The latter half of the 18th century witnessed a series of devious administrative policies by the British state expressly motivated towards decapitating the sovereignty of Indian rulers. One such policy that later proved to be a political master-stroke was the policy of Subsidiary Alliance that had been formally introduced by Lord Wellesley in 1798. While a bevy of Indian states fell prey to it, the most telling fallout of the policy was the annexation of Awadh by Lord Dalhousie in 1856 that had vast consequences and Awadh became a cradle of carnage during the Great Revolt of 1857.
It is here that taking a panoramic view of the event becomes imperative. The denigration of Awadh’s sovereignty was not an impulsive phenomenon; instead, it was a pre-meditated and protracted feat that the British had successfully executed over decades of partisan diplomacy, intimidation and egregious high-handedness.
Until 1801, Awadh stood as a buffer state between Bengal and its adversaries, particularly the Marathas. Yet, with time, gaining a stronghold over the heart of Northern India gained primacy within the British administrative circles. The hostility between the rulers of Awadh and the British East India Company can be traced back to the war theatres of the Battle of Buxar (1764), when the British had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the combined forces of Nawab Shuja-ud Daula of Awadh, the Nawab of Bengal, Mir Qasim and the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam. As a result of this, the Treaty of Allahabad was signed between the Nawab of Awadh and the British state. By the conditions of this treaty, the Nawab was allowed to keep Awadh, but had to hand over Kora and Allahabad to the Mughal Emperor while acknowledging to pay a war indemnity worth 50 lakhs to the Company Raj.
This unleashed a new era in Awadhi politics. The subsequent nawabs recognized the burgeoning strength and ambitions of the Company and began to initiate reformed financial, commercial and military policies that, on the one hand, sought to prevent British commercial penetration into Awadh’s markets and on the other hand, strengthen the indigenous army to shield the state’s sovereignty and the Nawab’s authority.
However, Awadh was too lucrative to the Company: it conspired to deploy Awadh’s vast revenues to subsidise its own armies. Thus, to undermine the Nawab’s authority, through stages of rogue diplomacy, the Company managed to push the Nawab to sign the first definitive treaty in 1773 by which the latter agreed to pay 2,10,000 monthly for each brigade of the Company’s army that were stationed at Awadh or Allahabad (modern-day Prayagraj) in return for a guarantee of the Nawab’s sovereignty. This initiated the cycle of Awadh’s chronic indebtedness to the East India Company and opened the floodgates for British intervention in the region’s economy and politics.
The vulnerability of Awadh came into sharp relief from 1775 when Asaf-ud-Daula, the new Nawab and his trusted steward, Murtaza Khan had to surrender control over the surrounding territories of Benaras, northern areas skirting Jaunpur and west to Allahabad which were then under the rule of Chait Singh. This treaty now put unprecedented financial obligations on the Nawab while the Mughal Emperor was to be excluded from all future transactions between the Company and the Nawab of Awadh. A lynchpin of this new arrangement was the English Resident who was to be posted at the Nawab’s court and would oversee all diplomatic transactions and control foreign intelligence.
A diabolical concoction of factors set the wheels of destruction moving. The internal dissensions within the Awadh court, pulverization of internal administration, the systematic weakening of the military, the overwhelming interference in the affairs of the state by the British and the decadence of Asaf-ud Daula himself--- all of this combined to form a veritable recipe for disaster! Matters came to a head when the army rose in revolt due to non-payment of remuneration.
This was an opportune moment for the British state. Upon the pretext of lawlessness and maladministration, the East India Company made rapid interventions in the affairs of the Nawabi state throughout the 1770s. However, for the first time in 1780, a declaration of protest was made by the Awadh administration. British Directors of Calcutta soon realized that unremitting pressure on Awadh’s resources was an unsustainable political tactic and would invariably back-fire sooner or later.
The political equation between the Company and the Nawab shifted. In 1784, Warren Hastings inaugurated a set of reformed arrangements and the British state reduced Awadh’s debt by 50 lakhs. This also reduced the pressures on the Awadh regime. Thus, until Asaf-ud Daula’s demise in 1797, Awadh functioned rather smoothly as a semi-autonomous regional power.
