<P> British policy in Asia during the 19th century was chiefly concerned with expanding and protecting its hold on India, viewed as its most important colony and the key to the rest of Asia . The East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia . The company's army had first joined forces with the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and the two continued to cooperate in arenas outside India: the eviction of Napoleon from Egypt (1799), the capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811), the acquisition of Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), and the defeat of Burma (1826). </P> <P> From its base in India, the company had also been engaged in an increasingly profitable opium export trade to China since the 1730s . This trade, unlawful in China since it was outlawed by the Qing dynasty in 1729, helped reverse the trade imbalances resulting from the British imports of tea, which saw large outflows of silver from Britain to China . In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese authorities at Canton of 20,000 chests of opium led Britain to attack China in the First Opium War, and the seizure by Britain of the island of Hong Kong, at that time a minor settlement . </P> <P> The British had direct or indirect control over all of present - day India before the middle of the 19th century . In 1857, a local rebellion by an army of sepoys escalated into the Rebellion of 1857, which took six months to suppress with heavy loss of life on both sides, although the loss of British lives is in the range of a few thousand, the loss on the Indian side was in the hundreds of thousands . The trigger for the Rebellion has been a subject of controversy . The resistance, although short - lived, was triggered by British East India Company attempts to expand its control of India . According to Olson, several reasons may have triggered the Rebellion . For example, Olson concludes that the East India Company's attempt to annexe and expand its direct control of India, by arbitrary laws such as Doctrine of Lapse, combined with employment discrimination against Indians, contributed to the 1857 Rebellion . The East India Company officers lived like princes, the company finances were in shambles, and the company's effectiveness in India was examined by the British crown after 1858 . As a result, the East India Company lost its powers of government and British India formally came under direct British rule, with an appointed Governor - General of India . The East India Company was dissolved the following year in 1858 . A few years later, Queen Victoria took the title of Empress of India . </P> <P> India suffered a series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century, leading to widespread famines in which at least 10 million people died . Responding to earlier famines as threats to the stability of colonial rule, the East India Company had already begun to concern itself with famine prevention during the early colonial period . This greatly expanded during the Raj, in which commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect . </P>

When did india become a direct colony of britain