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British rule in India lasted for three centuries, beginning with the establishment of a base of administration in India by the British East India Company in the 17th century.
The British East India Company ruled India directly before the Great Indian Uprising.
In 1858, the British authorities passed the Improvement of Indian Management Act, which abolished the agency management of the East India Company and replaced it with the direct jurisdiction of the British government, and India officially entered the period of colonial rule of British India.
The British government established a sound political ruling system in India, intervened in and controlled India's development in all aspects of politics, economy and society, and India began the process of modernization.
Most of the immigrants in the Khadr movement came from Punjab, so the impact of British rule in Punjab is the focus of this section.
Punjab's natural geographical advantages and complex social situation gave it a special place in the Indian policy of the British and Indian governments.
Punjab's geographical location makes it both political and economic, Punjab's superior terrain in the "Land of Five Rivers" is the main passage from Central Asia to the interior of India, and the stability of Punjab society contributes to British rule over the entire subcontinent.
And the strategic location fosters a highly diverse agricultural structure that is conducive to meeting the demand for raw materials in the development of British industry.
However, the social and cultural traditions of Punjab have brought challenges to British rule, Amritsar, Lahore and other cities contain rich traditional culture, urban culture and rural civilization coexist in Punjab, Punjab society and demographic attributes are complex, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims are intertwined, and social contradictions are sharp, which is a major challenge to British rule.
Sir Richard Temple recalled in 1882: "For us, Punjab was a land of hope... It provides a space to show your personality and perhaps start a sizable career for you.
This shows the official attitude of the British and Indian governments towards Punjab rule: rational use of the advantages of developing Punjab can make the ruler personally promising, but the mixed population of Punjab poses a more hidden threat to social stability.
Agriculture was a traditional industry in the Punjab, and farmers were also seen by the Anglo-Indian government as a potential force to consolidate the structure of imperial rule against the traditional Sikh aristocracy.
Based on this reality, the British government's philosophy of managing the Punjab was to protect the power structure of the countryside and adjust agricultural policy accordingly to gain the support of farmers.
After assessing the agricultural situation in Punjab, the British and Indian governments first began to adjust their tax policies, reduce agricultural taxes, and replace agricultural products with cash as a form of taxation.
This policy has promoted the development of Punjab agriculture in a short period of time and stimulated an increase in agricultural production.
Secondly, in order to promote agricultural development and indirectly maintain the stability of its rule in Punjab, the British government built large-scale tube wells and modern irrigation canals in the Punjab system, organically combining large irrigation canal irrigation networks with small tube well irrigation networks to expand the area of irrigated cultivated land.
Then, in order to ensure the quality of long-distance transportation of agricultural products, the colonial authorities built large-scale railroads, and agricultural products were continuously exported from India to European and North American countries.
By the end of the 19th century, Punjab became an important agricultural region in India, and agricultural modernization and commercialization promoted the prosperity of agriculture and the countryside, making Punjab a leader in India's agricultural development in the early 20th century, and gradually became one of India's rich regions.
The British government's agricultural policy had positive results, and the political and economic ties between Punjabi farmers and the government strengthened their loyalty to the government, and the subsequent rise of the Congress Party and the Muslim League had little influence on the Punjab.
The British government not only strengthened its economic ties with Punjab, but also took advantage of the Sikhs' physical strength for border warfare to recruit new soldiers.
The population of Punjabi is predominantly Sikh, and the British government values the advantages of Sikhs in martial arts, strength and suitability for border warfare, and specially recruits Sikhs to become the main force of the British and Indian army, and promises to give land and property to retired soldiers, in this way to strengthen the political ties between Sikhs and the British government, and Sikhs become representatives of a special military caste.
During World War I, 750,000 Punjabis, who served in the British and Indian army, "economic interests drove Indian soldiers to fight in concert with the British in various battlefields, the reform of military organization closely combined the military loyalty of the Punjabis with national honor, and the British government cultivated a group of military landlords loyal to Britain."
Going abroad to fight provides opportunities for the middle and lower classes of Indian society to communicate with Western civilization, and the first to set foot on North American soil are Indian soldiers in the British and Indian army, and they are deeply impressed by the prosperous social scene in North America, and choose to settle and live in North America after retiring.
They became the first wave of Indians to participate in international affairs.
Indian society under British rule began a new phase of modernization, and changes in social mechanisms led to the development of productive forces, but the policies implemented by the British and Indian governments brought only temporary prosperity to Punjab.
The adjusted tax approach was too desirable in Punjab's unstable agricultural market, where the increase in agricultural production led to an oversupply and a sharp drop in prices, but at the same time the government's demand for taxes was strong, farmers had to mortgage land to pay taxes, and the urban population used agricultural loans to acquire more and more land in rural areas, leading to a vicious circle of soaring agricultural and land prices.
Money lenders become the ultimate beneficiaries of the exploitation of farmers.
In 1901, the British government passed and implemented the Punjab Land Transfer Act, which was initially beneficial to the peasant class, but with the implementation of the policy, the British and Indian governments eventually aimed to deprive farmers of their rights, resulting in a further deterioration of human-land relations.
