explain the expansion of British power in India
Answers
Political conditions in India were propitious for a policy of expansion: ... Under his Subsidiary Alliance system, the ruler of the 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.
Answer:
The next large-scale expansion of British rule in India occurred during the Governor-Generalship of Lord Wellesley who came to India in 1798 at a time when the British were locked in a life-and- death struggle with France all over the world.
Till then, the British had followed the policy of consolidating their gains and resources in India and making territorial gains only when this could be done safely without antagonizing the major Indian powers. Lord Wellesley decided that the time was ripe for bringing as many Indian states as possible under British control. By 1797 the two strongest Indian powers, Mysore and the Marathas, had declined in power.