either through tribute or subsidy   payments by the ruler or else through the
control of the Indian rulers, preventing these armies from deployment outside
of the state and additionally, limiting their use by the ruler for internal
purposes such as revenue collection.
By shifting military power from the armies of the states to ‘subsidiary forces’
(paid for by the state but under control of the Company), the Company made
many of the rulers powerless to oppose it openly. Through intervention in the
internal affairs of the state, the Company finally established indirect rule over
all the Indian states which it did not immediately annex.
Thus, early annexations took place mostly through military conquest over
weakened Indian states, but later annexations came in instances where the
Company deposed a ruler or dynasty already under its indirect rule. In quite a
few cases, like that of Bengal, the Company established varying degrees of
de facto power long before the official assumption of de jure authority took
place.
Impact on India Each formal annexation had overwhelming impact on the
lives of people brought thus from Indian into British rule.
For the rulers and their families, it usually meant a reduction of political
authority as exiled pensioners of the Company.
For the ruler’s courtiers and officials, annexation would result in adaptation
of their expert knowledge of local conditions and of the old administration to
a new set of political and judicial principles and policies, or else
unemployment for them.
For the commercial classes and landholders, it brought new laws and forms
of assessment.
For the general populace of the cities, towns and villages of the state,
annexation meant uneven degrees of political, economic and social change,
depending on their circumstances.
Not all of these changes were obvious, but each had short as well as long
term consequences.
                         HISTORICAL CONTEXT
  Situation in Mid-Eighteenth Century In 1757, neither any Indian nor
  any Englishman could have imagined the shape that the British Empire
  would take a century latter.