Modern India — Company Rule & Colonization

Why This Chapter Matters

This period, roughly two and a half centuries from the first European ships reaching Indian shores to the great uprising of 1857, is one of the most heavily tested blocks in SSC CGL, CHSL, and CPO General Awareness papers. Expect questions on which European power arrived first and where, the exact sequence of battles that made the East India Company a territorial power, the land revenue systems and what each actually meant for the farmer, the reform movements that challenged social orthodoxy, and the causes and outcomes of the 1857 revolt. Very often, a single paper carries five or more questions spread across these sub-topics.

The biggest trap here is chronology and cause-effect confusion: mixing up the Battle of Plassey (1757) with the Battle of Buxar (1764), or assuming the Permanent Settlement applied everywhere in British India when it was actually confined mostly to Bengal, Bihar, and parts of Odisha. A second common trap is attributing reform movements to the wrong founder — Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj, not the Arya Samaj, and that single mix-up costs marks every year. Read this chapter as a timeline first, then let the details fill in around the timeline's spine.

The Europeans Arrive

India's maritime trade with Europe changed forever when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut (present-day Kozhikode, Kerala) in 1498, having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. This broke the monopoly Arab and Venetian traders had long held over the spice trade route to Europe. The Portuguese soon set up trading posts, and under Afonso de Albuquerque, captured Goa in 1510, which became the headquarters of Portuguese power in Asia and remained under Portuguese control until 1961, far longer than any other European colonial holding in India.

The Dutch arrived next, forming the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602. They focused more on the Indonesian spice islands than mainland India, though they held trading posts at Pulicat and Nagapattinam. The Dutch were eventually squeezed out of India by growing English and French competition, most decisively after their defeat at the Battle of Bidara (1759) against the English.

The English East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, giving it a trade monopoly with the East. Captain William Hawkins and later Sir Thomas Roe secured trading concessions from the Mughal court, with Roe obtaining formal permission from Emperor Jahangir in 1615 to set up factories (trading posts) in Mughal territory. The Company's early bases grew into its three great Presidency towns: Surat (early base), later Bombay (received from the Portuguese in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married England's King Charles II), Madras (Fort St. George, established 1639), and Calcutta (Fort William, established by Job Charnock around 1690).

The French East India Company was formed in 1664 under Colbert, minister to King Louis XIV. The French established bases at Pondicherry and Chandernagore. Anglo-French rivalry in India played out through the Carnatic Wars (three wars fought roughly between 1746 and 1763), essentially a colonial extension of European wars back home. The most consequential figure on the French side was Joseph François Dupleix, who pioneered the strategy of training Indian soldiers (sepoys) in European methods and using alliances with local rulers to extend influence, a strategy the British later copied and perfected. French ambitions in India effectively ended after their defeat in the Carnatic Wars and the Treaty of Paris (1763), which confined French territorial holdings to a few small enclaves.

Memory hook: Remember the order of European arrival as "Poor Dutch Every French" — Portuguese, Dutch, English, French — roughly the sequence in which each power set up serious trading operations in India.

Exam trap: Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, not Goa. Goa was captured later, in 1510, under Albuquerque. Papers often test this specific city-year pairing.

The East India Company Becomes a Ruling Power

Battle of Plassey (1757)

The turning point for British fortunes in India came in Bengal. Siraj-ud-Daulah, the young Nawab of Bengal, attacked and captured Calcutta in 1756 (the episode later exaggerated in British accounts as the "Black Hole of Calcutta"). Robert Clive, commanding Company forces, recaptured Calcutta and then met Siraj-ud-Daulah's much larger army at Plassey (Palashi) on 23 June 1757. Clive won decisively, but not primarily through battlefield skill — he had secretly conspired with the Nawab's own disgruntled commander, Mir Jafar, who held back his troops during the battle in exchange for being installed as the new Nawab afterward.

Plassey is remembered as the moment the Company shifted from being a trading concern to a genuine political power in India, because it gave the Company effective control over the wealthy province of Bengal through a puppet Nawab.

