The Governor-Generalship of Lord Dalhousie was marked by a stupendous growth of the British Empire at the expense of many of the Indian States. Lord Dalhousie annexed a Iarge number of States in pursuance of what is known as the ” Doctrine of Lapse “, which means that, on the failure of natural heirs, the sovereignty of the ” dependent ” States, of those created by the British Government, or held on a subordinate tenure, lapsed to the Paramount Power, a position which, it was agreed, the British Government had acquired after the fall of the Mughul Empire; it also did not acknowledge the right of those States to adopt heirs, which had been a longstanding practice among the Hindus, without the consent of the suzerain authority. The doctrine did not apply to “protected allies”. Referring to the glaring abuses in the government of some of the Indian States, the Governor-General declared that the British Government “in the exercise of a wise and sound policy is bound not to put aside or neglect such rightful opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may from time to time present themselves, whether they arise from the lapse of subordinate states, by the failure of all heirs of every description whatsoever, or from the failure of heirs natural where the succession can be sustained only by the sanction of the government being given to the ceremony of adoption, according to Hindu law. The government is bound, in duty as well as in policy, to act on every such occasion with the purest integrity, and in the most scrupulous observance of good faith. When even a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should at once be abandoned”. It is true that the principle applicable to adoption, and the policy of annexation, were not invented by Lord Dalhousie. Both of these had been asserted by the Court of Directors earlier since 1834 and had been applied in some cases. We have already noted earlier instances of annexation; as for the ” Doctrine of Lapse ” it had already been applied to Mandavi in 1839, to Kolaba and Jalaun in 1840, and to Surat in 1842. But there is no doubt that Lord Dalhousie advocated and applied the principles most vigorously. “There was,” observes Innes, “fully adequate precedent for every one of his annexations. But his predecessors had acted on the general principle of avoiding annexation if it could be avoided; Dalhousie acted on the general principle of annexing if he could do so legitimately.”
The States that were absorbed into the British Empire according to the Doctrine of Lapse were Satara in 1848, Jaitpur and Sambalpur in 1849, Baghat, a Cis-Sutlej hill State, in 1850, Udaipur in 1852, Nagpur in 1853, and Jhansi in 1854. It should be noted that the distinction between ” dependent ” States and ” protected allies” was very subtle; and it is doubtful if all these States could be rightly regarded as ” dependent ” ones. The kingdom of Satara was a British creation in the sense that, after the fall of the Peshwa in 1818, it had been given by Lord Hastings to a member of the house of Shivaji. In 1839 the Raja was deposed on a charge of misgovernment and his brother was raised to the Gadi. The Iatter having no issue adopted a son, before his death in 1848, without consulting the Governor-General or the British Resident. Lord Dalhousie, supported by all his leading colleagues, considered this adoption to be invalid and declared that the State of Satara lapsed to the sovereign power. The Court of Directors also agreed with his view as “being in accordance with the general law and custom of India”. Nagpur also had fallen under British control in 1818, but Hastings had bestowed it on a member of the old ruling house. The Raja died in 1853, leaving no lineal descendants or adopted son. Dalhousie annexed it on the ground of its being a creation of the Company. Whatever might have been the legal position of Satara and Nagpur in relation to the British Government, it is clear that Dalhousie’s motives in annexing them were purely imperialistic. It has been admitted even by Lee-Warner, a strong apologist of Dalhousie, who writes that with regard to Satara, and Nagpur “imperial considerations weighed with him . . . they were placed right across the main lines of communication between Bombay and Madras and Bombay and Calcutta”. Further, the disposal of the State funds and treasures of Nagpur by public auction, which has been characterised by Kaye in his Sepoy War as “spoliation of the palace”, was certainly an undignified and tactless measure. Jhansi, a district of Bundelkhand, was given to the English by the Peshwa in 1818, and the English placed a ruler on its throne on terms of “subordinate co-operation”. On the death of its last ruler in November, 1853, leaving no issue but only an adopted son, Dalhousie annexed it. A part of Sikkim, about 1,676 square miles, was taken over by the Company in 1850 as a punishment on its chief for capturing the representative of the British Government and ill-treating two British subjects. Sambalpur was annexed to the British Empire in 1849 on the death of its ruler Narayan Singh without any heir. Lord Dalhousie’s decision with regard to Baghat and Udaipur was reversed by Lord Canning; and the Court of Directors did not approve of his proposal for the annexation of Karauli in Rajputana, on the ground that, it was a “protected ally” and not a “dependent” State.
