946 trials of Indian National Army officers for treason at Delhi's Red Fort (with Jawahalal Nehru, future PM of India, as the chief defense counsel) led to nationwide mutinies and protests throughout India where the secularists and religious, Hindus and Muslims, military and civilians stood hand in hand against British imperialism that effectively broke the British Empire on Indian subcontinent. In India, Bengal and Pakistan today, however, its leader Bose and the army itself are widely celebrated (one of the few things all three countries agree on); given the sort of company the INA kept, that may say something about the twilight years of British rule in India.
- Despite its authoritarian backers, the INA was also years, if not decades, ahead of the British armed forces establishment with its placement of women, creating an all-women Rani of Jhansi regiment for both combat and medical uses, named after the famous woman who resisted the East India Company. The army of Post-Independent India is largely based on Bose's outfit though it retains a lot of continuity with the British Indian Army.
- Sibling Team: Richard and Arthur Wellesley. Richard was Governor-General. His more famous brother became the Duke of Wellington.
- Underestimating Badassery: Napoléon Bonaparte once sneered at The Duke of Wellington for being a "sepoy general". Presumably he thought that an insult. He was later corrected in his mistake. Though according to historians, Napoleon did not really underestimate Wellesley, he said that to defuse tensions among his Generals and build morale. Perhaps in reference to this, The Duke of Wellington would later claim that the toughest battle he ever faced was the Battle of Assaye against the Maratha Empire in India, ranking it a much bigger victory than Waterloo.