Subsidiary Alliance

Background and evolution

The Company had earlier stationed troops with allied rulers, such as in Awadh after the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), and Dupleix of the French company had used similar arrangements. Wellesley, who arrived in 1798 amid fears of French influence in India during the Napoleonic wars, turned these practices into a deliberate system for extending British power without the cost and risk of direct conquest.

Under the system, a ruler would accept a permanent force of Company troops, pay for its upkeep, accept a British Resident, give up the right to make war or treaties with other powers without British consent, and expel other Europeans, especially the French, from his service. In return the Company promised to protect him from external attack and not to interfere in internal affairs, a promise that was often not kept in practice.

Key features and provisions

• Cost: subsidies were heavy; when rulers fell into arrears, the Company demanded territory, as with Awadh, which ceded about half its territory, including Rohilkhand and the Doab, in 1801.
• Loss of sovereignty: external relations and defence passed to the Company, and the Resident gradually became the real power at many courts.
• Disbanding of armies: rulers dismissed their own soldiers, throwing large numbers of fighters out of work, some of whom became Pindaris.
• Misgovernment: protected from rebellion and invasion, some rulers neglected administration, which later became the excuse for annexation.
• Advantages for the Company: it maintained a large army at Indian expense, pushed out French influence and placed troops at strategic points.