Battle of Buxar (1764)

The more decisive military battle, in strict terms, was fought seven years later. A combined force of Mir Qasim (Mir Jafar's successor as Nawab of Bengal, who had turned against the Company), Shuja-ud-Daulah (Nawab of Awadh), and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II together took on Company forces under Hector Munro at Buxar in 1764. The Company won convincingly. The resulting Treaty of Allahabad (1765) was the true watershed: Shah Alam II granted the Company Diwani rights (the right to collect revenue) over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, formally making the East India Company the revenue authority over one of the richest regions in India, even though it remained nominally a trading company answerable to the Mughal emperor and the British Crown both.

Exam trap: Plassey (1757) established political dominance over Bengal through a puppet ruler; Buxar (1764) is the battle that actually delivered the legal grant of Diwani rights via the Treaty of Allahabad (1765). Many students remember only Plassey and forget that Buxar, not Plassey, is why the Company gained formal revenue authority.

Company Administration — From Trading Company to Government

As the Company's territorial holdings grew, the British Parliament stepped in repeatedly to regulate a private company now effectively ruling millions of people.

The Regulating Act of 1773 was the first major parliamentary intervention. It created the post of Governor-General of Bengal, with Warren Hastings as the first holder of that office, and gave the Bengal Governor-General some supervisory power over the Bombay and Madras presidencies. It also established a Supreme Court at Calcutta.

Pitt's India Act of 1784 introduced a system of dual control, dividing power between the Company's Court of Directors (commercial matters) and a new government body called the Board of Control (political and administrative matters), giving the British government real oversight over Company decisions for the first time.

The Charter Act of 1813 ended the Company's monopoly over trade with India (except tea and the China trade), opening India to private British traders, and it also formally provided funds for education in India.

The Charter Act of 1833 made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India, with Lord William Bentinck as the first Governor-General of India under this title, and ended the Company's remaining commercial functions entirely, turning it purely into an administrative body.

The Government of India Act, 1858, passed after the 1857 revolt, transferred power directly from the Company to the British Crown, ending Company rule altogether — a milestone covered in more detail in the next chapter.

Memory hook: Think of these Acts as a company slowly losing its "company-ness" — 1773 adds a government watchdog, 1784 adds a formal oversight board, 1813 strips the trade monopoly, 1833 strips the last commercial role, and 1858 removes the Company from the picture entirely.

Governors-General — Who Did What

Several Governors-General are individually tested for specific policies or events:

Warren Hastings (1773–1785), the first Governor-General, fought the First Anglo-Maratha War and the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and was later impeached in Britain (though eventually acquitted) over allegations of corruption and abuse of power.

Lord Cornwallis (1786–1793, and briefly again in 1805) introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal in 1793 and is also known for reforms that professionalized Company administration and civil service.

Lord Wellesley (1798–1805) introduced the Subsidiary Alliance system, under which Indian rulers accepted British troops in their territory (paying for their upkeep) and gave up their own independent foreign policy and often much of their military, in exchange for British "protection" — a system that rapidly expanded British influence without direct annexation.

Lord William Bentinck (1828–1835), first Governor-General of India, is remembered for major social reform: the abolition of Sati in 1829 (with the support of Raja Ram Mohan Roy) and suppression of Thuggee (organized banditry), as well as making English the medium of higher education following the Macaulay's Minute (1835).

Lord Dalhousie (1848–1856) is the most tested Governor-General for territorial expansion. He introduced the Doctrine of Lapse, under which any princely state whose ruler died without a natural (biological) male heir would be annexed by the Company, denying the traditional Hindu right to adopt an heir. States annexed under this doctrine included Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur, and Sambalpur. Dalhousie also annexed Awadh (Oudh) in 1856 on grounds of misgovernance, a move that caused deep resentment and is counted among the direct triggers of the 1857 revolt. On the modernization side, Dalhousie introduced India's first railway line (1853, Bombay to Thane) and the first telegraph line, and reformed the postal system.

