Plan a lesson to teach me about British East India

Company
1. Lesson objective.

To summarise facts activities and the impact of the British East India Company

2. Activities

<1> exposition/explanation

Activity - Get students to pretend that they are an individual from the Parliament and get them to
assess whether the British East India Company should get its charter renewed.

The students should try to give their judgement about the impact of the British East India company.

They should be think about questions including did the BEIC contribute towards the betterment of
Indian society? Does the company's activities result in any form of public unrest?

Facts that we as a class are going to revise through include:

British East India Company, 1600–1874, company chartered by Queen Elizabeth I for trade with
Asia.
 The company had established in India the three presidencies of Madras, Bombay, and
Calcutta.
 As Mughal power declined, these settlements became subject to increasing harassment by
local princes, and the company began to protect itself by intervening more and more in Indian
political affairs.
 By the East India Act of 1784 the government assumed more direct responsibility for British
activities in India, setting up a board of control for India.
 The company continued to control commercial policy and lesser administration, but the British
government became increasingly the effective ruler of India. Parliamentary acts of 1813 and
1833 ended the company's trade monopoly.
 English education was introduced to create a class of educated Indians who would assist the
British in ruling the country and strengthen their political authority.
 By 1813, the Indian handicrafts lost both their domestic as well as foreign market.
 Indian goods could not compete with the British factory-made products where machines were
used
 -hese markets were now captured and monopolised by Britain by means of war and
colonisation.
 Another major economic impact of the British policies in India was the introduction of a large
number of commercial crops such as tea, coffee, indigo, opium, cotton, jute, sugarcane and
oilseed.
 Commercialisation of agriculture further enhanced the speed of transfer of ownership of land
thereby increasing the number of landless labourers. It also brought in a large number of
merchants, traders and middlemen who further exploited the situation
  Time bound and excessive demand of revenue by the British government forced the peasants
to take loans from the moneylenders. These moneylenders often exploited the peasants by
charging high interest rates.
 A major impact of the British rule in India was the beginning of a new middle class. With the
rise of the British commercial interests, new opportunities opened to a small section of Indian
people. They often acted as the agents and intermediaries of the British traders and thus
made huge fortunes.
 During British rule, India took ideas of liberty, equality, human rights, science and technology
from the West.

 "Indian society underwent many changes after the British came to India. In the 19th century,
certain social practices like female infanticide, child marriage, sati, polygamy and a rigid caste
system became more prevalent."
 Peasants and tribes rebelled against exploitative rulers
 Tribes in different parts of country also rebelled as colonial government extended their
authority to tribal lands.
 British influence destroyed the traditional economy of India and drained India’s wealth to
Britain. The economic policies of the British also affected the classes of peasants, artisans very
adversely.

<2> student-centred activity:

Soapbox activity.

Students should use their information from both the prior activity and the prior lessons to give their
opinion about the British East India company and their impact on India.

Assessment:

< informal> I as the teacher will assess the students’ knowledge through the soapbox activity looking
at how the student supported their argument and how accurate it is.