Discuss the methods of the British to establish their rule in India? Paper V

The Company officials utilized different methods to establish control over the Indian states before annexing territory from them. Further, the Company did not simply march its armies in a pure military conquest followed by annexation.

Instead, the Company’s relationships with each Indian state were painstakingly developed politically and economically, prior to any military confrontation. The company posted commercial or political agents (generally called ‘Residents’) in each of the major Indian states with which it dealt. As the Company power grew during the 1757-1857 period, it used a variety of methods to reduce the autonomy of each state it encountered.

The Company’s rights of intervention in each state were occasionally specified in treaties with that state. But frequently, the Company’s agents simply exercised them without, or even in violation of, any formal treaty provision. The Company squeezed vast amounts of capital from each state, either through tribute or subsidy payments by the ruler or else through the manipulation of trade.

The Company cut down the size and effectiveness of the armies under the control of the Indian rulers, preventing these armies from deployment outside of the state and additionally, limiting their use by the ruler for internal purposes such as revenue collection.

By shifting military power from the armies of the states to ‘subsidiary forces’ (paid for by the state but under control of the Company), the Company made many of the rulers powerless to oppose it openly. Through intervention in the internal affairs of the state, the Company finally established indirect rule over all the Indian states which it did not immediately annex.

Thus, early annexations took place mostly through military conquest over weakened Indian states, but later annexations came in instances where the Company deposed a ruler or dynasty already under its indirect rule. In quite a few cases, like that of Bengal, the Company established varying degrees of de facto power long before the official assumption of de jure authority took place.