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True Valor
The Doctrine of Lapse is credited to Dalhousie in the 1840s. She was resisting it with an army in 1824.
The British had a rule, and Kittur was where somebody first told them no with an army.
The rule was that when a ruler died without a natural heir, the state lapsed to the Company. It is usually attributed to Lord Dalhousie, who articulated it formally between 1848 and 1856. But it was being applied a quarter of a century before he named it.
And one of the first places it was applied was a small principality. In the Belgaum country of present-day Karnataka.
Chennamma was born at Kakati in 1778 and married into the ruling house of Kittur. By 1824 her husband was dead and so was her son. She adopted Shivalingappa and named him heir, which was entirely lawful under the practice of the region and had been done many times.
The Company refused to recognise the adoption, and moved to annex.
She appealed, to the Company's own officers, and to Bombay. The appeals were refused. And then, rather than accept it, she prepared to fight, and in October 1824 a British force came to take Kittur.
They lost.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.