In this article, we discuss doctrine of lapse policy in details.
Doctrine of
Lapse policy was implemented by Lord Dalhousie. Lord Dalhousie was the Governor
General from 1848 to 1854.
When Lord
Dalhousie came to India, he saw that there are 3 types of princely states in
India.
One of them
is independent states those who have nothing to do with the East India Company.
The other is
the Protectorate States who are taking protection by signing subsidiary allians
with the British.
The third is
the Dependent States which have lost to the Britishers in one or the other
battle.
Only the
Protectorate and Dependent States came under the Doctorine of Lapse.
What used to
happen earlier that if a king or nawab did not have any children, then they
used to adopt some other child.
But the
Doctrine of Lapse had put different conditions for dependent states and
protected states.
The
condition for the dependent states was that the adopted child would have rights
only on the personal property of that king only and not in that state.
The East
India Company will not give any title or pension to the adopted child and will
not consider him a king or a Nawab.
In such a
situation, the British East India Company's occupation of the princely states
will be considered.
The princely
state annexed under doctorine of lapse policy is satara in 1848,
jaitpur(Bundelkhand Region, Uttar Pradesh) and Sambhalpur(Orrisa) in 1849,
Bahat(Punjab) in 1850, Jhansi in 1853 and Nagpur in 1854.
Dalhousie
returned to Britain in 1856. Finally in 1858, the British Government removed
the Doctrine of Lapse policy.
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