How Company Expanded It's Rule In India ? What Led To Conflict With Tipu Sultan ?

After the Battle of Buxar (1764), the Company appointed Residents in Indian states. Through the Residents, the Company officials began interfering in the internal affairs of Indian states. Sometimes the Company forced the states into a “subsidiary alliance”. According to the terms of this alliance, Indian rulers were not allowed to have their independent armed forces. They will be protected by the Company but had to pay for the “subsidiary forces” that the Company maintain for the purpose of this protection. If the Indian rulers failed to make the payment, then part of their territory was taken away as a penalty.

Mysore controlled the profitable trade of the Malabar coast where the Company purchased pepper and cardamom. In 1785 Tipu Sultan stopped the export of these substances through the ports of his kingdom and disallowed local merchants from trading with the Company. He also established a close relationship with the French in India and modernised his army with their help. All these made the British furious.

Four wars were fought with Mysore (1767- 69, 1780-84, 1790-92 and 1799). Only in the last – the Battle of Seringapatam – did the Company ultimately got a victory. Mysore was later placed under the former ruling dynasty of the Wodeyars and a subsidiary alliance was imposed on the state.

With their defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the Marathas’ dream of ruling from Delhi came to an end.

The Marathas were subdued in a series of wars. In the first war that ended in 1782 with the Treaty of Salbai, there was no clear winner. The Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-05) was fought on different fronts, resulting in the British gaining Orissa and the territories north of the Yamuna river including Agra and Delhi.

The Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-19 crushed the Maratha power. The Company now had complete control over the territories south of the Vindhyas.

Under Lord Hastings (Governor-General from 1813 to 1823) a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated. Now the Company claimed that its authority was paramount or supreme, so it was justified in annexing or threatening to annex any Indian kingdom. This view continued to guide later British policies.

These periods saw the British shifting the control the north-west because of Russian invasion fear. British fought a prolonged war with Afghanistan between 1838 and 1842 and established indirect Company rule there. Sind was taken over. In 1849, Punjab was annexed.

The final wave of annexations occurred under Lord Dalhousie who was the Governor-General from 1848 to 1856 using Doctrine of Lapse policy. The doctrine declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir his kingdom would “lapse”, that is, become part of Company territory. Many kingdoms were annexed simply by applying this doctrine: Examples – Satara (1848), Sambalpur  (1850), Udaipur (1852), Nagpur (1853) and Jhansi (1854).

Finally, in 1856, the Company also took over Awadh. Now this time the British mentioned that they took over Awadh in order to free the people from the “misgovernment” of the Nawab, which enraged by the Nawab who was deposed. The people of Awadh later joined the great revolt that broke out in 1857.