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Notes no right to their adoptions, In the class II the rulers have to require our assent to adoption which
we have a right to refuse. But which policy would usually lead us to concede. In the principalities
of the III class I hold that succession should never be allowed to go by adoption”.
The East India Company had acquired the position of supreme power in India after the fall of the
Maghal Empire and the defeat of the Maratha confederacy. Dalhousie maintained that “the British
government in the exercise of a wise and sound policy is bound not to put aside or neglect such
rightful opportunities of acquiring territory or revenue as may from time to time present themselves,
whether they arise from the lapse of subordinate states by the failure of all heirs of every description
whatsoever, or from the failure of heirs natural where the succession can be sustained only by the
sanction of the government being given to the ceremony of adoption, according to Hindu law.”
Dalhousie recognised the right of the adopted son to succeed to the personal property of the
chieftain, but drew a distinction between succession to private property and succession to the
royal gaddi: in the latter case, he held, that the sanction of the Paramount Power must be obtained.
The Paramount Power could refuse ‘adoption’ in case of states covered by categories II and III and
declare the states having passed back or ‘lapsed’ to the supreme authority. In such cases the ‘Right
of Adoption’ was substituted by the Paramount Power’s ‘Right of Adoption’ was substituted by
the Paramount Power’s ‘Right of Lapse’. The power that gives, it was argued, could also rightfully
take it away.
Dalhousie did not invent the doctrine. As early as 1834 the Court of Directors had laid down that
in case of failure of lineal successors the permission ‘to adopt’ was an indulgence that “should be
the exception, not the rule, and should not be granted but as a special mark of favour and
approbation.” Few years later in 1841, the Home authorities decided in favour of a uniform policy
and directed the Governor-General “to persevere in the one clear and direct course of abandoning
no just and honourable accession of territory or revenue while all existing claims of right are at the
same time scrupulously respected”. It was in pursuance of the policy thus laid down that Mandavi
state was annexed in 1839, Kolaba and Jalaun in 1840 and the titular dignity of the Nawab of Surat
abolished in 1842.
Dalhousie’s contribution was that he uniformly applied this Doctrine of Lapse and did not ignore
or neglect any opportunity in consolidating the territories of the East India Company. He steadily
enforced the principles previously laid down. Mr. Innes has summed up the position thus: “His
predecessors had acted on the general principle of avoiding annexation if it could be avoided;
Dalhousie acted on the general principle of annexing if he could do so legitimately”. It may be
added that the’ over-zealous Governor-General treated some states as ‘depedent principalities’ or
‘subordinate states’ which rightly were protected allies’. Dalhousie’s decision, therefore, had to be
reversed by the Court of Directors in case of the old Rajput state of Karauli.
The states actually annexed by the application of the Doctrine of Lapse under Lord Dalhousie
were Satara (1848), Jaitpur and Samhbalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853)
and Nagpur(1854).
Satara: Satara was the first Indian state to be annexed. In 1848 the Raja of Satara, Appa Sahib died
without leaving a natural son. He had, however, adopted a son some days before his death but
without the consent of the East India Company. Lord Hastings after destroying the Maratha power
in 1818 had conferred this principality of Satara on Pratap Singh, the representative of the house of
Shivaji and in his ‘sons and heirs and successors’. In 1839 the Prince had been deposed and replaced
by his brother Appa Sahib. The Bombay Council headed by Sir George Clerk advised against the
annexation. Lord Dalhousie decided to regard it as ‘dependent principality’ and declared the state
annexed. The Court of Directors approved Dalhousie’s decision; “We are fully satisfied that by the
general law and custom of India, a dependent principality like that of Satara, cannot pass to an
adopted heir without the consent of the Paramount Power; that we are under no pledge, direct or
constructive, to give such consent; and that the general interests committed to our charge are best
consulted by with holding it”. In the House of Commons Joseph Hume described the annexation as
a victory of ‘might over right’ but the House of Commons acquiesced in the annexation.
Sambhalpur: Raja Narayan Singh, the ruler of the state, died without adopting a son. The state

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