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A subsidiary alliance, inSouth Asian history, was atributary alliance between anIndian state and a EuropeanEast India Company.
Under this system, an Indian ruler who formed an agreement with the company in question would be provided with protection against any external attacks. In return, the ruler was required to:
The ruler was also forbidden from maintaining astanding army. Agents from the East India Company were hired to live in the places. They later started interfering in the internal affairs of the state, such as the next ruler ornawab.
The system of subsidiary alliances was pioneered in theCarnatic region by Dupleix.[2] The system was subsequently adopted by theBritish East India Company, withRobert Clive negotiating a series of conditions withMir Jafar following his victory in the 1757Battle of Plassey, and subsequently those in the 1765Treaty of Allahabad, as a result of the company's success in the 1764Battle of Buxar. A successor of Clive,Richard Wellesley initially took a non-ind refined the policy of forming subsidiary alliances. The purpose and ambition of this change are stated in his February 1804 dispatch to the East India Company Resident in Hyderabad:[3]
"His Excellency the Governor-General's policy in establishing subsidiary alliances with the principal states of India is to place those states in such a degree of dependence on the British power as may deprive them of the means of prosecuting any measures or of forming any confederacy hazardous to the security of the British empire, and may enable us to reserve the tranquility of India by exercising a general control over those states, calculated to prevent the operation of that restless spirit of ambition and violence which is the characteristic of every Asiatic government, and which from the earliest period of Eastern history has rendered the peninsula of India the scene of perpetual warfare, turbulence and disorder..."
Richard Wellesley, 4th February 1804
By the late 18th century, the power of theMaratha Empire had weakened and theIndian subcontinent was left with a great number of states, most small and weak. Many rulers accepted the offer of protection by Wellesley, as it gave them security against attack by their neighbors.[2]
The Nizam of Hyderabad was the first to accept a well-framed subsidiary alliance in 1798.Tipu Sultan of theKingdom of Mysore refrained from doing so, but after the British victory in theFourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, Mysore became a subsidiary state before coming underCompany rule.[4] After theThird Anglo-Maratha War (1817–19),Maratha rulerBaji Rao II also accepted a subsidiary alliance.[5]
Other states also accepted this alliance, including Tanjore/Mysore (1799),Awadh (1801),Peshwa (1802),Bhonsle (1803),Scindia (1804), Singrauli (1814),JaipurJodhpur(1818).[6]
The Holkar State ofIndore was the last Maratha confederation member to accept the Subsidiary Alliance in 1818.[7]
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