Exam trap: Do not confuse the Subsidiary Alliance (Wellesley, rulers keep their throne but lose military and foreign policy independence) with the Doctrine of Lapse (Dalhousie, outright annexation when there is no natural heir). They are different mechanisms of British expansion, from different Governors-General, separated by roughly half a century.

Land Revenue Systems

British land revenue policy shaped rural India's economy for over a century and remains a favourite exam topic because the three systems are easy to compare directly.

The Permanent Settlement (1793), introduced by Lord Cornwallis in Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, fixed the revenue demand permanently and made zamindars the owners of land, responsible for collecting a fixed sum from cultivators and passing a fixed share to the Company. The advantage, from the British point of view, was predictable revenue; the deep flaw was that zamindars had every incentive to extract as much as possible from tenant farmers since their own obligation to the state never changed, while farmers themselves had no security of tenure.

The Ryotwari system, developed mainly by Thomas Munro and Alexander Read and applied chiefly in Madras and Bombay presidencies, made a settlement directly with the individual cultivator (ryot), who was recognized as the landowner. Assessment was periodically revised rather than fixed forever, based on the quality and productivity of the land.

The Mahalwari system, introduced mainly in parts of the North-Western Provinces (broadly today's Uttar Pradesh) and Punjab, assessed revenue at the level of the mahal (an estate or a group of villages), with the village community or a group of landholders jointly responsible for payment, and assessments were revised periodically, typically every 20 to 30 years.

Memory hook: Three systems, three "who pays" answers — Permanent Settlement, zamindar pays (Bengal); Ryotwari, the individual farmer pays (Madras/Bombay); Mahalwari, the village or estate pays as a group (North-West/Punjab).

Socio-Religious Reform Movements

The 19th century saw a wave of reform movements responding to social practices under growing British and modernizing influence, and to renewed interest in India's own philosophical traditions.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy, often called the "Father of the Indian Renaissance," founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 in Calcutta, opposing idol worship, Sati, and caste rigidity, and advocating a rational, monotheistic reform of Hinduism drawing on Vedic and Upanishadic ideas. His campaigning was central to Bentinck's abolition of Sati in 1829. Roy also founded the Atmiya Sabha earlier, in 1815, a precursor organization.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 in Bombay, later headquartered in Lahore, preaching a return to the authority of the Vedas and rejecting later accretions like idol worship, untouchability, and child marriage. His slogan "Back to the Vedas" is a common exam phrase.

Swami Vivekananda, disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, and is remembered for his address at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893, which introduced Vedanta philosophy to a Western audience and brought international recognition to Indian spiritual thought.

Other notable reformers include Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a key campaigner for widow remarriage (leading to the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1856) and for women's education in Bengal; Jyotiba Phule, who founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873) in Maharashtra, campaigning against caste oppression and for the education of women and lower castes, notably opening one of India's first schools for girls; and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who founded the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875 (later Aligarh Muslim University), promoting modern scientific education among Muslims.

Exam trap: Brahmo Samaj (Raja Ram Mohan Roy, 1828, Calcutta) and Arya Samaj (Dayanand Saraswati, 1875, Bombay) are the single most frequently confused pair in this topic. Anchor them by city and by their attitude to the Vedas: Brahmo Samaj drew broadly on rational reform, Arya Samaj insisted specifically on Vedic authority as the final word.

Anglo-Indian Wars That Shaped the Map

Alongside diplomacy and revenue policy, a series of regional wars steadily converted Company influence into direct territorial control. You do not need every battle date, but the broad outcomes are tested often.

The Anglo-Mysore Wars (four wars, roughly 1767 to 1799) pitted the Company against the powerful south Indian kingdom of Mysore, first under Hyder Ali and then his son Tipu Sultan, remembered as one of the fiercest opponents of British expansion and for his innovative use of rocket artillery against Company forces. Tipu Sultan died defending his capital, Seringapatam, in 1799, during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, after which Mysore's independent power was effectively broken.

