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Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University
Vijay Kumar, Lovely Professional University Unit 6: Reforms of Lord Dalhousie: Doctrine of Lapse and Administrative Reforms

Unit 6: Reforms of Lord Dalhousie: Doctrine of Lapse and Notes
Administrative Reforms

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
6.1 The Doctrine of Lapse
6.2 Lord Dalhousie’s Reforms
6.3 Summary
6.4 Key-Words
6.5 Review Questions
6.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, students will be able to:
• Discuss the Doctrine of Lapse
• Comment on Lord Dalhousie’s Reforms

Introduction

Eight years of Dalhousie’s rule are full of important events in every field. He is regarded as one of
the greatest Governors-General of India and his contribution to the building up of the British
Empire in India is very great. If there occurred any possibility of annexing an Indian state, Dalhousie
did not miss it. Innes says: “His predecessors had acted on the general principle of avoiding
annexation if it could be avoided; Dalhousie acted on the principle of annexing if he could do so
legitimately.” His annexations were both of ‘war’ and ‘peace’. His annexations of war based on
‘the right of conquest’ were those of the Punjab and Pegu and of ‘peace’ came by the application
of the Doctrine of Lapse and included among others of Oudh, Satara, Jaitpur, Jhansi and Nagpur.
In the field of social and public reforms Dalhousie’s contributions are equally great, as by those he
laid the foundations on which modern India has been built up.
6.1 The Doctrine of Lapse

No account of Dalhousie’s work of imperial consolidation can be complete without a mention of
the Doctrine of Lapse. Some important Indian states were annexed by the enforcement of the
Doctrine. The Doctrine of Lapse can be better understood in the context of Dalhousie’s declared
conviction that the old system of ruling through “Sham royalties” and “artificial intermediate
powers” resulted in the misery of the people. In fact, his logical and straight Scottish mentality
wanted to tear the mask of Mughal sovereignty and dispossess Indian princes who pretended to
be descendants of the Mughals.
According to Dalhousie, there were three categories of Hindu states in those days in India:
1. Those states which were not tributary and which were not and never had been subordinate to
a paramount power.
2. Hindu princes and chieftains which were tributary and owed subordination to the British
Government as their paramount power in place of the Emperor of Delhi or the Peshwa, etc.
3. Hindu sovereignties and states which had been created or revived by the sanads (grants) of the
British Government.
Reviewing his policy in 1854, Lord Dalhousie explained that “in states covered by class I we have

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