How did Great Britain have so much power and influence considering how small it is? How did they manage to colonise the entirety of India so easily?
In: 167
Indian here .. India was so divided about 350 years ago that it took very little effort and remarkably little bloodshed.
Also, due to difficult terrain and jungles, much of the nation was uninhabited.
The British had to convince local feudal lords to pay tax or else. While the number of white soldiers were very few they were armed to the teeth with latest weaponry. The local lords thought that discretion was the better part of valour.
The only time Indians really tried to go to war (1857 Sepoy Mutiny) they almost succeeded in toppling the British.
Edit Add – this might come as a surprise to many who don’t know our history that “India” was created by the British. From time of Emperor Ashoka, almost 2000 years ago, to Mughals about 500 years ago there have been many mighty empires some of which streched as far west as Afghanistan and as far east as Burmese border but one nation known as India is a construct by the British. It is a construct we are happy to keep but fact remains that we are not a single nation like France or Japan but an aggregation like Europe.
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