Company Rule, Annexation and Reform Before 1857

In the decades before 1857, Company rule became more aggressive and more interventionist. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, who served from 1848 to 1856, applied the doctrine of lapse, under which a princely state whose ruler died without a natural male heir could be annexed; Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur were taken this way.

In 1856 the Company annexed Awadh, a wealthy kingdom, claiming misgovernment. Earlier, British officials had introduced reforms, such as banning sati, the burning of widows, in 1829, and promoting English-language education after Thomas Macaulay's Minute of 1835, which dismissed Indian learning.

Some Indian reformers, like Ram Mohan Roy, had campaigned against sati themselves, but many Indians saw the pace of change as a threat to their religions and customs. Railways, telegraphs and missionaries added to the sense of rapid, foreign-driven change. These policies created resentment among princes, landholders, soldiers and religious leaders that exploded in 1857.