Letter: Britain did rule India

C M LLOYD JONES'S contention that Indians, not the British, always ruled India (Letters, 27 November), is far from the truth. In 1760, having defeated the French, the British, through the East India Company, and successive Governors-General, extended their rule year by year with British-dominated troops.

By 1857, total British rule brought about the countrywide military uprising, misnamed the Indian Mutiny, from which only the privileged princely states abstained. This uprising, also known as the Sepoy Revolt, took British troops 14 months to suppress.

But the conflict ended East India Company rule. Through an Act passed in Parliament on 1 September 1858, the government was empowered to rule British India and to dominate the princely states. British rule and the total domination of India continued for nearly another hundred years, until Mahatma Gandhi led the struggle for freedom that won the Indian Independence Act of 1947. George Bruce

Goring-on-Thames, Reading