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The doctrine of lapsation was a policy of annexation initiated by the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent for the princely states, and applied until the year 1858, the year after Company rule was succeeded by the British Raj under the British Crown.
The policy was initiated by James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie.
Elements of the doctrine of lapse continued to be applied by the post-independence Indian government to derecognise individual princely families until 1971, when the recognition of former ruling families was discontinued under the 26th amendment to the Indian constitution by the Indira Gandhi government.
According to the doctrine, any Indian princely state under the suzerainty of the East India Company, the dominant imperial power in the Indian system of subsidiary alliances, would have its princely status abolished, and therefore be annexed into directly ruled British India, if the ruler was either "manifestly incompetent or died without a male heir". [1] This supplanted the long-established right of an Indian sovereign without an heir to choose a successor. [2]
The policy is most commonly associated with Dalhousie, who was the East India Company's Governor General of British India between 1848 and 1856. However, the doctrine was articulated by the Court of Directors of the Company as early as 1834, and several smaller states had already been annexed under this doctrine before Dalhousie took over the post of Governor-General. [3]
By the use of the doctrine of lapse, the Company took over the princely states of Satara (1848), Jaitpur, Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Udaipur (Chhattisgarh State) (1852), Jhansi (1854), Nagpur (1854), Tanjore and Arcot (1855). Awadh (1856) is widely believed to have been annexed under the doctrine, but in fact was annexed by Dalhousie under the pretext of mis-governance. Mostly claiming that the ruler was not ruling properly, the Company added about four million pounds sterling to its annual revenue by this doctrine. [4] However, Udaipur State would later have local princely rule reinstated in 1860. [5]
With the increasing power of the East India Company, discontent simmered among many sections of Indian society, included disbanded soldiers; these rallied behind the deposed dynasties during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny. Following the rebellion, in 1858, the new British Viceroy of India, whose rule replaced that of the East India Company, renounced the doctrine. [6]
Dalhousie vigorously applied the lapse doctrine for annexing Indian princely states, but the policy was not solely his invention. [7]
The princely state of Kittur, ruled by Kittur Rani Chennamma (the queen at the time), was taken over by the East India Company in 1824, when after the death of her husband and son she adopted a new son and attempted to make him heir to the throne, which the British refused to accept. This development has similarities with the later 'doctrine of lapse', which the Court of Directors of the East India Company articulated early in 1834. [7] As per this policy, the Company annexed Mandvi in 1839, Colaba and Jalaun in 1840, and Surat in 1842.
The doctrine of lapse was widely considered illegitimate by many Indians. By 1848, the British had immense power in India, since they were the de facto direct rulers of territories such as the Madras, Bombay, and Bengal Presidencies, Assam, Mysore, and the Punjab, as well as the indirect rulers of princely states of Rajasthan, Sindh, Patiala, the Carnatic, and many others. [8]
Most of the rulers of the remaining states which had not yet been annexed by the British were in a weak position against their mighty forces. Not willing to spend huge amounts of money and soldiers, the Indian rulers had little option but to give in to this policy. This caused increased resentment against the British Empire in India, and was one of the causes of the Uprising of 1857. [9]
Princely State | Year Annexed |
---|---|
Angul | 1848 |
Arcot | 1855 |
Awadh | 1856 |
Assam | 1838 |
Banda State | 1858 |
Guler | 1813 |
Jaintia State | 1803 |
Jaitpur | 1849 |
Jalaun | 1840 |
Jaswan | 1849 |
Jhansi | 1853 |
Kachar | 1830 |
Kangra | 1846 |
Kannanur State | 1819 |
Kittur | 1824 |
Kodagu | 1834 |
Kozhikode (Calicut) | 1806 |
Ballabhgarh | 1858 |
Kullu State | 1846 |
Kurnool | 1839 |
Kutlehar | 1825 |
Makrai | 1890 |
Cambodia State | 1854 |
Nargund State | 1858 |
Punjab | 1849 |
Ramgarh State | 1858 |
Sambalpur | 1849 |
Satara | 1848 |
Surat | 1842 |
Siba | 1849 |
Tanjore | 1855 |
Tulsipur | 1854 |
Udaipur | 1852 |
In late 1964, Maharaja Rajendra Prakash of Sirmur, the last recognized former ruler of Sirmur State, died without either leaving male issue or adopting an heir before his death, although his senior widow subsequently adopted her daughter's son as the successor to the family headship. The Indian government, however, decided that in consequence of the ruler's death, the constitutional status of the family had lapsed. The doctrine of lapse was likewise invoked the following year when the last recognized ruler of Akkalkot State died in similar circumstances. [10]
James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, known as the Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and colonial administrator in British India. He served as Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
A princely state was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to a subsidiary alliance and the suzerainty or paramountcy of the British crown.
