Extension of British Paramountcy through Administrative Policy

During the period from 1757 to 1857, the East India Company furthered its imperial dominion and reinforced British supremacy by employing a dual strategy: first was annexation through military conquest or warfare and second was annexation through diplomatic engagement and administrative tactics. British diplomatic and administrative strategies can be understood through approaches that included Warren Hastings‘ strategy of ‘ring-fence’, Wellesley’s ‘subsidiary alliance’ framework, and Dalhousie’s ‘doctrine of lapse’, which demonstrate the methods through which British rule was extended in India.

Policy of Ring-Fence

Ring-Fence Strategy: Assuming the role of governor-general during a pivotal time for British dominion when threats loomed from the Marathas, Mysore, and Hyderabad, Warren Hastings implemented the ring-fence strategy. 

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• Ring-Fence Approach: This approach focused on creating protective buffers around the Company’s borders. Essentially, this was a defense policy where safeguarding a neighbor’s borders would in turn protect their domains. 
  • Hastings’ policy was evident in his campaigns against the Marathas and Mysore. 
• Fortifying Awadh: The primary threats to the Company’s lands were Afghan incursions and the Marathas. 
  • To counter these, the Company committed to fortifying the boundaries of Awadh with the stipulation that the Nawab would bear the defense costs. 
  • The protection of Awadh meant securing Bengal at that time. 
• Subsidiary Troops and Military Support: Consequently, states under the ring fence were guaranteed military support against foreign invasion, albeit at their own expense. 
  • Essentially, these allies had to support subsidiary troops, which the Company’s officers would organize, equip, and command, with the costs borne by these states’ rulers.
• Expansion of the Ring-Fence Policy: Wellesley’s subsidiary alliance method was essentially an expansion of the ring-fence policy, designed to subordinate Indian states to the British government.

Subsidiary Alliance

Lord Wellesley, the governor-general from 1798 to 1805, employed the subsidiary alliance system to establish an empire in India. 

• Objectives: The main objective of the subsidiary alliance was to secure a fixed income for the Company. 
• British Military Presence and Financial Burden: This system obligated an allied Indian ruler to allow a permanent British force within their territory and to finance its upkeep. 
  • The ruler was also compelled to host a British resident at their court. 
  • Also, the ruler was prohibited from hiring Europeans or engaging in war or diplomacy with other Indian powers without the Company’s consent. 
• British Assurances: In exchange, the British pledged to defend the ruler from adversaries and promised non-interference in the state’s internal affairs.
• Wellesley used the subsidiary alliance to prevent French resurgence in India. The British firmly believed that the French could potentially strike India’s western coast from Mauritius. 
  • Hence, the treaty clause required Indian rulers to expel non-British Europeans from their services. 
• Strategic Deployment and Territorial Expansion: This strategy enabled the Company to deploy forces strategically to counter the French and to incrementally extend control over Indian territories.
• Cost of Security: Indian rulers traded their autonomy for security, subject to British Resident’s interference, forfeiting significant revenue for British troop maintenance. 
  • This alliance also weakened Indian rulers, subjected their people to exploitation, and made it nearly impossible to remove oppressive rulers due to British protection.

Evolution of Subsidiary Alliance

Introduction of European Mercenaries: It was most likely Dupleix who first hired European warriors to Indian rulers to wage their wars. After that, practically every governor general after Clive applied the method to numerous Indian states and refined it to near perfection.

• First Victim of the Protection Trap: The first Indian state to fall into this protection trap (which predicted the subsidiary alliance structure) was Awadh, which signed a treaty in 1765 in which the Company agreed to defend Awadh’s frontiers on the condition that the Nawab bear the costs of such defense. 
• Cornwallis and Wellesley: The Company first insisted on the subsidiary state not having foreign contacts in 1787. This was included in Cornwallis’ pact with the Nawab of Carnatic, which he signed in February 1787. 
  • It was Wellesley’s brilliant idea to make it a general practice to negotiate for the surrender of land under full sovereignty in exchange for the continuation of the subsidiary force.

