Annexation of Awadh

Topic: The Revolt of 1857 · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Rebels and the Raj"

Meaning

The Annexation of Awadh was the British takeover of the kingdom of Awadh in 1856 by Lord Dalhousie. The British said the Nawab ruled badly ("misgovernment"). They did not use the Doctrine of Lapse. Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was removed and sent to Calcutta. [2][3] The Nawab's court was closed, and the Summary Settlement of 1856 took villages away from the taluqdars.

It matters because one act hurt the prince, the landholders, the peasants and the sepoys all at once. That turned Awadh into the region where the Revolt of 1857 was most widely a revolt of the people.

Explanation

Background: how Awadh was taken step by step

• 1801: Subsidiary Alliance. Wellesley had created this system in 1798. In 1801 it was forced on Awadh. Its terms:
• The British would "protect" the Nawab from all enemies.
• The Nawab had to pay for a British contingent (a body of British-led troops) kept in his land.
• He could not deal with other states or go to war without British permission.
• A Resident (a permanent British officer at his court) watched everything he did.

• Result: the Nawab kept his throne but lost real power.

• 1851: Dalhousie's aim. Lord Dalhousie called Awadh "a cherry that will drop into our mouth one day." The British wanted it for two reasons:

• Its soil was good for indigo and cotton.

• It was the principal market of Upper India.

• 1856: annexation. Dalhousie was Governor-General from 1847 to 1856, so Awadh was taken in the last year of his term. [2]

• This finished a march that began in Bengal about a hundred years earlier, with Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764).

The legal excuse: misgovernment, not lapse

• Doctrine of Lapse meant this: if a ruler had no natural heir, he could not adopt one, and the British took his state.
• This rule could not be used on the Nawab of Awadh. So the British used the excuse of bad government instead. [2]
• Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab, was deposed (removed from the throne) and exiled to Calcutta. [2][3]
• The British misread the people. They thought the Nawab was unpopular. He was not:
• Crowds followed him for miles out of Lucknow, singing sad songs.
• People said "the life was gone out of the body." Lucknow was the body.

Three blows that came with annexation

• Blow 1: the court was closed.
• The court had paid musicians, dancers, poets, artisans (skilled craft workers), cooks, officials and retainers.

• All of them lost their jobs at once. The anger spread across the towns.

• Blow 2: the taluqdars lost their power.

• A taluqdar was a big landholder who collected revenue from many villages. He was almost a small king. He held forts and kept armed retainers (private soldiers). The biggest kept up to 12,000 foot-soldiers.
• The British disarmed them and destroyed their forts.
• The Summary Settlement of 1856 (the land settlement made right after annexation) called taluqdars "interlopers" (outsiders with no real right) who held land "by force and fraud." The British tried to settle the land directly with the actual cultivators.

• The taluqdars' share of Awadh villages fell from 67% to 38%. Southern Awadh was hit hardest. Some taluqdars there lost more than half their villages.

• Blow 3: the peasants gained nothing.

• The British set the revenue too high. The demand went up by 30–70%.
• In bad years the old taluqdar had postponed collection and given loans at festival times. The British officer did neither. He wanted his money on the fixed date.
• So the peasant lost his old protector and got a heavier bill. He had good reason to follow his taluqdar into revolt.

Results: Awadh in revolt (1857–58)

• The sepoy link. Awadh was the "nursery of the Bengal Army." The army recruited mainly from Awadh and eastern UP, and many recruits came from "upper" castes (Brahmins, Rajputs).
• The sepoy's own family paid the new revenue demand. So annexation hit the army directly. [2]
• Sepoys already had complaints: low pay and trouble getting leave to go home.

• Relations with officers had also got worse. In the 1820s British officers wrestled, fenced and went hawking with sepoys, and spoke Hindustani. From the 1840s they used abuse and violence and kept their distance.

• One chain of grievances linked four groups:

• Prince → lost his throne and court.
• Taluqdar → lost forts, soldiers and villages.
• Peasant → lost the taluqdar's help and paid 30–70% more.

• Sepoy → was the peasant's son, and was already angry about pay, leave and racial insult.

• Scale of the rising. The British officer Forsyth estimated that three-fourths of Awadh's adult males were in revolt.

