Timeline of major famines in India during British rule dissolved and the new successor states of Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan were established. Timeline of major famines in India during British rule This is a timeline of major famines on the Indian subcontinent during British rule from 1765 to 1947. The famines included here occurred both in the princely states (regions administered by Indian rulers), British India (regions administered either by the British East India Company from 1765 to 1857; or by the British Crown, in the British Raj, from 1858 to 1947) and Indian territories independent of British rule such as the Maratha Empire. Despite the
Political warfare in British colonial India by appointment, rather than election, and the councils were restricted to a consultative role. The East India Company increased its power in India by playing local rulers off against each other and the declining Mughal Empire. Lord Dalhousie, the Company Governor General between 1848 and 1856 established a principle, the Doctrine of Lapse, that if any princely state or territory under the direct influence (paramountcy) of the British East India Company would automatically be annexed if the ruler was either "manifestly incompetent or died without a direct heir". This allowed the Company to remove rulers it viewed as troublesome. After