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The British Raj
The British originally arrived in South Asia to trade in tea, tobacco, and poppy, and formed the British East India Company which would eventually spearhead a colonial domination over South Asia. The shrinking Mughal Empire fell prey to the East India Company's conspiracies and the eventual collapse of the freedom struggle against the British by the Muslim leader Tipu Sultan, from 1749 to 1799, left the remnants of the Mughal Empire completely vulnerable. The British did not gain strong footholds in the modern day Pakistani region until the early 19th century and annexed the entire area during the Great Game rivalry with the Russian Empire.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876 - 1948) the founder of Pakistan
While the Anglo-Afghan wars for freedom continued well into the 20th century, the Indian War of Independence, dubbed "Sepoy Mutiny" by the British, in 1857 was the region's last major armed struggle against the British. The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was used as a figurehead by the rebellion, so the British decided to oust the Emperor and exiled him to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar).
Even though the War of Independence was a joint Muslim-Hindu struggle to oust the British, the brunt of British retaliation was directed at the Muslim population of the empire, employing the infamous "divide and rule" policy. This suppression and subjugation helped set the stage for the creation of modern day Pakistan - a state exclusively for the Muslims of South Asia. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a British-educated South Asian Muslim leader who had once been hailed as the "best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity", adopted the cause, and later earned the title of Quaid-e-Azam meaning "great leader" and founder of Pakistan
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