The Residencies of British India were political offices, each managed by a Resident, who dealt with the relations between the Government of India and one or a territorial set of

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

History

The Residency system has its origins in the system of

subsidiary alliance A subsidiary alliance, in South Asian history, was a tributary alliance between a South Asian state and a European East India Company. Under this system, an Indian ruler who formed a treaty with the company in question would be provided wi ...

s devised by the British after the

Battle of Plassey The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar ...

in 1757, to secure

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

from attack by deploying

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

troops of the

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Gover ...

within friendly Native States. Through this system, the Indian Princes of these Native States were assured of protection from internal or external aggression, through deployment of company troops. In return they had to pay for the maintenance of those troops and also accept a British Resident in their court. The Resident was a senior British official posted in the capital of these Princely States, technically a diplomat but also responsible for keeping the ruler to his alliance.Metcalf, Barbara D., and Thomas R. Metcalf, ''A Concise History of India'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) This was seen as a system of

indirect rule Indirect rule was a system of governance used by the British and others to control parts of their colonial empires, particularly in Africa and Asia, which was done through pre-existing indigenous power structures. Indirect rule was used by vario ...

that was carefully controlled by the British Resident. His role (and all were men) included advising in governance, intervening in succession disputes, and ensuring that the States did not maintain military forces other than for internal policing or else form diplomatic alliances with other States.King, Anthony D., ''Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment'' (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976) The Residents attempted to modernize these Native States through promotion of European notions of progressive government. The first Native States to enter such subsidiary alliances included

Arcot Arcot (natively spelt as Ārkāḍu) is a town and urban area of Ranipet district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Located on the southern banks of Palar River, the city straddles a trade route between Chennai and Bangalore or Salem, betw ...

Oudh The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...

and

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...

. Before the Rebellion of 1857, the role of the British Resident in Delhi was more important than that of other Residents, because of the tension that existed between the declining

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

and the emerging power of the

. After the establishment of Crown rule of British India in 1858, the indigenous States ruled by the Indian princes retained their internal autonomy in terms of political and administrative control, while their external relations and defence became the responsibility of the Crown. An area over two-fifths of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

was administered by native princes,Davies, Philip, ''Splendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India, 1660-1947'' (New York: Penguin Books, 1987 although nothing like such a high proportion in terms of population. British Residency in Kollam city, Mar 2017

British Residency in Kollam city, Mar 2017

The continuation of Princely rule allowed the British to concentrate their resources on the more economically significant areas under their direct control and also obscured the effective loss of independence of these States in their external relations. The Resident was a permanent reminder of the subsidiary relationship between the indigenous ruler and the European power. The physical manifestation of this was the Residency itself, which was a complex of buildings and land modified according to the aesthetic values of the suzerain power. The Residency was a symbol of power because of its size and position within the prince's capital. In many instances, the local prince even paid for the erection of these Residencies, as a gesture of his support for and allegiance to the British. The Nawab of

, one of the richest native princes, paid for and erected a splendid Residency in

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and divis ...

as a part of a wider programme of civic improvements.

List of Residencies

Part of Central India Agency * Indore Residency Part of Rajputana Agency *

Jaipur Residency Jaipur State was a princely state in India during East India Company rule and thereafter under the British Raj. It signed a treaty creating a subsidiary alliance with the Company in 1818, after the Third Anglo-Maratha War. It acceded ...

Mewar Residency Mewar Residency was a political subdivision of Rajputana Agency in British India. After treaty relations between Mewar and the East India Company commenced in 1818, the British government created a political sub-division known as Mewar Agency wit ...

at Udaipur * Western Rajputana States Residency Other Residencies *

Mysore Residency The Kingdom of Mysore was a realm in South India, southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary allia ...

* Gwalior Residency * Hyderabad Residency * Persian Gulf Residency, for the British protectorates –

Trucial States The Trucial States ( '), also known as the Trucial Coast ( '), the Trucial Sheikhdoms ( '), Trucial Arabia or Trucial Oman, was the name the British government gave to a group of tribal confederations in southeastern Arabia whose leaders had ...

(1892–1971),

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and a ...

(1892–1971),

Muscat and Oman The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman ( ar, سلطنة مسقط وعمان, Salṭanat Masqaṭ wa-‘Umān), also known briefly as the State of Muscat and Oman () during the rule of Taimur bin Feisal, was a sovereign state that encompassed the pres ...

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Ku ...

(1914–1961) and

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

(1916–1971) Former Residencies *

Baroda Residency The Baroda Residency was one of the residencies of British India, managing the relations of the British with Baroda State between 1806 and the 1930s. Baroda was an Indian princely state, ruled by the Gaekwad dynasty from its formation in 1721. F ...

merged into Baroda and Gujarat States Agency in 1937 * Kolhapur Residency merged into Deccan States Agency in 1933 * Aden Residency (1859–1873), British territory in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...

, placed under the

Bombay Presidency The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainl ...

till 1932, then directly as a Chief Commissioner's Province of India until 1937

References

{{reflist

History

List of Residencies

See also

References