The principle of lapse was also applied to sweep away the titles and pensions of the rulers of some States, on the ground that “appearances without the reality of authority were sure to shake Native confidence” in the “good faith” of the Company. Thus on the death of the Nawab of the Carnatic in 1853, Lord Dalhousie decided not to recognize any one as his successor. Similarly, when the Raja of Tanjore died in 1855, leaving behind him only two daughters and sixteen widows, the Governor-General abolished the Rajaship of this State for good. He wanted also to abolish the title of the nominal Delhi Emperor, in which, however, he was not supported by the Court of Directors. On the death of the ex-Peshwa, Baji Rao II, in 1853, the pension of eight hundred thousand rupees, which had been granted to him by Sir John Malcolm, was not allowed by Lord Dalhousie to be paid to his adopted son, Dundu Pant, later on known as Nana Saheb on the ground that the pension had been a personal allowance of his adoptive father and so could not pass on to his successor. This measure has been described by Kaye as “harsh” and by Arnold as “grasping”. The Nizam of Hyderabad in the Deccan was in arrears with the payment of a British contingent, which he was not actually obliged to maintain by the terms of his treaty with the British. Dalhousie nevertheless coerced him into making territorial cessions for the regular payment of the “Hyderabad contingent”. By an arrangement made in May, 1853, the cotton-producing province of Berar was given to the Company in lieu of the subsidy.
Besides conquest and lapse, the maxim of ” the good of the governed ” was also enunciated by the British Government in annexing some States whose administrations were “fraught with suffering to millions”. The case of Oudh is the most typical example of the application of this maxim. Since Lord Wellesley’s treaty of 1801, Oudh had been kept as a “protected feudatory State” with control over internal administration. It was indeed an unwise arrangement, under which the ruler of Oudh was invested with responsibility without power, and its natural consequence was that the administration of the State degenerated terribly, to the great suffering of its people. The British Government realized the evils of Oudh administration, and successive Governors-General, especially Lord William Bentinck and Lord Hardinge, warned its ruler; but none did anything to remedy the fundamental defect of the subsidiary system, which by guaranteeing British protection to the ruler of Oudh made him unmindful of the real interests of the State and saved him from “justifiable revolt on the part of his subjects”. The growing deplorable situation in Oudh, to which the attention of the British Government was drawn, more clearly than before, by Colonel Sleeman, Resident in Oudh from 1848 to 1854, and his successor, Colonel Outram, both of whom were opposed to the policy of lapse, convinced the Governor-General of the necessity of the adoption of a bolder policy with regard to Oudh. The existence of the ill-governed State of Oudh, almost in the centre of the rapidly expanding British Empire in India, could not but appear to the architects of the latter as a gross anachronism, which should be removed as quickly as possible to facilitate their own task. There could be no better or more convenient pretext than to hold out the prospect of good government, for the absorption of a kingdom whose subjection to British control dates back to the time of Warren Hastings. Lord Dalhousie was inclined to solve the Oudh problem not by annexing it but by merely taking over its administration and by allowing its ruler to retain only his palace, rank and titles. But the Court of Directors ordered its complete annexation, which was formally proclaimed by Outram on the 13th February, 1856. Wazid ‘Ali Shah, the last ruler of Oudh, was deported to Calcutta, where he had to spend his last days on an annual pension of twelve lace of rupees.
The annexation of Oudh was an instance of territorial aggrandizement which was “not warranted by international law” as Dalhousie himself expressed it in his letter to Sir George Couper, dated 15th December, 1855. It should be noted that for the misgovernment of Oudh, which was utilised as the ground for its annexation by the Company, then eager to consolidate its posses- sions in India, the responsibility lay mainly on the English, who had thrust upon that kingdom the impolitic arrangement of the subsidiary system and had unceasingly interfered in its affairs. “The facts furnished by every writer on Oudh affairs, all testify,” Sir Henry Lawrence stated, “to the same point, that British interference with that province has been as prejudicial to its court and people as it has been disgraceful to the British name.” Further, no consideration was shown for the unflinching loyalty of the ruling house of Oudh to the British Government. It has also been held by some that the annexation of Oudh meant a “gross violation of national faith” involving disregard of an old treaty. In 1837 Lord Auckland had concluded an agreement with the ruler of Oudh. which bound him either to introduce reforms or to make over the administration to the British Government while retaining the sovereignty. Though this treaty was not sanctioned by the Court of Directors, Lord Auckland intimated to the Oudh ruler the disallowance of only one clause of it and, somehow or other, “the treaty was actually included in a subsequent Government publication and was referred to as still in force by succeeding Governors-General”. When the Court of Directors decided on annexing Oudh, the British Government suddenly informed the ruler of Oudh that the treaty of 1837 was “a dead letter”.