This amiable state of affairs lasted till 1797. Following Asaf-ud Daula’s demise, the British roped in all possible resources to meddle in the succession issue. The deceased Nawab’s chosen successor, Wazir Ali, was schematically removed from the race and Saadat Ali was chosen for the crown. With the latter now as the reigning Nawab, the British imposed a fresh treaty on 21st February, 1798 that increased the subsidy to 75 lakhs per annum.
The arrival of the Wellesley brothers ushered in a new trajectory to Awadh politics. Arthur Wellesley and his brother, Henry Wellesley soon realized that the inability of the new Nawab to keep up with the Company’s demands would provide them with the ideal situation to further clamp down on Awadh’s sovereignty. Thus, through dogged negotiations, Lord Wellesley managed to wrest Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur and the Doab from the Nawab and established the Company’s ‘perpetual sovereignty’. This was a crucial tract as it accrued the British a hefty amount of more than a crore. This annexation sealed the fate of Awadh which now, no longer posed any threat to the British Raj.
The modalities of the Subsidiary Alliance had been formulated in a way that guaranteed the protracted denigration of the Indian ruler’s authority who agreed to it. The scheme aimed at adding resources to the East India Company (EIC), ousting other foreigners from the courts of Indian rulers who could posit a threat to the British, and finally, make the EIC the arbiter in the affairs of the Indian states.
This had evolved through four stages. In the first stage, the EIC lent a military contingent to help some Indian princes, for instance, when Warren Hastings lent British troops to the Nawab of Awadh to counter the Rohillas. Subsequently, the EIC directly took to the field on behalf of the weaker Indian rulers, aided by the indigenous armies of the rulers. In the third stage, the EIC asked the ruler of the state to give money for the maintenance of the Company’s troops in return for a guarantee of defence. In the final stage, to evade irregularities in payment, the Company pressurized the Indian rulers to give up a chunk of their territories, so that out of its revenues, the troops could be maintained.
Once Awadh acknowledged this alliance in 1801, it was wrested of a large and profitable share of its territory, all diplomatic dealings became the sole prerogative of the English Resident while all non-English European stakeholders, particularly the French, had to be shown the door. Thus, as a subsidiary state, Awadh practically surrendered its political independence in return for British protection. This led to a string of negative ramifications for the state of Awadh. The exorbitant monetary demand by the EIC forced the Indian princes to cut down revenue funds allotted for people’s welfare. This also led to internal administrative decay, decadence and complacency within the court. As corruption increased, administrative stagnancy ate into the very vitals of Awadh.
Apropos of this new development it became amply clear to the Awadh court that they could no longer combat the British. Thus, the Nawab’s court now began to channelize its energy to resuscitate and rejuvenate the cultural environs of Awadh. Ironically, at a time when the political primacy of the state had been veritably denuded, Awadh witnessed a renascent cultural movement. This was also aided by the formal revocation of ties with the Mughal empire. Men of letters and arts like Mirza Rafi Sauda and Mir Ghulam Hasan, who migrated from Delhi to Lucknow nourished its cultural life and took it to a new height of excellence.
Despite having introduced the Subsidiary Alliance, Awadh was not formally under the British Raj. Since the Doctrine of Lapse could not be forced down the Nawab’s throat as he had multiple natural heirs, Lord Dalhousie, who was helming the Indian affairs at the time, accused Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of misgoverning Awadh and failing to introduce reforms. This, he stated, was sufficient ground for annexing the Nawab’s territory, with the goal of ‘alleviating the plight of Awadh’s people’.
This morbid highhandedness of Dalhousie filled the people of Awadh with unprecedented vitriol against the European usurpers and their angst found expression in the large-scale violence of the 1857 Uprising. It was this cunning and labyrinthine policy that ultimately engulfed not only the state of Awadh, but also gained a stranglehold over several other Indian states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Tanjore and the Marathas. Thus, often dubbed as the Trojan Horse tactic for empire-building, Subsidiary Alliance proved to be an extremely sly strategy for the Raj to secure its own frontiers while never soiling its hands through direct administration of key Indian states.
Source: Indian Culture Portal