Emperor of India

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This article is about the official title "Emperor of India". For the list of Indian emperors see List of Indian monarchs

Emperor/Empress of India (Badishah-e-Hind in Hindustani) as a title was used by the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II and colonial British monarchs during the British Raj in India.

Sometimes, the term "Emperor of India" is also used to refer to several Indian emperors such as Ashoka and Akbar, though this was not their official title.

[edit] Bahadur Shah II

Though the Mughal dynasty ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent from the 17th century onwards, they simply used the title padshah (considered in the West to be equivalent to emperor) without geographic designation. During the Indian rebellion of 1857, the rebel sepoys seized Delhi and proclaimed the Mughal Bahadur Shah II as padshah-i Hind, or Emperor of India. After the rebellion was crushed, he was captured and was exiled to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar) in 1858, and the Mughal dynasty came to an end.

[edit] British monarchs

After the Mughal Emperor was deposed by the British East India Company, and after the company itself was dissolved, the title "Empress of India" was taken by Queen Victoria from 1 May 1876. The title was created nineteen years after the formal incorporation into the British Empire of Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent, comprising most of modern-day India (excluding the Portuguese colony Goa, the State of Sikkim, and the French colony Pondicherry), Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burma (though the latter would be made a separate colony in 1937).

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is usually credited with creating the title for her. Also, the title was created when it became evident that Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, would become an empress when her husband ascended the German imperial throne.

When Victoria died, and her son Edward VII ascended the throne, his title became "Emperor of India". The title continued until India and Pakistan became independent from the United Kingdom at midnight on 14/15 August 1947. The title itself was not formally abandoned by Edward VIII's successor, George VI, until 1948.

When signing their name for Indian business, a British King-Emperor or reigning Queen-Empress used the initials R I (Rex/Regina Imperator/Imperatrix) or the abbreviation Ind. Imp. (Indiae Imperator/Imperatrix) after their name (while the one reigning Queen-Empress, Victoria, used the initials R I, the three consorts of the married King-Emperors simply used R). This was also used on many British coins, including some 1948 coins of George VI.

When a male monarch held the title, his Queen Consort assumed the title Queen-Empress, but unlike Queen Victoria, they themselves were not reigning monarchs but the consorts of reigning monarchs.

[edit] Emperors and Empresses of India

[edit] King of India and Pakistan

George VI continued to hold the title King of India for two years during the short Governor-Generalships of Lord Mountbatten and of C. Rajagopalachari until India became a republic on 26 January 1950. George VI remained as King of the United Kingdom and King of Pakistan until his death in 1952. Pakistan became a republic on 23 March 1956, so Elizabeth II was Queen of Pakistan for four years.

[edit] See also

• List of Indian monarchs
• List of Mughal emperors
• List of British monarchs
• Mughal Empire
• President of India
• President of Pakistan
• Governor-General of Pakistan
• Governor-General
• HMS Emperor of India (1913), the battleshipde:Kaiser von Indien

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