Doctrine of Lapse

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The Doctrine of Lapse is a policy of annexation practiced in India , which was introduced by Lord Dalhousie , Governor General of British India from 1847-56 . The Doctrine of Lapse stipulated that every Indian princely state whose ruler showed itself to be incompetent or died without an heir ( "manifestly incompetent or died without a direct heir" ) should be annexed by the British East India Company . The doctrine contested the long-standing right of Indian sovereigns to choose a successor themselves in the absence of an heir. Lord Dalhousie also used this provision to enforce the primogeniture . It was customary among Indian sovereigns to appoint the most suitable as successor if there were several sons. The doctrine and its application were seen by Indians as illegitimate. The British East India Company, however, used them to expand their sphere of influence on the Indian continent. Satara (1848), Jaitpur , Sambalpur (1849), Nagpur , Jhansi (1854) and Avadh (Oudh) (1856) fell to the company. It increased its annual income by around four million British pounds. At the beginning of the Indian uprising of 1857 , two thirds of the Indian subcontinent was under direct British rule, although in many places local power and the regulation of internal affairs remained largely in the hands of ancestral noble families.

Historical background of the Doctrine of Lapse

In the 17th century, the Mughal Empire was the dominant power on the Indian subcontinent. The Mughal Empire, which was not a firmly established state, but a conglomerate of imperial provinces, subordinate princely states and semi-autonomous cities and villages, was already in decline at this time. In the course of this development, many European powers began to set up trading posts in India in order to satisfy the demand for products such as cotton , chintz , porcelain , tea and silk that had arisen in Europe . The most successful was the British East India Company, which succeeded in ousting its European competitors with a few exceptions. In 1693 she had trading posts in Madras , Bombay and Calcutta .

By the middle of the 18th century, the Mughal Empire had split up into several states, some of which were at war. To protect their trade in this political upheaval, the company increasingly began to recruit local soldiers or " sepoys ". The company increasingly changed from a commercial to a political power. An incident in 1756 was decisive here. In order to suppress the increasing power of the company, the Nawab of Bengal occupied the company's branches in Kolkata and imprisoned 146 Europeans. They are said to have been penned in a six-square-meter room that was the garrison's military prison and was notorious as the “Black Hole”. Only 23 people survived the first night of their detention. The incident sparked great outrage in Great Britain and the company then dispatched troops to defeat the army of the Nawab in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and retake Kolkata.

As a result, the British Parliament passed laws in 1773 and 1784 that allowed the company to intervene directly in the internal affairs of India. By 1857 the company had conquered large parts of the subcontinent by military means or annexed them bloodlessly. The latter mostly happened through the Doctrine of Lapse .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Keay: India. A history. Reprinted edition. Grove Press, London 2006, ISBN 0-8021-3797-0 , p. 433.
  2. ^ Stanley Wolpert: A New History of India. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press, New York NY et al. 1989, ISBN 0-19-505636-1 , pp. 226-228.
  3. ↑ Hans-Georg Behr : The Mughals. Power and splendor of the Indian emperors from 1369–1857. Econ-Verlag, Vienna et al. 1979, ISBN 3-430-11282-6 , p. 262.