More than perhaps any other, the events of 1857 and 1947 had the most dramatic impact on Southasia. While the political issues related to these experiences are widely discussed and debated, there remains little understanding of how these and the following years had a bearing on the health parameters of the region – which some would say is more important than any one of the political upheavals.
By the 19th century, the East India Company (described by some as the first trans-national corporation) had established near-monopolistic control over large areas of the Subcontinent, and enjoyed considerable political and economic influence in the UK. During this time, however, the Company was also facing insurrections from several quarters. Previous upheavals had been confined to the British officers (the 'white' mutinies in Bombay of 1683 and Mysore of 1809) or to particular regions (such as the Vellore mutiny in 1806). But over time, these events cumulatively had a vast depletory effect on the company's financial viability, while also raising doubts about its management.
As such, after the uprising of 1857, the takeover of the company's assets and the subsequent imposition of direct rule by the Crown allowed the British government to consolidate its business and streamline its trading operations. Instead of being divided among the shareholders of the East India Company, the ensuing profits were now available to the state. The scientific and industrial revolutions had already occurred, but the widespread dissemination of those advances remained limited – at least until the Empire began to achieve commercial success. Significant investments were thereafter made in developing extensive British infrastructure: in public transport (the London underground was laid during this time), sewage and water supply (which expanded rapidly during the last half of the 19th century all over Great Britain), as well as public health and hospitals. All of this had an immediate impact on life expectancy in the UK, and the lasting boon is evident even today.
In 1997, Max Perutz, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist, analysed the number of centenarians then living in the UK, an analysis that was facilitated by the tradition of the Crown greeting all British centenarians on their 100th birthday. In 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II took over the throne, birthday greetings were sent to 225 people; a quarter-century later, in 1997, the number of individuals receiving the greetings was up to 5218. Perutz suggested that this exponential increase was due directly to causes that included wage hikes during the 19th century, leading right up to continuous improved health care during the 20th.