The Anglo-Maratha Wars (three wars, spanning 1775 to 1818) gradually dismantled Maratha power, which had briefly looked capable of filling the vacuum left by Mughal decline. The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1818) ended Maratha resistance for good and also formally abolished the post of Peshwa, folding Maratha territories into British India or into subordinate princely arrangements.

The Anglo-Sikh Wars (two wars, 1845–1849) were fought against the Sikh Empire built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Punjab; after his death in 1839 the kingdom weakened through internal conflict, and the Company annexed Punjab outright after the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, the last major territorial acquisition on India's northwestern frontier before 1857.

Memory hook: Think of these three war-series as three "final holdouts" against Company expansion, falling in a rough south-to-north sequence: Mysore in the south (finished 1799), the Marathas in central India (finished 1818), and the Sikhs in the northwest (finished 1849) — each removing the last serious regional military rival in its zone.

The Revolt of 1857

Causes

The 1857 revolt, called the First War of Independence by many Indian historians and the Sepoy Mutiny in older British accounts, had layered causes building for decades:

• Political: resentment over the Doctrine of Lapse and the annexation of Awadh, which alienated both ruling families and ordinary subjects who depended on princely courts for employment and patronage.
• Economic: heavy land revenue demands, the decline of traditional Indian industries (particularly textiles) unable to compete with machine-made British goods, and the drain of wealth from India to Britain.
• Social and religious: fear that the British intended to convert Indians to Christianity, fuelled by the activities of Christian missionaries and administrative measures like the abolition of certain traditional practices, which some sections read as interference in religion.
• Military: discontent among sepoys over pay, promotion opportunities capped below British officers, and service conditions, especially after the General Service Enlistment Act (1856), which required sepoys to serve overseas if ordered, something many high-caste sepoys viewed as a violation of religious norms around sea travel.

The immediate spark was the introduction of the new Enfield rifle, whose cartridges had to be bitten open before loading and were rumoured to be greased with cow and pig fat, offensive to Hindu and Muslim sepoys respectively. The revolt broke out at Meerut on 10 May 1857, when sepoys mutinied, killed their officers, and marched to Delhi.

Key Leaders and Centers

The revolt was regional, not truly national, but it covered a wide swathe of north and central India:

• Delhi: Sepoys proclaimed the aged Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II (Zafar) as their symbolic leader, though he held no real power to direct the revolt.
• Kanpur: Led by Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the last Peshwa Baji Rao II, whose claim to a pension had been denied under the Doctrine of Lapse; his lieutenant Tantia Tope became one of the revolt's most capable military commanders.
• Lucknow: Led by Begum Hazrat Mahal, who held Lucknow for months on behalf of her young son after the annexation of Awadh.
• Jhansi: Led by Rani Lakshmibai, who defended her kingdom fiercely after the British had denied her adopted son's succession rights under the Doctrine of Lapse, and died fighting near Gwalior in 1858.
• Bihar (Arrah/Jagdishpur): Led by Kunwar Singh, an elderly zamindar who fought a mobile campaign against Company forces despite his age.
• Faizabad: Led by Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah, an early and effective organizer of resistance.

Memory hook: Match each center to its leader using the phrase "Delhi's Ghost, Kanpur's Heir, Lucknow's Begum, Jhansi's Queen, Bihar's Elder" — Bahadur Shah Zafar (a figurehead with no real power), Nana Sahib (denied his inheritance), Begum Hazrat Mahal, Rani Lakshmibai, and Kunwar Singh.

Suppression and Consequences

British forces recaptured Delhi in September 1857 and exiled Bahadur Shah II to Rangoon (Burma), where he died in 1862, ending the Mughal dynasty in name as well as fact. By mid-1858, organized resistance had largely been crushed, though scattered fighting continued into 1859.

The revolt's most far-reaching consequence was the Government of India Act, 1858, which abolished the East India Company entirely and transferred governance directly to the British Crown. Queen Victoria's Proclamation (1858) promised (with limited follow-through in practice) non-interference in religious matters and fair treatment for princely states that stayed loyal. The post of Governor-General was retitled Viceroy, with Lord Canning serving as both the last Governor-General and the first Viceroy of India. The British also reorganized the army to increase the proportion of British troops relative to Indian sepoys and to recruit more heavily from communities seen as loyal during the revolt, a policy shift that shaped British military recruitment in India for decades afterward.

