![]() History of Doctrine of Lapse Until the 19th century the Indian subcontinentwas a patchwork of over 650 princely states. There were states from small and relatively unimportant to the large, immense powerful and colossally wealthy ruled by the Indian rulers who were called as Raja, Maharajas and other wide variety of titles. There was an ancient Hindu custom to avoid the controversy about the succession of throne that a ruler without any male offspring of his own could adopt any male child of any age from the branch of the royal family to enthrone him as the ruler of the kingdom. In addition to this, in Rajput kingdoms there was a popular rule that a childless ruler could adopt a number of boys, called 'Bhayats', who would be brought up in the royal palace and would be groomed up as the future king. If no son of the king was born in the meantime, the would-be -king was selected from this pool of possible candidates or bhayats. Also an unsuitable or traitorous born-to-son could be excluded from the succession of the throne. In cases where ruler died before selecting a successor, any of his widows could adopt an heir, who would immediately assent the throne. The adoptee king had to cut all relationship with his birth family. ![]() Outcome of Doctrine of Lapse At the time of the adoption of the Doctrine of Lapse rule, East India Company had ultimate royal administrative and jurisdiction over many regions of Indian subcontinent. This resulted in increasing discontent among the Indians, whose certain outburst was Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, in which the indigenous British army rebelled against British rulers and stood for the deposed princely states. The rebel was dominated and the Mughal Emperor was deposed in charge of supporting the rebellions. Following this, the new British Viceroy of India called off the Doctrine of Lapse rule in the year 1858. Though the already annexed states were not restored but no new states were incorporated with the British India. |