Early modern period
British and Dutch colonization

The development of New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all eastern hemisphere territories by colonial powers. The commercial colonization of India commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the British East India Company, in 1765, when the company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar, or in 1772, when the company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance.

The Maratha Confederacy, following the Anglo-Maratha wars, eventually lost to the British East India Company in 1818 with the Third Anglo-Maratha War. Rule by the Company lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and following the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj. In 1819, Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in its rivalry with the Dutch. However, the rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. From the 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a significantly higher gear.
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