Stages of Application of Subsidiary Alliance

The subsidiary alliance evolved through four phases. 

• In the first stage, the Company offered to help a friendly Indian state with its troops to fight any war the state might be engaged in. 
• In the second stage, companies making a common cause with the Indian state now became friendly and took the field with their soldiers and those of the state. 
• In the third stage, the Indian ally was asked not for men but for money. The Company promised that it would recruit, train, and maintain a fixed number of soldiers under British officers and that the contingent would be available to the ruler for his personal and family protection as well as for keeping out aggressors, all for a fixed sum of money. 
• In the fourth or the last stage, the money or the protection fee was fixed, usually at a high level; when the state failed to pay the money in time, it was asked to cede certain parts of its territories to the Company instead of payment.

Princely States that Accepted Alliance  

The Indian princes who accepted the subsidiary system were: 

• The Nizam of Hyderabad in September 1798 and 1800, 
• The ruler of Mysore in 1799,
• The ruler of Tanjore in October 1799,
• The Nawab of Awadh in November 1801,
• The Peshwa in December 1801, 
• The Bhonsle Raja of Berar in December 1803), 
• The Sindhia in February 1804,
• The Rajput states of Jodhpur, Jaipur, Macheri, Bundi and the ruler of Bharatpur in 1818
• The Holkars were the last Maratha confederation to accept the Subsidiary Alliance in 1818.

Doctrine of Lapse

The Doctrine: The theory said that the adopted son could inherit his foster father’s private property but not the state. It was up to the paramount power (British), to decide whether to give the adopted son the state or take it over. 

• It was said that the doctrine was based on Hindu law and Indian customs. 
• Ambiguity in Hindu Law Regarding Succession: However, Hindu law wasn’t very clear on this problem, and it wasn’t often that an Indian king or queen took over the state of a vassal because the vassal had “lapsed,” which means that the vassal had no children or grandchildren.
• British Annexation: Some of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s feudal kingdoms had been taken over because they had “lapsed.” Also, because there were no heirs, the Company bought a few small Cis-Sutlej states in 1820. 
• • Still, it was never made clear that an adopted son was robbed of a whole state or that such a state was seen as a “lapse.”
• Clarifying Misattributions: This strategy was often credited to Lord Dalhousie (1848–56), but he did not come up with it. It was just a chance that the “Doctrine” could be used in several important cases while he was governor-general. 
  • Aggressive Implementation of Doctrine: Dalhousie was too eager to enforce this policy, which had been talked about in theory a few times before. 
    • The leaders who came before him had generally tried to avoid annexation if they could. Dalhousie, on the other hand, generally tried to take if he could legally do so.

Annexed States Under Doctrine of Lapse

• During Lord Dalhousie’s time in office, many heads of state died without having any male children, and seven states were added under the Doctrine of Lapse. 
• Satara (1848), Jhansi, and Nagpur (1854) were the most important. 
• Jaitpur (Bundelkhand), Sambhalpur (Orissa), and Baghat (Himachal Pradesh) were the other small states.
• In 1856, Lord Dalhousie annexed Awadh after deposing Nawab Wajid Ali Shah on grounds of misgovernment.

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So, during his eight years as governor-general (1848–1956), he took over about 2.4 million square miles of Indian land. After defeating Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757, Britain’s power in India began to grow. During his rule, that growth was almost complete.

Conclusion

The British extended their paramountcy in India from 1757 to 1857 through a combination of military conquest and strategic administrative policies. Key strategies like Hastings’ ring-fence, Wellesley’s subsidiary alliance, and Dalhousie’s doctrine of lapse enabled them to consolidate power by securing borders, subordinating Indian states, and annexing territories. These methods systematically eroded Indian sovereignty, paving the way for British dominance and the eventual establishment of direct colonial rule.

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