Over the long period of British rule in India (1757-1947), economic and political power became concentrated in the East India Company, whose shares were owned by wealthy merchants and aristocrats. The East India Company had operated in India from the beginning of British colonialism, but a watershed moment in its history occurred in 1772 when, in order to avoid bankruptcy, the company requested loans from the Bank of England. British rule under the Crown began in 1858, replacing the East India Company's rule. Later on, the East India Company was dissolved and the British Raj was established, which dominated the Indian subcontinent for almost another century.

‘British colonialism and other forms of Western imperialism in general have profoundly altered the world's ecology, contributing to far-reaching environmental degradation’, Nayak (2015, p. 252) writes. As Nayak points out, the ideology of economic development that took root during the colonial period imposed a superstructure of ideas, institutions, and a legal rationale for acquiring control over the entire forested realm of Indian territory. By 1860, Nayak says, ‘Britain had emerged as the world leader in deforestation, devastating its own woodlands as well as the forests of Ireland, South Africa, and the northeastern United States’ (p. 253). Timber was used for shipbuilding, iron ore for melting, and large tracts of land for cash-crop farming. With oak forests vanishing in England, the Royal Navy had to look elsewhere for a permanent supply of durable timber, for the safety of the empire depended on its wooden ships (Nayak, 2015).