Governor-General of India in the context of "Homage (feudal)"

Company rule in India (also known as the Company Raj, from Hindi rāj, lit. 'rule') refers to regions of the Indian subcontinent under the control of the British East India Company (EIC). The EIC, founded in 1600, established its first trading post in India in 1612, and gradually expanded its presence in the region over the following decades. During the Seven Years' War, the East India Company began a process of rapid expansion in India, which resulted in most of the subcontinent falling under its rule by 1857, when the Indian Rebellion of 1857 broke out. After the rebellion was suppressed, the Government of India Act 1858 resulted in the EIC's territories in India being administered by the Crown instead. The India Office managed the EIC's former territories, which became known as the British Raj.

The range of dates is taken to have commenced either in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud-Daulah was defeated and replaced with Mir Jafar, who had the support of the East India Company; or in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar; or in 1773, when the Company abolished local rule (Nizamat) in Bengal and established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General of Fort William, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The East India Company significantly expanded its influence throughout the Indian subcontinent after the Anglo-Mysore Wars, Anglo-Maratha Wars, and Anglo-Sikh Wars. Lord William Bentinck became the first Governor General of India in 1834 under the Government of India Act 1833.

Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (9 August 1876 – 25 October 1947), styled Viscount Knebworth from 1880 to 1891, was a British politician and colonial administrator. He served as Governor of Bengal between 1922 and 1927 and was briefly Acting Viceroy of India in 1926. He headed the Lytton Commission for the League of Nations in 1931–1932, producing the Lytton Report which condemned the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and denounced Manchukuo as a Japanese puppet state.

The Indian Independence Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 30) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The act received Royal Assent on 18 July 1947 and thus modern-day India and Pakistan, comprising west (modern day Pakistan) and east (modern day Bangladesh) regions, came into being on 15 August.

The legislature representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Sikh community came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten, then Viceroy and Governor-General of India, on what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

The Chief Commissioner's Province of Aden was the administrative status under which the former Aden Settlement (1839–1932) was placed from 1932 to 1937. Under that new status, the Viceroy of India assumed direct control over Aden, which had hitherto been administered by the government of the Bombay Presidency. The Aden Protectorate remained unaffected by this change.

The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March, and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of non violent civil disobedience in colonial India, led by Mahatma Gandhi. The 24-day march (padayatra) lasted from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Another reason for this march was that the Civil Disobedience Movement needed a strong inauguration that would inspire more people to follow Gandhi's example. Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march spanned 387 kilometres (240 mi), from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time (now in the state of Gujarat). Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way. When Gandhi broke the British Raj salt laws at 8:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large-scale acts of civil disobedience against the salt laws by millions of Indians.

After making the salt by evaporation at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way. The Congress Party planned to stage a satyagraha at the Dharasana Salt Works, 40 km (25 mi) south of Dandi. However, Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana. The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. The satyagraha against the salt tax continued for almost a year, ending with Gandhi's release from jail and negotiations with Viceroy Lord Irwin at the Second Round Table Conference. Although over 60,000 Indians were jailed as a result of the Salt Satyagraha, the British did not make immediate major concessions.

The impeachment of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of the Bengal Presidency in India, was attempted between 1787 and 1795 in the Parliament of Great Britain. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta, particularly relating to mismanagement and personal corruption. The impeachment prosecution was led by Edmund Burke and became a wider debate about the role of the East India Company and the expanding empire in India. According to historian Mithi Mukherjee, the impeachment trial became the site of a debate between two radically opposed visions of empire—one represented by Hastings, based on ideas of absolute power and conquest in pursuit of the exclusive national interests of the colonizer, versus one represented by Burke, of sovereignty based on a recognition of the rights of the colonized.

The trial did not sit continuously and the case dragged on for seven years. When the eventual verdict was given, Hastings was overwhelmingly acquitted. It has been described as "probably the British Isles' most famous, certainly the longest, political trial".

The Madras Presidency, officially called the Presidency of Fort St. George until 1937, later the Madras Province, was a British Raj colonial administered political subdivision presidency and later its successor, Dominion of India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of South India, including all of present-day Andhra Pradesh, almost all of Tamil Nadu and northern parts of Kerala, parts of Karnataka, Odisha and Telangana in the modern day. The city of Madras (present-day Chennai) was the official and winter capital of the presidency and Udagamandalam (present-day Ooty) was the summer capital.

In 1639, the East India Company purchased the village of Madraspatnam and one year later it established the Agency of Fort St. George, precursor of the Madras Presidency, although there had been Company factories at Machilipatnam and Armagon since the very early 1600s. The agency was upgraded to a Presidency in 1652 before once more reverting to its previous status in 1655. In 1684, it was re-elevated to a Presidency and Elihu Yale was appointed as president. In 1785, under the provisions of Pitt's India Act, Madras became one of three presidencies established by the Company. Thereafter, the head of the area was styled "Governor" rather than "President" and became subordinate to the viceroy in Calcutta, with Madras' titulature that would persist until 1950. Judicial, legislative and executive powers rested with the Governor who was assisted by a Council whose constitution was modified by reforms enacted in 1861, 1909, 1919 and 1935. Regular elections were conducted in Madras up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1938. By 1908, the province comprised twenty-two districts, each under a District Collector, and it was further sub-divided into taluks and firqas with villages making up the smallest unit of administration.