British Expansion Under Lord Wellesley In India

The next major expansion of British rule in India took place under the Governor General ship of Lord Wellesley, who arrived in India in 1798 at a time when the British were engaged in a world-wide battle with France. Until then, the British had pursued a policy of consolidating their gains and resources in India, and making territorial gains only when it was possible to do so without provoking the major Indian powers. 

 

•    Lord Wellesley decided that the time had come to bring as many Indian states under British control as possible. By 1797, the two most powerful Indian powers, Mysore and the Marathas, had lost ground. 

 

•    The Third Anglo-Mysore war had reduced Mysore to a shadow of its former glory, and the Marathas were wasting their power in mutual intrigues and wars. 

 

•    In other words, political conditions in India were favourable for an expansionist policy: aggression was both easy and profitable. Furthermore, Britain's trading and industrial classes desired further expansion in India; previously, they had favoured a policy of peace, believing that war was harmful to trade. 

 

•    By the end of the 18th century, however, they had come to believe that British goods would only sell in India on a large scale once the country was completely under British control. 

 

•    The Company, too, supported such a policy if it could be implemented successfully and without jeopardising profits. Finally, the British in India were determined to prevent French influence from spreading across the country and, as a result, to curtail and crush any Indian state that attempted to do business with France. 

 

•    The Company's dominion in India was threatened by the impending invasion of Zaman Shah, the ruler of Kabul, who could count on support from Indian chiefs in northern India and who had been invited by Tipu to join a concerted effort to drive the British out.

 

 

1.    The system of Subsidiary Alliances

2.    Outright wars

3.    The assumption of the territories of previously subordinated rulers. 

 

•    The ruler of an allying Indian State was compelled to accept the permanent stationing of a British force within his territory and to pay a subsidy for its maintenance under his Subsidiary Alliance system.

 

•    All of this was done ostensibly for his protection, but it was actually a way for the Indian ruler to pay tribute to the Company. In some cases, instead of paying an annual subsidy, the ruler ceded part of his territory to the Company. 

 

•    The Indian ruler would usually agree to the posting of a British Resident at his court, that he would not employ any European in his service without British approval, and that he would not negotiate with any other Indian ruler without first consulting the Governor-General.

 

•    In exchange, the British agreed to defend the ruler against his foes. They also promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the allied state, but they rarely followed through on this promise.

 

•    In reality, when an Indian state signs a Subsidiary Alliance, it is effectively giving up its independence. It lost its right to self-defence, diplomatic relations, the ability to hire foreign experts, and the ability to settle disputes with its neighbours. In fact, the Indian ruler lost all external sovereignty and became increasingly subservient to the British Resident, who interjected himself into the state's day-to-day administration. Furthermore, the system tended to cause the protected state's internal decay. 

 

•    The cost of the British-provided subsidiary force was extremely high, far exceeding the state's ability to pay. Payment of the arbitrary fixed and artificially bloated subsidy inevitably disrupted the state's economy and impoverished its citizens.

 

•    It also resulted in the disbandment of the protected states' armies. Thousands of soldiers and officers lost their hereditary income, spreading misery and degradation throughout the country. 

 

•    Many of them became members of the Pindaree bands that ravaged India during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, because they no longer feared their people, the rulers of the protected states tended to ignore and oppress their people's interests.

 

•    They had no reason to be good rulers because the British shielded them from both domestic and foreign enemies. The British, on the other hand, benefited greatly from the Subsidiary Alliance system. At the expense of the Indian states, they could now maintain a large army. 

 

•    They were able to fight wars far from home because any war would take place in the territories of either a British ally or an enemy of the British.

 

•    They had complete control over the protected ally's defence and foreign relations, as well as a powerful military force stationed in the heart of his lands, and thus could overthrow him and annex his territories at any time by declaring him ineffective.

 

•    In the eyes of the British, the Subsidiary Alliances system was “a system of fattening allies as we fatten oxen, until they were worthy of being devoured,” as one British writer put it. 

 

1.    In 1798, Lord Wellesley made his first Subsidiary Treaty with Nizam of Hyderabad. At a cost of £ 241,710 per year, the Nizam was to dismiss his French-trained troops and maintain a subsidiary force of six battalions.  In exchange, the British promised to protect his state from Maratha incursions. The subsidiary force was increased by another treaty in 1800, and the Nizam ceded part of his territories to the Company in lieu of cash payment.

