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The British Raj c. 1930

A map illustrating the extent and composition of the British Raj (from Hindi for kingdom, government) - a period of direct British rule over the subcontinent of India that started in 1858. After the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the Act for the Better Government officially transferred the administration of India from the East India Company to the British government, Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal Emperor, was deported to Burma, and Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress. Although the British maintained military control and directly administered large swaths of land in South Asia, two-fifths of the subcontinent was fragmented into about eight hundred native principalities, called princely states, with various degrees of independence under British subsidiary alliances. This system of governance lasted until 1947, when British India was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.