Presidencies and provinces of British India in the context of "Indus Valley civilisation"

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia. Of the three, it was the most widespread: it spanned much of Pakistan; northwestern India; and northeast Afghanistan. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

The term Harappan is also applied to the Indus Civilisation, after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh, in Balochistan, Pakistan. Harappan civilisation is sometimes called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures.

The British Raj (/rɑːdʒ/ RAHJ; from Hindustani rāj, 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 1858 to 1947. It is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. India was a participating state in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947 when the British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh in the 1971 Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its independence in 1948. It was renamed Myanmar in 1989. The Chief Commissioner's Province of Aden was also part of British India at the inception of the British Raj and became a separate colony known as Aden Colony in 1937 as well.

The Parsis or Parsees (/ˈpɑːrsiz/) are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, when Zoroastrians were persecuted by the early Muslims. Representing the elder of the Indian subcontinent's two Zoroastrian communities, the Parsi people are culturally, linguistically, and socially distinct from the Iranis, whose Zoroastrian ancestors migrated to British-ruled India from Qajar-era Iran. The word Parsi is derived from the Persian language, and literally translates to Persian (پارسی, Pārsi).

According to the 16th-century Parsi epic Qissa-i Sanjan, fleeing persecution, the Zarthushti (Zoroastrian) Persians, citizens of the Sassanian empire sought refuge in the Indian subcontinent. This migration from different parts of the Sassanian empire continued between the 8th century and the 10th century. The earliest of these migrants settled among the Hindus of present-day Gujarat after being granted refuge by Rajput King Jadhav Rana, the king of Sanjan.

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia. Of the three, it was the most widespread: it spanned much of Pakistan, northwestern India, and northeast Afghanistan. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

The term Harappan is also applied to the Indus Civilisation, after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh, in Balochistan, Pakistan. Harappan civilisation is sometimes called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures.

In the 16th century, the Tsardom of Russia embarked on a campaign to expand the Russian frontier to the east. This effort continued until the 19th century under the Russian Empire, when the Imperial Russian Army succeeded in conquering all of Central Asia. The majority of this land became known as Russian Turkestan—the name "Turkestan" was used to refer to the area due to the fact that it was and is inhabited by Turkic peoples, excluding the Tajiks, who are an Iranian ethnicity. Upon witnessing Russia's absorption of the various Central Asian realms, the British Empire sought to reinforce India, triggering the Great Game, which ended when both sides eventually designated Afghanistan as a neutral buffer zone.

Although the Russian Empire collapsed during World War I, the Russian sphere of influence remained in what was Soviet Central Asia until 1991. This region now comprises Kazakhstan in the north, Uzbekistan in the centre, Kyrgyzstan in the east, Tajikistan in the southeast, and Turkmenistan in the southwest; the Russian language is still recognized in some capacity in many of these countries.

The Dominion of Pakistan, officially Pakistan, was an independent federal dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, which existed from 14 August 1947 to 23 March 1956. It was created by the passing of the Indian Independence Act 1947 by the British parliament, which also created an independent Dominion of India.

The new dominion consisted of those presidencies and provinces of British India which were allocated to it in the Partition of India. Until 1947, these regions had been ruled by the United Kingdom as a part of the British Empire.

The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colonies, as well as the Canadian territories recently won from France), until merged into the new Home Office in 1782. In 1801, colonial affairs were transferred to the War Office in the lead up to the Napoleonic Wars, which became the War and Colonial Office to oversee and protect the colonies of the British Empire. The Colonial Office was re-created as a separate department 1854, under the colonial secretary. It was finally merged into the Commonwealth Office in 1966.

Despite its name, the Colonial Office was responsible for much, but not all, of Britain's Imperial territories; the protectorates fell under the purview of the Foreign Office, and the British Presidencies in India were ruled by the East India Company until 1858, when the India Office was formed to oversee the administration of the new Viceroyalty of India (the Crown ruled India directly through a Viceroy after the Indian Rebellion), while the role of the Colonial Office in the affairs of the Dominions was replaced by the Dominion Office in 1925.

British colonial rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the successive three Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony separate from British colonial India, and finally independence. The region under British control was known as British Burma, and officially known as Burma (Burmese: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) from 1886.

Some portions of Burmese territories, including Arakan and Tenasserim, were annexed by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War; Lower Burma was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. These territories were designated as a chief commissioner's province known as British Burma in 1862.

The Punjab Province, officially the Province of the Punjab, was a province of British India, with its capital in Lahore and summer capitals in Murree and Simla. At its greatest extent, it stretched from the Khyber Pass to Delhi; and from the Babusar Pass and the borders of Tibet to the borders of Sind. Established in 1849 following Punjab's annexation, the province was partitioned in 1947 into West and East Punjab; and incorporated into Pakistan and India, respectively.

Most of the Punjab region was annexed by the East India Company on 29 March 1849 following the company's victory against the Sikh Empire's army at the battle of Gujrat in northern Punjab, a month prior. The Punjab was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to fall to British imperialism.