India was ruled by a trading company until after the 1857 Mutiny

Evidence

It is true that in the seventeenth century London resumed an acquisition of overseas territories arrested since the disastrous ending to the Hundred Years War. But the ‘spirit’ of these conquests was still fundamentally that of a prenational age. Nothing more stunningly confirms this than the fact that ‘India’ only became ‘British’ twenty years after Victoria’s accession to the throne. In other words, until after the 1857 Mutiny, ‘India’ was ruled by a commercial enterprise – not by a state, and certainly not by a nation-state. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 361

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘India ruled by a commercial enterprise’ is a striking, tweetable fact that surprises most people.
• SHARE: Good for a friend interested in imperial history or the East India Company’s legal status.

Related

• British India was ruled by a commercial company, not a state, until 1857 (similarity 0.94)