What was Ghulam Ahmad's relationship with the British authorities in India?

Question

An answer on Islam.SE claims,

Ghulam Ahmad came out at a time when the British were trying to take over India, and they needed someone to stop the Muslims from fighting, and so bribed this man to assist them.

Wikipedia similarly states,

After his death, opponents accused him of working for the British Government due to the termination of armed Jihad, since his claims of being the Mahdi were made around the same time as the Mahdi of Sudan (Muhammad Ahmad).

But I haven't seen any actual evidence that Ghulam Ahmad was working for the British. Does such evidence exist? I also don't really understand the (unsourced) connection Wikipedia is making between the "termination of armed Jihad" and his claims being "made around the same time as the Mahdi of Sudan," so if answers could shed more light on that connection that would be cool as well.

Answer 1

I don't know much about the Ahmaddiya movement, but to my knowledge, the British had taken over all India well before he was born. The British, after defeating Maratthas, had control of the whole of India except Punjab, which fell after the Anglo-Sikh war after Maharaja Ranjeet Singh. Between 1830 and 1856 the British even went ahead with their war with the Afghans. The point is that the British had control over all of India and whatever resistance offered by the combined Hindu-Muslim army during 1857 was decimated. Delhi, along with Lukhnow, were the only cities where prominent Muslim families were found were dispersed/exiled.

Maybe the rumors that he was working with the British were spread by those who didn't believed in his sect. To add more to this, before the East India Company came to rule the whole of India, Muslim rulers were left only in Awadh, Delhi City & in Deccan (Nawab of Hyderabad). The rest of India was ruled by either Maratthas or the East India Company.

Source: The siyar-ul-Mutakherin, History of Marattha by James Duff, & The last Mughal