NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 85 of 150

Correct — A, Lord Wellesley. Richard Wellesley, Governor-General from 1798 to 1805, turned a piecemeal military arrangement into a systematic instrument of expansion. Under a subsidiary alliance an Indian ruler accepted a British force stationed in his territory and paid for it, in cash or by ceding land; accepted a British Resident at his court; dismissed all European officers other than the British; and gave up the right to make war, peace or treaties with any other state without the Company's consent. In return the British undertook to defend him from outside attack. The Nizam of Hyderabad signed the first fully developed version in 1798, and Mysore after Tipu's defeat in 1799, Awadh in 1801 and the Peshwa at Bassein in 1802 followed. The ruler kept his throne and his internal administration but lost his independence entirely, and the Company gained an army paid for by others.

• (b)Lord Dalhousie — Dalhousie, Governor-General from 1848 to 1856, is associated with the next stage of annexation rather than this one. His instrument was the Doctrine of Lapse, under which a princely state without a natural heir passed to the Company, applied to Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur among others, with Awadh annexed in 1856 on the separate plea of misgovernment. He inherited the subsidiary alliance system; he did not devise it.
• (c)Lord Canning — Canning arrived in 1856, half a century after Wellesley, and is remembered for the Revolt of 1857, the transfer of power from the Company to the Crown, and the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 that promised the princes their territories would be respected. That was the reversal of the annexationist policy, not its origin.
• (d)Lord Ripon — Ripon was Viceroy from 1880 to 1884 and belongs to a completely different phase of policy — local self-government, the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act, the first Factory Act and the Ilbert Bill controversy. He had nothing to do with the expansion of Company power over the princely states.

The subsidiary alliance was the device by which the East India Company established paramountcy over Indian states without formally annexing them. Its logic was self-financing empire: the Company kept a large standing army, but the cost fell on the allied rulers, either as an annual subsidy or as ceded districts, which is how the Northern Circars, parts of Awadh and other territories came under direct Company administration. The ruler's disarmed state, deprived of the right to conduct its own foreign relations and often bankrupted by the subsidy, then became easy prey for later annexation.

Two refinements are worth carrying. First, the underlying technique was not invented from nothing in 1798 — the French governor Dupleix had already hired out troops to Indian rulers in the Carnatic in the 1740s and 1750s, and Company officials had made ad hoc arrangements of the kind before Wellesley. What Wellesley did was convert it into a standard, comprehensive, empire-wide policy with a fixed set of terms, and that is why every textbook and every answer key names him. Second, note what the ruler did keep: internal administration remained nominally his, which is exactly what made the arrangement politically saleable and, in the long run, financially ruinous for states like Awadh and Hyderabad. Wellesley's other purpose was strategic — with Napoleon active and a French threat feared in India, disarming Indian states and expelling French officers was a war measure as much as an expansionist one.

• Lord Wellesley was Governor-General from 1798 to 1805 and also founded Fort William College at Calcutta in 1800.
• The Nizam of Hyderabad accepted the first fully formed subsidiary alliance in 1798; Mysore followed in 1799 after Tipu Sultan's defeat, Awadh in 1801 and the Peshwa Baji Rao II by the Treaty of Bassein in 1802.
• Under the alliance the ruler paid for a British force, accepted a Resident, dismissed non-British Europeans, and could not deal with other states without British permission.
• External defence became a British responsibility, while internal administration was left nominally with the ruler.

• Attaching the subsidiary alliance to Dalhousie because both were expansionist; Dalhousie's instrument was the Doctrine of Lapse.
• Assuming the ruler lost internal administration too — he did not, which is exactly what made the arrangement so durable.

This block is asked either as a who-devised-it one-liner like this or as a which-statement-does-not-apply item about the terms, so learn the four or five conditions of the alliance as a list, not just the name.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Indian state was the first to accept a fully formed subsidiary alliance with the East India Company?

  • (a)Mysore
  • (b)Hyderabad
  • (c)Awadh
  • (d)Gwalior

  Answer(b) Hyderabad — the Nizam signed in 1798, the first year of Wellesley's term.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the subsidiary alliance, an Indian ruler retained

  • (a)the right to make treaties with other Indian states
  • (b)the right to employ French officers
  • (c)nominal control over the internal administration of his state
  • (d)full command of his own standing army

  Answer(c) nominal control over the internal administration of his state — everything touching defence and foreign relations passed to the Company.