evidence: After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Government took over the administration to establish the British Raj. The British Raj was the period of British Parliament rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, for around 89 years of British occupation. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria. The British Raj lasted until 1947, when the British provinces of India were partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, leaving the princely states to choose between them. Most of the princely states decided to join either the Dominion of India or the Dominion of Pakistan, except the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was only at the last moment that Jammu and Kashmir agreed to sign the "Instrument of Accession" with India. The two new dominions later became the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (the eastern half of which became the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1972). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire had been made a separate colony in 1937 and became independent in 1948. [...] Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947, Britain announced its intention to transfer power no later than June 1948.