In 1498 the Portuguese set foot in India, landing near the city of Calicut in the present-day state of Kerala in South India. The pursuit of trade and competition between European powers saw the entry of the British and French, among others, into India. Several fractured Indian kingdoms were eventually taken over by Europeans, who indirectly assumed control by subjugating rulers. In 1757 Mir Qasim, a minister to the Nawab of Bengal secretly connived with the British, asking logistic support to overthrow the Nawab in return for trade grants. The British forces, whose sole duty until then was guarding their British East India Company property, were numerically superior to the Bengali armed forces. At the battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757 fought between the British under the command of Robert Clive and the Nawab, Mir Qasim's forces betrayed the Nawab and helped defeat him. Qasim was installed on the throne as a British subservient ruler. The battle transformed British perspective as they realized their strength and potential to conquer smaller Indian kingdoms, and marked the beginning of the imperial or colonial era.
The British had direct or indirect control over all of present-day India by the early 19 century. In 1857 a local rebellion by an army of sepoys snowballed into the Rebellion of 1857. This resistance, although short-lived, was triggered by widespread resentment against certain discriminatory policies of the British. As a result of this, the British East India Company was abolished and India formally became a crown colony. The slow but momentous reform movement, perhaps influenced in India by contact with European ideas and institutions, developed gradually into the Indian Independence Movement. During the years of the First World War, the hitherto bourgeoise "home-rule" movement was transformed into a popular mass movement by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a pacifist. Gandhi, later known as Mahatma Gandhi, was aided by revolutionaries such as Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad and Subhash Chandra Bose who were feared by the British in the later stages. The independence movement attained its objective with the Independence of India on August 15, 1947.

Kingdoms
The wars that took place involving the British East India Company or British India during the Colonial era:

Anglo-Mysore Wars
Anglo-Maratha Wars
Anglo-Sikh wars
Gurkha War
Burmese Wars
Opium Wars
Afghan Wars
India in World War II