Britain's Asian Empire
The largest application of Indirect rule was in British Asia, in hundreds of pre-colonial states, first seen at work under the East India Company's system of subsidiary alliances in the Indian subcontinent. The areas thus brought into the British sphere of influence became known as the Indian Princely States. Subsequently the same principle was applied in strategic regions on the sea routes to India, especially in the Persian Gulf protected states.
In the British colonies, the laws were typically made by a British Governor and legislative council, but in the protectorates and princely states local rulers retained their traditional administrative authority and ability to legislate, subject to British control of certain areas. Indirect rule was particularly effective in enabling the British to exploit natural resources and raw materials of vast subordinate nations. The establishment of naval and military bases in strategic points around the globe maintained the necessary power to underpin such control.
Read more about this topic: Indirect Rule
Famous quotes containing the words britain, asian and/or empire:
“Hath Britain all the sun that shines? day? night?
Are they not but in Britain?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“When a Man is in a serious Mood, and ponders upon his own Make, with a Retrospect to the Actions of his Life, and the many fatal Miscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned Passions, he is then apt to say to himself, That Experience has guarded him against such Errors for the future: But Nature often recurs in Spite of his best Resolutions, and it is to the very End of our Days a Struggle between our Reason and our Temper, which shall have the Empire over us.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)