The first British settlement (avamposto) in South Asia was established in 1619 at Surat on the north-western coast. Later in the century, the East India Company opened permanent trading stations at Madras , Bombay , and Calcutta , each under the protection of native rulers (governatori locali).
The British expanded their influence and, by the 1850s, they controlled most of present-day India , Pakistan , and Bangladesh .
In 1857, a rebellion in northern India , led by mutinous Indian soldiers, caused the British Parliament to transfer all political power from the East India Company to the Crown. Great Britain began administering most of India directly, while controlling the rest through treaties (trattati) with local rulers.
In the late 1800s, the Indians started a fight for their independence. At first Britain recognised provincial councils with Indian members; subsequently it widened (ampliò) Indian participation in legislative councils.
At the beginning of 1920, Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi transformed the Indian National Congress political party into a mass movement against British colonial rule. The party used both parliamentary and non-violent resistance to achieve (raggiungere) independence.
On August 15, 1947 India became a dominion within the Commonwealth, with Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister. Enmity (inamicizia) between Hindus and Muslims (Mussulmani) led (portò) the British to divide British India, into East and West Pakistan , where there were Muslim majorities.
India, called the jewel of the British Empire, has always impressed vividly in the imagination and writings of the British: from Wilkie Collins’s The Monnstone at the beginning of the 1800 to the novels of R. Kipling, E. M. Forster, and G. Orwell. Yet Indian literature and English also called “Indo-Anglian Literature” only began to get international recognition (ottenere un riconoscimento internazionale) in the last two decades of the 20th century.
Though English language is seen as inauthentic, a reminder of British imperial domination, it has become an Indian language in its own right with a particular verve and linguistic inventiveness.