Company rule in India

Company rule in India, or the Company Raj, was the government of the British East India Company over the Indian subcontinent from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 until the Government of India Act of 1858. Robert Clive's victory at Plassey put Mir Jafar on the throne of Bengal, and the Company soon collected revenue as diwan of Bengal and Bihar, ruling through its own army and civil service from Calcutta. Warren Hastings became the first governor-general in 1773, when the Company abolished the old Nizamat and took direct charge. Its armies fought Mysore, the Marathas and the Sikhs, while the permanent settlement of 1793 fixed Bengal's land revenue and created a new class of zamindars. Roads, canals, railways, telegraphs and English schools followed, but so did the Bengal famine of 1770, heavy taxation and the doctrine of lapse, which annexed Awadh in 1856. The rebellion of 1857 shook Company rule to its foundations; the following year the Crown took over India, and the Company's armies and territories passed to the new British Raj.