NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 140 of 150

Correct — A, Cuttack. The Treaty of Deogaon was signed on 17 December 1803 by Raghoji II Bhonsale of Nagpur with the British, after his defeat at the Battle of Argaon in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, and by it he gave up the province of Cuttack. That cession handed the Company the coastal belt of Odisha along with Balasore port and adjoining tracts, and it mattered strategically far beyond its revenue — it joined British Bengal to British Madras by land for the first time, closing the last gap in the eastern seaboard.

• (b)Murshidabad — Murshidabad was the capital of the Nawabs of Bengal and passed under effective British control four decades earlier, after Plassey in 1757 and the grant of the Diwani in 1765. It was not a Maratha possession and had nothing to change hands in 1803.
• (c)Surat — Surat was an old English trading centre on the Gujarat coast — the Company established a factory there in 1613, long before the Maratha wars — so it was not a territory that could be acquired from the Nagpur Bhonsale at Deogaon.
• (d)Calicut — Calicut lies on the Malabar coast and came to the British from Mysore, Malabar being ceded by Tipu Sultan under the Treaty of Seringapatam that ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War in 1792. It is nowhere near the Nagpur Bhonsale's territories.

The Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803 to 1805 was fought by Lord Wellesley's government against the Maratha chiefs who refused the Subsidiary Alliance, principally Daulat Rao Scindia of Gwalior and Raghoji II Bhonsale of Nagpur, after the Peshwa Baji Rao II had signed away his independence at Bassein in December 1802. The war closed with two separate settlements in the same fortnight — the Treaty of Deogaon with the Bhonsale on 17 December 1803, following the British victory at Argaon, and the Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon with Scindia on 30 December 1803. Between them these treaties gave the Company Cuttack, Berar territory west of the Wardha, and Scindia's lands between the Ganga and the Yamuna, including Delhi and Agra.

Questions on colonial treaties reward one habit above all — attach every treaty to the power it was signed with and to the war it ended. Deogaon belongs to the Bhonsales of Nagpur, whose reach ran east across Berar into Odisha, so the territory ceded has to be an eastern one, and Cuttack is the only eastern option on the list. The three distractors are all places acquired by an entirely different route: Murshidabad through the Bengal settlement of 1757 to 1765, Surat through the Company's oldest western factory, Calicut through the Mysore wars. Sorting the options by which Indian power once held them is faster than trying to recall the treaty's clauses.

• The Treaty of Deogaon was signed on 17 December 1803 between the British and Raghoji II Bhonsale of Nagpur, after the Battle of Argaon.
• Under it the Bhonsale ceded the province of Cuttack, which carried the coastal tract of Odisha and Balasore port.
• It was one of the two treaties that ended the main phase of the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the other being Surji-Anjangaon with Scindia on 30 December 1803.
• The acquisition of Cuttack gave the Company a continuous land link between its Bengal and Madras presidencies.
• Lord Wellesley was Governor-General during the war, and the Subsidiary Alliance was the instrument he used against the Maratha chiefs.

• Matching a treaty to the wrong Maratha house — Deogaon is the Nagpur Bhonsale, Surji-Anjangaon is Scindia.
• Assuming any 1803 acquisition must be in western India, when the Bhonsale's cession was on the east coast.
• Mixing up the Bhonsales of Nagpur with the Bhonsale line of Shivaji at Satara.

As a treaty-to-territory recall, as a treaty-to-war match, or inside a chronology item on the Anglo-Maratha wars.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon, 1803, was signed between the British and

  • (a)Raghoji II Bhonsale of Nagpur
  • (b)Daulat Rao Scindia of Gwalior
  • (c)Yashwant Rao Holkar of Indore
  • (d)Peshwa Baji Rao II

  Answer(b) Daulat Rao Scindia of Gwalior — signed on 30 December 1803, a fortnight after Deogaon closed the account with the Nagpur Bhonsale.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Treaty of Bassein, 1802, which brought the Peshwa under the Subsidiary Alliance, was signed with

  • (a)Madhav Rao I
  • (b)Baji Rao II
  • (c)Narayan Rao
  • (d)Raghunath Rao

  Answer(b) Baji Rao II — his acceptance of a subsidiary force at Bassein set off the Second Anglo-Maratha War, since the other Maratha chiefs refused to accept it.