Why in news?

State-level Kittur Utsav was celebrated by Karnataka government .

Highlights:

• Kittur Rani Chennamma, who had fought the British 30 years before the First War of Independence in 1857.
• While Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai entered the freedom struggle in 1857, Kittur Channamma defeated the British in 1824.

Rani Channamma

• She was the Indian Queen of Kittur, a former princely state in present-day Karnataka.
• She led an armed resistance against the British East India Company in 1824, in defiance of the Paramountancy, in an attempt to retain control over her dominion.
• She defeated the Company in the first revolt, but died as a prisoner of war after the second rebellion.
• As one of the first and few female rulers to lead rebel forces against British colonisation, she continues to be remembered as a folk hero in Karnataka, she is also an important symbol of the Indian independence movement
• Rani Chennamma fought fiercely with the aid of her deputy, Sangolli Rayanna, and was also helped by Gurusiddappa in the war against British.

Against Doctrine of lapse

• Rani Chennamma adopted Shivalingappa in the year 1824 and made him heir to the throne.
• This irked the East India Company, who ordered Shivalingappa’s expulsion, on the pretext of the Doctrine of Lapse introduced by Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor General, to annex independent Indian States in 1848.
• This doctrine was based on the idea that in case the ruler of an independent state died childless, the right of ruling the State reverted or “lapsed” to the sovereign.
• The state of Kittur came under the administration of Dharwad collectorate in charge of St John Thackeray of which Mr Chaplin was the commissioner, both of whom did not recognise the new rule of the regent, and notified Kittur to accept the British regime.