Explain the objective of Doctrine of Lapse. How was Peshwa Baji Rao affected by it?
Answers
Answer:
The Doctrine of Lapse was an annexation policy followed widely by Lord Dalhousie when he was India’s Governor-General .
Satara state was a short-lived Princely state created by the British in 1818 after the Third Anglo-Maratha War and annexed by them in 1849 using the Doctrine of lapse.
The state was ruled by descendants of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. The first Raja of the state was Pratap Singh who was freed by the British after they defeated Peshwa Bajirao II in 1818. Pratap Singh was deposed in 1838. His brother, Shahaji succeeded him but died without a natural heir in 1848. At that time, the East India Company government refused to accept Shahaji's adopted son as his successor and absorbed the territory into the growing British dominion.
Answer:
Dalhousie who came to India as the governor-general of the Company in 1848 was a rank imperialist in his designs and ambitions. He completed the consolidation of the British Empire in India and, to that end, adopted different means. The one was, of course wars. By this means, he annexed Punjab after the second Sikh War and lower Burma after the second Burma War. He annexed Awadh on the pretext of its maladministration by the Nawab. He occupied the states of Karnataka and Tanjore when their Nawabs died. He refused to pay the pension to Nana Sahib when his father, Peshwa Baji Rao died. Yet, another famous means of Dalhousie for extending the British empire was the Doctrine of Lapse. Some native states like Satara, Nagpur, Jhansi, Jaitpur, Sambhalpur etc. were annexed by him by this means.
Doctrine of Lapse
Every Hindu has a right to adopt a male child as his heir in the absence of a natural heir. It is sanctioned both by religion and society. The adopted son enjoys all rights and privileges and also shares all responsibilities as a natural heir to his father. In the beginning, the English accepted this right of Hindu native rulers. But gradually, they changed their policy. They declared that the subordinate rulers had to seek their permission in case any one of them wished to adopt a child as his heir. In 1831, the English government at Bombay claimed that the English had the legitimate right to grant or not to grant the permission sought by an Indian ruler to adopt a child as his heir. But how the British would use this right was not elaborated. The English accepted the right of adopting heirs to the thrones by Indian rulers completely in several cases while in many other cases they objected to it. The English, of course, desired that a native ruler who wanted to adopt a child should do so during his life-time, yet, in several cases they approved of the adoption of a child even after the death of a ruler. Daulat Rao Sindhia died in 1827. His widow Baija Bai adopted Jankoji as his heir after his death. When Jankoji died in 1843, another widow of Daulat Rao Sindhia, adopted Jayaji Rao as the successor to the throne. The English approved of the adoption in both the cases. Thus, by that time, the English were quite liberal in accepting the right of adoption of the Indian rulers. John Sulivan stated that the English permitted at least fifteen native rulers to adopt their heirs during the period 1826-48. Yet, there were several other instances when the English refused this right to different native rulers. Ramchandra Rag the ruler of Jhansi died in 1835. He adopted a child as his heir before his death but failed to get the approval of the English. The English refused to accept that child as the heir to the throne and gave the gaddi to Raghunath Rao, an uncle of Ramchandra Rao. But, by that time, the English had not asserted the right to annexing the kingdom of the deceased ruler to the British territory in case of the absence of a natural heir. They however, asserted this right afterwards. The rulers of Jalon, Kolaba and Mandavi were refused permission to adopt their heirs and their states were annexed by the English.