people fight each other rather than against british - easier control

internal conflict makes people fight each other than realise who are actually the real villains.

Divide and Rule

nah the broken unity between the Muslims and the Hindus is what the the British exploited. If they were united the threat for independence would be far greater but instead there was infighting

Divide and conquer - Wikipedia

It's pretty common strategy that used by colonial empire

Consider the age old method of devide and conquer, used globally throughout history. Make your enemies fight and weaken each other, then you take the spoils with comparative ease.

If they are in conflict with each other, they aren’t united for a conflict with you. It’s divide and conquer. Sure you’d prefer general peace but if they’re gearing up for something against you, splitting them up and pitting them against each other so they weaken themselves and you can hopefully deal with each in turn is the next best thing.

The Indian revolts against the British were put down by other Indians. The British conquest of India was done primarily by Indian mercenaries under the British known as sepoys, not white British troops. India had long running religious and ethnic feuds that the British took advantage of so they’d fight amongst each instead of the British.

Divide and Conquer has literally been an imperialist tactic for centuries.

All of the British colonial forces in India was made up of Indians with few British officers in the top. The British gave preferential treatment to the ethnicities that they deemed loyal to the British crown and this created animosity. For example the British solidified the caste system which had already existed in India for centuries but in practice was very nuanced, the mordern day caste understanding in India and the West comes from the British interpretation and oversmiplification of the system which was they institutionalised by the British(Caste based discrimination existed before the British but it worsened under them). So, Hindus fought among themselves when it comes to caste. Other example will be the ethnic Punjabis, which led to the formation of Pakistan. The Bengalis betrayed the British in the First War for Independence in 1857, the ethnic Punjabis and Rajputs came to the aid of the British as most of them did not like the idea of the Mughal Emperor being reinstated by the rebeling forces. After crushing the rebellion the British only exclusively recurited from the regions that favoured the British and they created a theory call the "Martial race theory" which gave preferencital treatment to some ethnicities which they considered superior in combat and will not question the orders, bascially they wanted to have ethnic groups that will not betray them again. That is also the reason Pakistan got so much political momentum as a close to half of the British Indian forces were ethnic Punjabis which led to Punjabis who are majority muslims asking for a seperate state, Pakistani population is about 54% ethnic Punjabi and Punjabis in India represent around 2% of the Indian population.

Majorly the British incited conflicts by giving preferential treatment to certain ethnicities or castes which created animosity and distrust in the society.