Which Maratha statesman signed the Treaty of Bassein on December 31, 1802?
- (a)Baji Rao II
- (b)Vithuji Holkar
- (c)Daulat Rao Sindhia
- (d)Madhava Rao Narayan
Correct — A, Baji Rao II. The treaty was a pact between the British East India Company and Baji Rao II, the Peshwa, signed at Bassein — modern Vasai, north of Bombay — on the last day of 1802. He had reached the coast as a fugitive: Yashwantrao Holkar had beaten the combined forces of the Peshwa and Sindhia outside Poona that October, and Baji Rao fled to British protection and bought it at the price the Company named. The terms were the standard subsidiary alliance in its heaviest form. A permanent force of about six thousand Company troops was to be stationed with him; districts yielding some twenty-six lakh rupees were made over to pay for them; he renounced claims on Surat and Baroda; Europeans other than the British were barred from his service; and he agreed to make no treaty, declare no war and conduct no relations with any other power without consulting the Company. In signing, the head of the Maratha confederacy signed away its independence, and the other Maratha chiefs refused to accept it — which brought on the Second Anglo-Maratha War.
- (b)Vithuji Holkar — The Holkars are on the other side of this story. It was Yashwantrao Holkar's victory near Poona in October 1802 that drove Baji Rao II to the British in the first place, and Holkar refused the settlement that followed. No Holkar signed at Bassein.
- (c)Daulat Rao Sindhia — Sindhia was the Peshwa's ally in the battle that preceded the treaty and one of the chiefs who rejected it afterwards, fighting the Company in the war it provoked. He was not a party to the document, and the Company dealt with him separately once the fighting was over.
- (d)Madhava Rao Narayan — Wrong generation. Sawai Madhavrao, the infant Peshwa raised to office in 1774, died in 1795, and it was his death that brought Baji Rao II to the office he held in 1802. He could not have signed a treaty seven years after his death.
The subsidiary alliance was Lord Wellesley's instrument for absorbing Indian states without annexing them. A ruler accepted a British force inside his territory, paid for it in cash or in ceded revenue districts, admitted a Resident, gave up his own European advisers, and surrendered control of his external relations. In exchange he received British protection — including protection against his own rivals and, in effect, against his own subjects. Bassein applied that template to the Peshwa, the nominal head of the Maratha confederacy, which is why it mattered far beyond Poona.
The three wrong options are not random: Holkar and Sindhia are the two chiefs at the centre of the crisis that produced the treaty, and Madhavrao Narayan is the previous Peshwa. So the item rewards knowing not just the signature but the sequence — Holkar's victory at Poona, the Peshwa's flight, the treaty at Bassein, the refusal of the other chiefs, and the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803 to 1805 in which the Company took Delhi, Agra and much of the Doab. A contemporary British judgement often quoted is that the Company had gained a treaty with a cypher; the answer to it is that the cypher's signature gave the war its legal pretext.
- The Treaty of Bassein was signed on 31 December 1802 between the East India Company and Baji Rao II, the Peshwa, at Bassein (Vasai).
- It provided for a subsidiary force of about six thousand Company troops maintained from ceded districts yielding about twenty-six lakh rupees.
- The Peshwa gave up the right to make treaties, declare war or conduct relations with other powers without consulting the Company, and renounced claims on Surat and Baroda.
- Non-British Europeans were excluded from his service.
- Yashwantrao Holkar's defeat of the Peshwa and Sindhia near Poona in October 1802 drove Baji Rao II to seek British protection.
- The other Maratha chiefs rejected the treaty, and the Second Anglo-Maratha War followed.
- October 1802 — Yashwantrao Holkar defeats the combined forces of the Peshwa and Daulat Rao Sindhia near Poona
- Baji Rao II abandons Poona and takes refuge with the British on the coast
- 31 December 1802 — the Treaty of Bassein is signed: subsidiary force, ceded revenue districts, no independent foreign relations
- The Maratha chiefs — Sindhia, Bhonsle and Holkar — refuse to accept a settlement made over their heads
- 1803 to 1805 — the Second Anglo-Maratha War; the Company's authority is established over Delhi, Agra and much of the north
The Peshwa signed as a fugitive, which is why the treaty settled nothing and started a war.
- Picking Sindhia or Holkar because they dominate the military narrative of 1802 and 1803; neither signed at Bassein.
- Confusing Baji Rao II, the last Peshwa, with Baji Rao I, the great expansionist of the 1720s and 1730s.
- Treating the treaty as the end of Maratha power when it was the beginning of the war that ended it.
As a treaty-to-signatory item, or inside a chronology of the Company's expansion under Wellesley.
Which one of the following statements does not apply to the system of Subsidiary Alliance introduced by Lord Wellesley ?
- (a) To maintain a large standing army at other’s expense
- (b) To keep India safe from Napoleonic danger
- (c) To secure a fixed income for the Company
- (d) To establish British paramountcy over the Indian States
Answer(c) To secure a fixed income for the Company
The instrument that Bassein applied. That item asks what the subsidiary alliance was for — an army at someone else's expense, security against the French, and paramountcy — which is precisely the bargain the Peshwa accepted in 1802.
Which one of the following was not included in the terms and conditions of Subsidiary Alliance System of Lord Wellesley?
- (a) The British would protect their ally.
- (b) The ally was free to enter into agreements with other rulers or engage in warfare.
- (c) In the territory of the ally, a British armed contingent would be stationed.
- (d) The ally would have to provide resources for the maintenance of the British armed contingent.
Answer(b) The ally was free to enter into agreements with other rulers or engage in warfare.
The clause that decides both items. Freedom to treat with other rulers or to make war is exactly what a subsidiary ally gave up, and the Peshwa's surrender of it at Bassein is why the other Maratha chiefs treated the treaty as a betrayal.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Treaty of Bassein of 1802 was followed immediately by which one of the following?
- (a)The First Anglo-Maratha War
- (b)The Second Anglo-Maratha War
- (c)The Third Anglo-Mysore War
- (d)The annexation of Awadh
Answer(b) the Second Anglo-Maratha War — Sindhia, Bhonsle and Holkar refused to accept a treaty made over their heads, and the fighting ran from 1803 to 1805.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under a subsidiary alliance with the East India Company, an Indian ruler was normally required to
- (a)pay a fixed annual tribute in gold to the Company treasury
- (b)maintain a British force in his territory and give up independent foreign relations
- (c)transfer his entire army to Company command while retaining foreign policy
- (d)accept the Company's currency as sole legal tender in his state
Answer(b) maintain a British force in his territory and give up independent foreign relations — the ruler paid for the subsidiary force, usually by ceding revenue districts, and could make no treaty or war without the Company's consent.