• Royal house restored. Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of Wajid Ali Shah, led the army and took Lucknow after the battle of Chinhat. She declared her 11-year-old son Birjis Qadr ruler of Awadh. [3]
• Crushed, 1858.
• On 11 March 1858, British forces under Colin Campbell and James Outram attacked the Begum Kothi, her palace in Lucknow. [3]
• In May 1858 Birjis Qadr wrote to Jung Bahadur Rana of Nepal asking for help. [3]
• The British then pulled down the taluqdars' forts and disarmed the people, so that a second rising could not happen. [3]

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 1801 (Subsidiary Alliance) → 1851 ("cherry" remark) → 1856 (annexation and Summary Settlement) → 1857–58 (revolt and reconquest).
• Place: Awadh, with Lucknow as its capital, in today's Uttar Pradesh. Southern Awadh was hit hardest by the land settlement. Calcutta was where the Nawab was exiled.
• Key people:
• Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General 1847–1856 [2]
• Wajid Ali Shah, last Nawab of Awadh [2][3]
• Begum Hazrat Mahal and Birjis Qadr [3]
• Hanwant Singh, Raja of Kalakankar
• Forsyth, the British officer who estimated how many men rebelled

• Colin Campbell and James Outram, British commanders [3]

• How we know:

• NCERT Class 12, Ch 2 "Rebels and the Raj" uses the Summary Settlement figures, Forsyth's estimate and Hanwant Singh's speech. Hanwant Singh saved a British officer's life and then told him: "At one blow you took from me lands… now I march… to Lucknow to try and drive you from the country."
• Dalhousie's own words calling Awadh a "cherry."
• British revenue records behind the 67% → 38% figure.
• Archive records on the Begum Kothi attack, the disarming of Awadh (1858) and Birjis Qadr's letter to Jung Bahadur. [3]

Don't confuse with

• Doctrine of Lapse: Satara and Jhansi were taken under this rule because their rulers had no natural heir. Awadh was not. It was taken on the plea of misgovernment. [2]
• Subsidiary Alliance (1801 for Awadh): this only made Awadh a British-protected state. The Nawab kept his throne. Full annexation came later, in 1856.
• Permanent Settlement (1793, Bengal): this made zamindars the owners of land at a fixed revenue. The Summary Settlement (1856, Awadh) did the opposite. It pushed out the taluqdars and settled directly with cultivators.
• Wajid Ali Shah vs Begum Hazrat Mahal: Wajid Ali Shah was exiled to Calcutta and did not lead the revolt. His wife Hazrat Mahal led it from Lucknow and crowned Birjis Qadr. [3]

Prelims Hooks

• Awadh was annexed in 1856 by Dalhousie on the plea of misgovernment, not under the Doctrine of Lapse. [2]
• Order of events: Subsidiary Alliance (1801) → "cherry" remark (1851) → annexation and Summary Settlement (1856) → battle of Chinhat (1857) → attack on Begum Kothi (11 March 1858). [3]
• Under the Summary Settlement of 1856, the taluqdars' share of villages fell from 67% to 38%, and the revenue demand rose by 30–70%.
• Wajid Ali Shah was exiled to Calcutta, not to Rangoon. Rangoon is where Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled. [2][3]
• Awadh was called the "nursery of the Bengal Army." Forsyth estimated that three-fourths of adult males there rebelled.
• Birjis Qadr asked Jung Bahadur Rana of Nepal for help in May 1858. [3]

Mains Points

• Proof that 1857 was more than a sepoy mutiny. One act in 1856 hurt the Nawab, the taluqdar, the peasant and the sepoy together. When court, landholders, peasants and army rise together, it is a popular rebellion. That is why NCERT calls the Awadh revolt "an expression of popular resistance to an alien order," and Forsyth's three-fourths figure supports it.
• "Reform" that hurt the people it claimed to help. The Summary Settlement was meant to free the peasant from the taluqdar. In practice the peasant paid 30–70% more and lost the taluqdar's help in bad years. A land settlement can be pro-peasant on paper and anti-peasant in its effects. This is useful for any question on colonial land revenue.
• Annexation policy hit the army too. The Bengal Army recruited mainly from Awadh, so taking Awadh hurt the soldiers' own families. Racial distance had also grown since the 1840s. So the British weakened both their political base and the loyalty of their main army at the same time. [2] The rebels then crowned Birjis Qadr, restoring the old royal house. [3] Like Bahadur Shah Zafar at Delhi, this shows that 1857 drew its authority from pre-colonial rulers. That helps explain both why the revolt spread fast and why it had limits.

Related concepts

• Wajid Ali Shah
• Summary Settlement of 1856
• Taluqdar
• Hanwant Singh
• Nursery of the Bengal Army
• Bengal Army
• Sepoy grievances

Read more

• Awadh in revolt: anatomy of a rebellion