What was the role played regional kingdom for checking the power of EEIC?
Answers
Company Rule Expands
After the Battle of Buxar, the Company appointed Resident Officers in Indian states. They were political or commercial agents, and their job was to serve and further the interests of the Company.
Soon, the Company began forcing the Indian states into joining a subsidiary alliance (a partnership between a ruling country and a country that is being ruled). According to the terms of this agreement, Indian rulers were not allowed to have their independent armed forces, but were to be protected by the Company.
The local rulers also had to pay for the subsidiary forces that the Company promised to maintain for the purpose of their "protection".
And if the Indian rulers failed to make the payment, then part of their territory was taken away. The kingdoms of Awadh and Hyderabad, for example, were forced to cede territories on this ground.
Tipu Sultan – The “Tiger of Mysore”
When the company saw a threat to its political or economic interests, it resorted to direct military confrontation, as happened in Mysore and many other kingdoms.
Mysore had become powerful under rulers like Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, and it controlled the profitable trade of the Malabar coast where the Company purchased pepper and cardamom.
Tipu Sultan, in 1785, stopped the export of sandalwood, pepper, and cardamom through the ports of his kingdom, and disallowed local merchants from trading with the Company. This angered the company very much.
The Company lost four wars to Mysore, but in the last one, the Battle of Seringapatam, the company won and Tipu Sultan was killed.
Wars With the Marathas
The company also subdued the Marathas in a series of wars:
Mahadji Sindhia and Nana Phadnis were two famous Maratha soldiers and statesmen of the late 18th century, and when the First Anglo-Maratha War ended in 1782 with the Treaty of Salbai, there was no clear victor.
The Second Anglo-Maratha War, from 1803 to 1805, was fought on different fronts, and resulted in the British gaining Orissa and territories north of the Yamuna river, including Agra and Delhi.
The Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817 to 1819 finally crushed Maratha power.
The Claim to Paramountcy
From the start of the 19th century, the Company pursued an aggressive policy of territorial expansion. Under Lord Hastings, Governor General from 1813 to 1823, a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated, which simply meant that the authority and position of the Company was supreme (the highest and the greatest) in India, and it had the right to take away anything it wants to from any Indian ruler.
Rani Channamma took to arms and led an anti-British resistance movement, but she was arrested in 1824 and died in prison in 1829.
Rayanna, a poor chowkidar of Sangolli in Kitoor, carried on the resistance. He destroyed many British camps and records, but he was caught and hanged by the British in 1830.
Late in the 1830s, the East India Company became worried about Russia. The British, who wanted to secure their control over the north-west, fought a prolonged war with Afghanistan between 1838 and 1842 and established indirect Company rule there.
Sind was taken over in 1843, and Punjab next. The presence of Maharaja Ranjit Singh there held back the Company, but after his death in 1839, two prolonged wars were fought and Punjab was annexed in 1849.
The Doctrine of Lapse
Lord Dalhousie devised a policy that come to be known as the Doctrine of Lapse, a policy that declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir (official child), his kingdom would become the part of Company's territory.
Satara in 1848, Sambalpur in 1850, Udaipur in 1852, Nagpur in 1853, and Jhansi in 1854 were annexed under this doctrine.
In 1856, the Company also took over Awadh, and the people of Awadh joined the great revolt that broke out in 1857.