Nana Saheb Peshwa II, born as Dhondu Pant, was an Indian aristocrat and fighter, who led the rebellion in Cawnpore (Kanpur) during the 1857 rebellion against the East India Company. As the adopted son of the exiled Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao II, Nana Saheb believed that he was entitled to a pension from the company, but as he was denied recognition under Lord Dalhousie's doctrine of lapse, he initiated a rebellion. He forced the British garrison in Kanpur to surrender, then murdered the survivors, gaining control of the city for a few days. After a British force recaptured Kanpur, Nana Saheb disappeared, with multiple conflicting accounts existing of his further life and death.
Sangolli Rayana was an Indian military leader. Born in Sangolli, Belagavi, he served as a senior commander in the military of the princely state of Kittur during the early 19th century, when the state was ruled by Kittur Chennamma. After Chennamma lead a failed rebellion against the British East India Company (EIC) in response to the EIC's doctrine of lapse in 1824, Rayanna continued to resist Company rule in India. After leading another uprising against EIC authority, he was ultimately captured by the British and executed by hanging in 1831. Rayanna's life was the subject of the Kannada-language films Kranthiveera Sangolli Rayanna (1967) and Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna (2012).
Kittur Chennamma was the Indian Queen of Kittur, a former princely state in present-day Karnataka. She led an armed resistance against the British East India Company, in defiance of the Paramountcy, in an attempt to retain control over her dominion. She defeated the Company in the first revolt, but died as a prisoner of war after the second rebellion. As one of the first and few female rulers to lead kittur forces against British colonisation, she continues to be remembered as a folk hero in Karnataka, she is also an important symbol of the Indian independence movement.
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:
The Punjab States Agency was an agency of the British Raj. The agency was created in 1921, on the model of the Central India Agency and Rajputana Agency, and dealt with forty princely states in northwest India formerly dealt with by the Province of Punjab.
Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Sirmur was an independent kingdom in India, founded in 1616, located in the region that is now the Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The state was also known as Nahan, after its main city, Nahan. The state ranked predominant amongst the Punjab hill States. It had an area of 4,039 km2 and a revenue of 300,000 rupees in 1891.
Aundh State was a Maratha princely state during the British Raj, in the Deccan States Agency division of the Bombay Presidency.
Political warfare in British colonial India aided a British minority in maintaining control over large parts of present-day India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burma.
Jhansi was an independent princely state ruled by the Maratha Newalkar dynasty under suzerainty of British India from 1804 till 1853, when the British authorities took over the state under the terms of the Doctrine of Lapse, and renamed it the Jhansi State. Before the takeover, it was under the Peshwas from 1728 to 1804. The fortified town of Jhansi served as its capital.
The Oudh State was a Mughal subah, then an independent kingdom, and lastly a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of the state, also written historically as Oudhe.
Udaipur State was one of the princely states of India during the British Raj. The town of Dharamjaigarh was the former state's capital.
Sambalpur State, also known as Hirakhand Kingdom, was a kingdom founded in 1570. It ruled over Western Odisha and Eastern Chhattisgarh in central-eastern India prior to the Maratha occupation in 1800 AD. From 1849 AD, it was integrated with British Raj as a British District. Its capital was present-day Sambalpur city in Western Odisha.
Jaitpur State was a princely state in the Bundelkhand region. It was centered on Jaitpur, in present-day Mahoba district, Uttar Pradesh, which was the capital of the state. There were two forts in the area.
Satara State was a Maratha rump state later Princely state in India created after the fall of the Maratha Confederacy in 1818 after the Third Anglo-Maratha War and annexed by the British in 1849 using the Doctrine of lapse. The state was ruled by the Bhonsle dynasty, descendants of Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. The first Raja of the state was Pratap Singh who was installed on the throne by the British after they defeated Peshwa Bajirao II in 1818. Pratap Singh was deposed in 1838. His brother, Shahaji succeeded him but died without a natural heir in 1848. At that time, the East India Company government refused to accept Shahaji's adopted son as his successor under the company's Doctrine of lapse, a policy introduced by the then Governor, Lord Dalhousie, and absorbed the territory into the growing British dominion.