Exam trap: The revolt did not end Mughal rule through a formal Indian declaration — it ended because the British defeated the rebellion, captured Delhi, and exiled Bahadur Shah II. Do not confuse this with independence; 1857 marks the end of the Mughal dynasty and Company rule together, not the end of British rule in India, which continued for another ninety years.

Historians still debate how "national" the revolt truly was. It never spread meaningfully to south India, Bengal proper, or Punjab (which had been annexed only a few years earlier and where the British had actively recruited soldiers who largely stayed loyal), and many princely states, including several major ones, either stayed neutral or actively helped the Company suppress the rebellion. What makes 1857 significant for exam purposes is not that it succeeded, but that it forced a fundamental reorganization of how Britain governed India, and it left behind a set of leaders and centers of resistance that later nationalist writers, particularly Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1909 work on the subject, reframed as the opening chapter of India's freedom struggle rather than a mere mutiny of disgruntled soldiers.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, opening the sea route to India.
• Albuquerque captured Goa for the Portuguese in 1510.
• English East India Company was chartered in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I.
• Sir Thomas Roe secured trading rights from Jahangir in 1615.
• Bombay came to England as part of a dowry in 1661 and passed to the Company in the same period.
• French East India Company was formed in 1664 under Colbert.
• Carnatic Wars (1746–1763) were fought between British and French forces in south India.
• Battle of Plassey (1757): Clive defeats Siraj-ud-Daulah with Mir Jafar's betrayal.
• Battle of Buxar (1764): Company defeats the combined forces of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daulah, and Shah Alam II.
• Treaty of Allahabad (1765) granted the Company Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
• Regulating Act (1773) created the post of Governor-General of Bengal; Warren Hastings was first.
• Pitt's India Act (1784) introduced dual control via the Board of Control.
• Charter Act of 1833 created the post of Governor-General of India; Bentinck was first.
• Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal in 1793.
• Lord Wellesley introduced the Subsidiary Alliance system.
• Lord William Bentinck abolished Sati in 1829.
• Lord Dalhousie introduced the Doctrine of Lapse and annexed Awadh in 1856.
• India's first railway line ran from Bombay to Thane in 1853.
• Ryotwari system (Madras/Bombay) settled revenue directly with individual cultivators.
• Mahalwari system (North-West Provinces/Punjab) settled revenue at the village or estate level.
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828.
• Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875.
• Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897.
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar campaigned for the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1856.
• Jyotiba Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873.
• Sir Syed Ahmed Khan founded the MAO College at Aligarh in 1875.
• The 1857 revolt began at Meerut on 10 May 1857 over the Enfield rifle cartridges.
• Bahadur Shah II was the symbolic leader of the revolt at Delhi.
• Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi died fighting near Gwalior in 1858.
• Government of India Act, 1858 transferred rule from the Company to the British Crown.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Land Revenue Systems Compared

System	Introduced by	Region	Who was assessed
Permanent Settlement	Lord Cornwallis (1793)	Bengal, Bihar, Odisha	Zamindar, fixed forever
Ryotwari	Thomas Munro, Alexander Read	Madras, Bombay	Individual cultivator, periodically revised
Mahalwari	Company administrators	North-West Provinces, Punjab	Village/estate (mahal), periodically revised

Table 2: 1857 Revolt — Center and Leader

Center	Leader	Notable fact
Delhi	Bahadur Shah II (Zafar)	Symbolic Mughal figurehead
Kanpur	Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope	Denied pension under Doctrine of Lapse
Lucknow	Begum Hazrat Mahal	Resisted after Awadh's annexation
Jhansi	Rani Lakshmibai	Died fighting near Gwalior, 1858
Arrah/Jagdishpur	Kunwar Singh	Elderly zamindar, mobile resistance

