• The policy of modernizing the Indian society and culture was also encouraged by the Christian missionaries and religious minded persons, such as William Wilberforce and Charles Grant, the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the Eeast India Company, who wanted to spread Christianity in India. They supported a programme of westernization in the hope that it would eventually lead to the country’s conversion to Christianity. They, therefore, opened modern schools, colleges and hospitals in the country.
• Female infanticide or the practice of killing female children at the time of birth had prevailed among some of the Rajput clans and other castes. Regulations prohibiting infanticide had been passed in 1795 and 1802, but they were sternly imposed only by Bentinck and Hardinge.

A major problem with the educational policies under the Company’s administration was that they neglected scientific and technological education. By 1857, there were only three medical colleges in the country, at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. There was only one good engineering college at Roorkee to impart higher technical education and even this was open only to the Europeans and the Eurasians.