<Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The British Raj (/ rɑːdʒ /; from rāj, literally, "rule" in Hindustani) was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947 . The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India . The region under British control was commonly called British India or simply India in contemporaneous usage, and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and those ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, and called the princely states . The de facto political amalgamation was also called the Indian Empire and after 1876 issued passports under that name . As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 . </P> <P> This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the British 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 Britain ′ s Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Dominion of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern part of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). 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 own independence in 1948 . </P> <P> The British Raj extended over almost all present - day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, except for small holdings by other European nations such as Goa and Pondicherry . This area is very diverse, containing the Himalayan mountains, fertile floodplains, the Indo - Gangetic Plain, a long coastline, tropical dry forests, arid uplands, and the Thar desert . In addition, at various times, it included Aden (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was separated from India and directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948 . The Trucial States of the Persian Gulf and the states under the Persian Gulf Residency were theoretically princely states as well as Presidencies and provinces of British India until 1947 and used the rupee as their unit of currency . </P>

When was india made part of the british empire