<P> The Indian indenture system was an ongoing system of indenture, a form of debt bondage, by which 3.5 million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labour for the (mainly sugar) plantations . It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920 . This resulted in the development of large Indian diaspora, which spread from the Indian Ocean (i.e. Réunion and Mauritius) to Pacific Ocean (i.e. Fiji), as well as the growth of Indo - Caribbean and Indo - African population . </P> <P> The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large - scale rebellion by soldiers employed by the British East India Company in northern and central India against the Company's rule . The spark that led to the mutiny was the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle, which was insensitive to local religious prohibition; key mutineer being Mangal Pandey . In addition, the underlying grievances over British taxation, the ethnic gulf between the British officers and their Indian troops, and land annexations played a significant role in the rebellion . Within weeks after Pandey's mutiny, dozens of units of the Indian army joined peasant armies in widespread rebellion . The rebel soldiers were later joined by Indian nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, and felt that the Company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance . Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group . </P> <P> After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels very quickly reached Delhi . The rebels had also captured large tracts of the North - Western Provinces and Awadh (Oudh). Most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British presence . However, the British East India Company mobilised rapidly, with the assistance of friendly Princely states . But, it took the British remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 to suppress the rebellion . Due to the rebels being poorly equipped and no outside support or funding, they were brutally subdued by the British . </P> <P> In the aftermath, all power was transferred from the British East India Company to the British Crown, which began to administer most of India as a number of provinces . The Crown controlled the Company's lands directly and had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India, which consisted of the Princely states ruled by local royal families . There were officially 565 princely states in 1947, but only 21 had actual state governments, and only three were large (Mysore, Hyderabad, and Kashmir). They were absorbed into the independent nation in 1947--48 . </P>

Which country can claim to have had the most highly developed theatre from 1000 bce to 100 ce