india

• INDIA : ECONOMY

  • As part of the East India Company, Scots were involved in exporting jute, sugar and cotton. Many Scots made their fortune but much of the profit was sent home rather than being put back into the Indian economy.
  • Scots were notable in the development of tea plantations. Thomas Lipton was a Glasgow merchant whose tea company dominated the market.
• INDIA : CULTURE

  • Governor General James Ramsey banned Suttee, the Hindu practice where a widow would throw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. He also banned Thuggee which is when an organised group of killers attacks travellers. He punished those involved and helped to make India safer. Many Indians resented his involvement in banning such traditions.
• INDIA : CULTURE

  • Many Indian educational institutions such as elite schools owed much to Scottish emigrants and Scottish missionaries played an important role in the development of education in India. For example, Reverend Alexander Duff from Perthshire was linked to the founding of the University of Calcutta in 1857 as well as the establishment of the first medical school in the country.
• INDIA : NATIVE SOCIETIES

  • James Dalhousie used his time as Governor General of India (1848-56) to ban practices of suttee (human sacrifice) and thugee (ritual murder). He also pushed for changes in Indian attitudes to female education.
• INDIA : NATIVE SOCIETIES

  • In 1857, Indian troops serving in the East India Company rebelled against their British officers. Scottish soldiers played an important role in crushing the Indian Mutiny. Highland regiments killed thousands of Indians to help maintain British control of the Empire.
• INDIA : ECONOMY

  • James Ramsey, Marquis of Dalhousie was Governor-General of India between 1846 and 1856. He made a significant cultural, economic and educational impact in India by creating a massive railway network, building schools and developing irrigation projects to help with water supplies.
  • India became a massive market for the British economy, but more importantly for the metal industries of Scotland. Practically all the railway engines in India were built in Springburn in Glasgow.