The First World War and its impact on British India, 1914-20 - key facts

Importance of viceroy

• Staff of 700

• Twice the salary of the British Prime Minister

Examinations for Indian Civil Serice

Held in Rangoon and Delhi from 1919

Percentage of Indian society who were Hindu

70%

Anglo-Indians at the start of the 20th century

110,000

Indian response to the outbreak of WW1

• 27 of the largest princely states put their armies at the disposal of Britain and provisioned a hospital ship, Loyalty

• Bal Tilak declared his loyalty

Indians enlisted by November 1918

827,000

Indians recruited into combatant and non-combatant roles by November 1918

1.5 million

Proportion of the Allied force made up of Indians at Neuve Chapelle (1915)

½

Economic contribution to the Allied war effort

£146 million

Money raised by Indian war loans

• 1917 - £35.5 million

• 1918 - £38 million

Price rises after WW1

• Food grains - 93%

• Indian-made goods - 60%

• Imported goods - 190%

Dividends from cloth mills in Bombay

• 1914 - 6%

• 1917 - 30%

Significance of March 1915

No British battalions left in India

Victims of Amritsar

• Killed - 400

• Wounded - 1500

Punjab Sub-Committee of the Indian National Congress

• Witnesses interviewed - 1700

• Verified statements published - 650

December 1916

Lucknow Pact

Launching of Home Rule Leagues

1916

Members of Bal Tilak’s Home Rule League

32,000

Besant interned

June 1917