Practice MCQs

Q1. Vasco da Gama landed at which Indian port in 1498? (a) Goa (b) Surat (c) Calicut (d) Cochin

Q2. Which European power captured Goa in 1510 under Afonso de Albuquerque? (a) Dutch (b) French (c) Portuguese (d) British

Q3. The Battle of Plassey (1757) was fought between the East India Company and: (a) Mir Qasim (b) Siraj-ud-Daulah (c) Shuja-ud-Daulah (d) Shah Alam II

Q4. The Company received Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha through which treaty? (a) Treaty of Allahabad (1765) (b) Treaty of Paris (1763) (c) Treaty of Amritsar (1809) (d) Treaty of Bassein (1802)

Q5. Which Act first created the post of Governor-General of Bengal? (a) Charter Act of 1813 (b) Pitt's India Act, 1784 (c) Regulating Act, 1773 (d) Charter Act of 1833

Q6. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 was introduced in Bengal by: (a) Lord Wellesley (b) Lord Cornwallis (c) Warren Hastings (d) Lord Dalhousie

Q7. Under the Ryotwari system, revenue settlement was made directly with: (a) The zamindar (b) The village community (c) The individual cultivator (d) The Company's agent

Q8. The Doctrine of Lapse, used to annex several princely states, was introduced by: (a) Lord William Bentinck (b) Lord Wellesley (c) Lord Dalhousie (d) Lord Canning

Q9. Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded which reform organization in 1828? (a) Arya Samaj (b) Brahmo Samaj (c) Satyashodhak Samaj (d) Ramakrishna Mission

Q10. Swami Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj emphasized a return to the authority of: (a) The Puranas (b) The Vedas (c) The Upanishads only (d) The Bhagavad Gita only

Q11. The immediate spark for the Revolt of 1857 was: (a) The Doctrine of Lapse (b) The annexation of Awadh (c) The greased cartridges of the Enfield rifle (d) The abolition of Sati

Q12. Who led the revolt of 1857 in Jhansi? (a) Begum Hazrat Mahal (b) Rani Lakshmibai (c) Nana Sahib (d) Kunwar Singh

Q13. Which Act abolished the East India Company and transferred power to the British Crown? (a) Charter Act of 1833 (b) Regulating Act of 1773 (c) Government of India Act, 1858 (d) Pitt's India Act, 1784

Q14. India's first railway line, opened in 1853, ran between: (a) Calcutta and Howrah (b) Bombay and Thane (c) Madras and Arcot (d) Delhi and Meerut

Q15. Who among the following served as both the last Governor-General and the first Viceroy of India? (a) Lord Dalhousie (b) Lord Canning (c) Lord William Bentinck (d) Warren Hastings

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(c)	Vasco da Gama's 1498 landing at Calicut opened the direct European sea route to India.
2	(c)	Albuquerque captured Goa for the Portuguese in 1510; it stayed Portuguese until 1961.
3	(b)	Plassey (1757) pitted Clive against Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, decided by Mir Jafar's betrayal.
4	(a)	The 1765 Treaty of Allahabad, following Buxar, granted Diwani rights to the Company.
5	(c)	The Regulating Act of 1773 created the Governor-General of Bengal post, first held by Hastings.
6	(b)	Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha in 1793.
7	(c)	Ryotwari settled revenue directly with the individual cultivator, unlike zamindar-based Bengal.
8	(c)	Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse annexed states lacking a natural male heir, including Jhansi.
9	(b)	Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta in 1828.
10	(b)	Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj preached "Back to the Vedas" as its core doctrine.
11	(c)	Rumours about cow and pig fat greased Enfield cartridges triggered the Meerut mutiny.
12	(b)	Rani Lakshmibai led Jhansi's resistance after her adopted son's succession was denied.
13	(c)	The Government of India Act, 1858 ended Company rule and shifted power to the Crown.
14	(b)	The Bombay-to-Thane line, opened in 1853 under Dalhousie, was India's first railway.
15	(b)	Lord Canning held both titles, marking the transition from Company to Crown rule in 1858.