 

2.    In 1801, the Nawab of Avadh was compelled to sign a Subsidiary Treaty. The Nawab was forced to surrender nearly half of his kingdom to the British in exchange for a larger subsidiary force, which included Rohilkhand and the land between the Ganga and the Jamuna. Furthermore, even within the portion of Avadh that remained with him, the Nawab was no longer to be independent. In terms of his state's internal administration, he must accept any "advice" or order from British authorities. His police force was to be restructured under the supervision and command of British officers. His own army was effectively disbanded, and the British were free to station troops in any part of the country.

 

3.    Mysore, Carnatic, Tanjore, and Surat were treated even harsher by Wellesley. Of course, Tipu of Mysore would never agree to a Subsidiary Treaty.

 

•    Stand of Tipu: He, on the other hand, had never come to terms with the loss of half of his territory in 1792. He worked tirelessly to bolster his forces in preparation for the inevitable battle with the British. 

 

•    He began talks with Revolutionary France about forming an alliance. To form an anti-British alliance, he dispatched missions to Afghanistan, Arabia, and Turkey.

 

•    Lord Wellesley was equally adamant about bringing Tipu to heel and preventing the French from re-entering India. Before French assistance could reach Tipu, the British army attacked and defeated him in a brief but fierce war in 1799. Tipu continued to refuse to accept humiliating terms for peace. 

 

•    In 1801, Lord Wellesley forced the puppet Nawab of Carnatic to sign a new treaty requiring him to cede his kingdom to the Company in exchange for a pension. 

 

•    The Carnatic was attached to territories seized from Mysore, including the Malabar, to form the Madras Presidency, which lasted until 1947. Similarly, the rulers of Tanjore and Surat had their territories taken over and their rulers pensioned off

 

•    The Marathas were the only major Indian power that remained outside the British sphere of influence. Wellesley now turned his attention to them and began interfering with their internal affairs aggressively. 

 

•    The Peshwa at Poona, the Gaekwad at Baroda, the Sindhia at Gwalior, the Holkar at Indore, and the Bhonsle at Nagpur made up the Maratha Empire at the time, with the Peshwa serving as the nominal head of the confederacy. But they were all embroiled in a bitter feud, oblivious to the real danger posed by the approaching foreigner.

 

•    The Peshwa and Sindhia had been offered a Subsidiary Alliance by Wellesley on several occasions. Nana Phadnis, on the other hand, had refused to fall into the trap. 

 

•    When Holkar defeated the combined armies of the Peshwa and Sindhia on October 25, 1802, the day of the great festival of Diwali, the cowardly Peshwa Baji Rao II rushed into the arms of the English and signed the Subsidiary Treaty at Bassein on the fateful last day of 1802.

 

•    Holkar stood on the sidelines while Sindhia and Bhonsle fought the British, while Gaekwad aided the British. Bhonsle and Sindhia nursed their wounds as Holkar took up arms.

 

•    At Assaye in September 1803 and Argaon in November 1803 respectively, British armies led by Arthur Wellesley defeated the combined armies of Sindhia and Bhonsle. 

 

•    On the first of November, Lord Lake routed Sindhia's army at Laswari and occupied Aligarh, Delhi, and Agra in the north. The Company's blind emperor of India became a pensioner once more. The Maratha allies were forced to file a peace suit.

 

•    Sindhia and Bhonsle joined the Company as subsidiary allies. They gave up a portion of their land to the British, admitted British residents to their courts, and promised not to hire any Europeans without British permission. 

 

•    The British took complete control of the Orissa coast and the lands between the Ganga and the Jamuna rivers. In their hands, the Peshwa became a disgruntled puppet.

 

•    Wellesley now turned his attention to Holkar, but Yeshwant Rao Holkar proved to be a formidable opponent, bringing British armies to a halt. Lake suffered heavy losses at the hands of Holkar's ally, the Raja of Bharatpur, who attempted but failed to storm his fort. 

 

•    Furthermore, Sindhia began to consider joining hands with Holkar after overcoming his long-standing animosity toward the Holkar family.

 

•    The East India Company's shareholders, on the other hand, discovered that their policy of expansion through war was proving costly and reducing profits. The debt of the Company had grown from £17 million in 1797 to £31 million in 1806. 

 

•    Furthermore, Britain's finances were depleting at a time when Napoleon was re-emerging as a major threat in Europe.

 

•    British statesmen and the Company's directors believed that the time had come to rein in further expansion, end wasteful spending, and digest and consolidate Britain's recent gains in India. As a result, Wellesley was expelled from India, and the Company made peace with Holkar in January 1806 through the Treaty of Raighat, returning to Holkar the majority of his lands. 

 

•    Near the end, Wellesley's expansionist policy was checked. Regardless, it resulted in the East India Company becoming the most powerful force in India.