India's industrial and commercial structure has undergone fundamental changes after colonial rule, India's commercial trade is mainly the export of agricultural handicrafts and the import of British industrial products, the widespread occurrence of agricultural lending has led to agriculture almost becoming a non-profit industry, British industrial products have strongly occupied India, India's small-scale industry has been hit hard, cultivators are in debt and commerce loses autonomy. The transformation of economic relations under British rule made the Indian people suffer from economic exploitation and poverty, and the modernization under British colonial rule did not belong to the modernization of the Indian people, the ordinary people were heavily indebted, poverty and unemployment affected a large part of the Punjabi people, and the sharpening of the contradiction between people and land was an important factor in promoting their outward migration.
Most adult men use their family savings to leave India in search of new economic opportunities to support their families.
Indian immigration in North America was partly a direct product of British colonial rule.
Tens of thousands of Indians migrated to the United States and Canada in the early 20th century, the first peak period of Indian immigration to North America, laying the foundation for the formation of future South Asian communities in North America.
The earliest group of North American Indian immigrants were mostly from the Punjab region of northwest India, under the British colonial rule experienced a gap from prosperity to poverty, thus expecting a higher economic level of North America to seek better working conditions, improve family life After British colonial rule in India, the popularization of English learning provided convenient conditions for Indians to go abroad, coupled with the prominent position of the empire in the world at that time, Canada belonging to the British Commonwealth was favored by Indian immigrants, and the United States bordering Canada was more suitable for climatic conditionsThe advantage of better wages attracted Indian workers to immigrate from Canada to the United States.
The ardent demand for labor and relaxed immigration policies in the United States and Canada are necessary prerequisites for Indians to enter North America, and the strict immigration measures in the later period are an important factor in the awakening of the national consciousness of Indian immigrants in North America.
India, as a British colony, was part of the British Commonwealth, and they preferred Canada, which was also part of the British Commonwealth, first and foremost in the choice of immigration destination.
The government's earliest record of the entry of Indians was in 1902, when British and Indian troops from Hong Kong traveled through Canada to attend the coronation of Edward VII.
After their retirement, they sought new economic opportunities on the west coast of North America, and British Columbia became their main settlement in Canada.
In 1903, the number of Indian immigrants in Canada began to grow, the immigrant population was different from the previous stage of retired soldiers, this period of immigration was mainly farmers in the Punjab region of northern India, including some military police, middle class, etc., Indians began to enter Canada as laborers.
Since the founding of Canada in 1867, it began to accelerate the development of land resources, and built a railway line that crossed the east and west, which promoted the rapid expansion of the vast area of the western prairie, as well as the exploration and excavation of mining areas in British Columbia, Alberta and northern Ontario, relying on resource development and the rapid development of wood processing industry, coal industry and other urgently needed labor.
However, the Canadian government's promulgation of the "Chinese Exclusion Act" in 1885 led to the departure of a large number of Chinese laborers, resulting in a labor shortage.
The Canadian government actively introduced Indian immigrants out of the need to develop the economy, and the Deputy Minister of Labour authorized travel agents to call immigrants from India to replace the Chinese position.
The government commissioned shipping companies to act as agents for immigration, and Canadian Pacific Railway acted as an intermediary for transshipment of immigrants to Canada (the Pacific Railway played a leading role in the development of Western Canada, developing the shipping business of the Great Lakes and two oceans of North America in the process of western development).
"The emergence of Indian immigrants alleviated the labor shortage caused by the rapid development of the Canadian economy, and Indian immigrants in Canada showed a growing trend over several years, and the period from 1904 to 1907 was a period of surge in the number of Indian immigrants, about 5,000 Indians entered Canada, 85% of whom were Sikhs.
The official U.S. account of the Indian landings appears in 1820, when an Indian captain arrived in the United States with the aim of expanding trade.
But it was in the United States as an Indian immigrant group in the early 20th century.
The United States was founded earlier than Canada, there are stage differences in economic development, the needs for immigrants are also different, and there are slight differences in immigration policies.
The sources of Indian immigrants in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century were divided into two categories: one was directly to the United States for economic motivation to make a living, and after the development of the west in the 19th century, it laid the material foundation for the economic development of the United States.
After the end of the American Civil War in the 60s of the 19th century, the United States ushered in a new wave of immigration, immigrants promoted the economic development of the United States, and the economy and prosperity of the United States needed more immigrants.
The United States enacted the Immigration Encouragement Act in 1863, and Indian immigrants also took advantage of the favorable opportunity to enter the United States; The other category of Indians who entered the United States from Canada, in 1907-1908 the Canadian economy was affected by the crisis in time, a large number of Indians crossed the border to Washington and Oregon in the United States, the number of immigrants reached several thousand, this period of Indian immigrants into the United States to only labor and not skilled farmers and small businessmen as the main body, at this time Indian immigrants are very mobile, settlement is governed by work salary, between the United States and Canada, looking for more suitable job opportunities.
Indian immigration coincided with the entry of the United States and Canada into these two countries of immigration, forming a peak period for Indian immigration to North America.
Both the oppressive rule of the British and Indian governments and the loose immigration policies of the United States and Canada provided the feasibility for Indian nationals to settle in North America.