Empress of India

The title Emperor/Empress of India was used by the British monarchs during the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent from 1876 (see Royal Titles Act 1876) until 1948, after India had attained independence from the United Kingdom, when for a transitional period the British monarch was also king of the independent dominions of India and Pakistan.

The term "Emperor of India" is also used to refer to pre-British Indian emperors (see List of Indian monarchs).

After the British East India Company (EIC) deposed the Mughal Emperor, and after the British government dissolved the EIC in 1874, Queen Victoria was given the title "Empress of India" (or Kaisar-i-Hind, a form coined by the orientalist G.W. Leitner in a deliberate attempt to dissociate British imperial rule from that of preceding dynasties) by the Royal Titles Act 1876, from 1 May 1876. The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1877. The title came into use nineteen years after British India and the British protected states ('princely states') on the Indian subcontinent came under the control of the British Crown, following the dissolution of the British East India Company.

The title had been eagerly assumed by Victoria in 1876, after she had been pressuring Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Benjamin Disraeli to agree to her assuming the title for some years. The idea of having Victoria proclaimed empress of India was not new as Lord Ellenborough had already suggested it in 1843 on becoming governor-general of India. By 1874, Henry Ponsonby , the Queen's Private Secretary, had investigations well in hand and English charters had been scrutinized for imperial titles, with Edgar and Stephen mentioned as sound precedents. The Queen, possibly irritated by the sallies of the republicans, the tendency to democracy, and the realization that her influence was manifestly on the decline, was urging the move. By January 1876, the Queen's insistence was such that the Prime Minister felt he could procrastinate no more. Initially, Victoria had actually considered the style "Empress of Great Britain, Ireland and India" but the cautious Disraeli, in his desire to avoid controversy, persuaded the Queen to limit the title to India.

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