Doctrine of Lapse and Annexation Policy

The Doctrine of Lapse was a formal annexation principle articulated under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie (1848–56), allowing the Company to annex a princely state if the ruler died without a natural male heir and adoption was not recognized for succession to sovereignty.

The broader Annexation Policy combined multiple legal-constitutional grounds—misgovernment, treaty breach, forfeiture, escheat, and lapse—to consolidate Company rule into a more territorially contiguous, administratively uniform empire in the decade before 1857.

Early Company Expansion and Succession Dynamics (Pre-1848)

• Mughal and Maratha Antecedents: In pre-colonial India, succession in princely states often involved adoption, with adoptions generally accepted as legitimate for both private ....