Q103
Indian National MovementBritish Policy, Acts & Constitutional Reforms
Who was the first Indian ruler to join the Subsidiary Alliance?
- a.Peshwa Bajirao II
- b.The King of Travancore
- c.The Nawab of Oudh
- d.The Nizam of Hyderabad
Answer: (D) The Nizam of Hyderabad
The Subsidiary Alliance was the system used by Lord Wellesley (1798-1805) under which an Indian ruler kept a British force in his territory and paid for it (in cash or by ceding land), accepted a British Resident, employed no other Europeans and gave up independent foreign relations. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the first to accept it, in 1798. Others followed: Mysore and Tanjore (1799), Awadh (1801), Peshwa Baji Rao II by the Treaty of Bassein (1802), then the Bhonsle and Scindia (1803). So options A and C are later entrants. Do not confuse it with Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse (Satara, 1848).