Throughout the 18th century until the mid-1900s, the British Empire reigned in India. Unlike many other British colonial efforts, India was colonized on the basis of trade power, not land acquisition. India's cotton, spices, and other commodities had attracted Britain to the West Indies since the 1600s, but the Battle of Plassey in 1757 is viewed as the date where British colonialism commenced. Britain had a brutal impact on India's economy and offered little support through their policies, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 35 million Indians in times of famine. India gained it's independence from Britain in 1947.

India is mentioned in "Epistle to William Wilberforce" in the lines "By foreign wealth are British morals chang'd, / And Afric's sons, and India's, smile avenged," in which she warns that the corruption of Britain through the slave trade will avenge the places such as Africa and India, off the backs of whom Britain fed its greed (lines 104-105).