By the 1830s, when their initial political settlement had been completed, the British had done much to alter the South Indian political system which they had found in 1800. They had established a new level of state authority over all the variegated territories which comprised their province and had liquidated the previous, more regional, warrior level of government. Even where the warriors had not been destroyed but transmogrified into zamindars, the right to use force, on which warrior/zamindar rule ultimately depended for its success, was steadily, albeit slowly, undermined. In place of warrior government, the British built the machinery of a centralised bureaucratic state. They promised to bring strong civil government to their province; to substitute the rule of law for that of force; to guarantee the possession of private property; to promote economic growth and social development within the framework of a new, larger and more unified state.

As we have seen, however, by 1870 the British had lived up to few of these promises. By liquidating the warriors, they had removed the old core around which political society had been organised. But whether or not they could provide a new and greater core depended very much on the volume and intensity of the political relationships which they could establish with the social elements freed by the dismantlement of the warrior regimes. Certainly in terms of revenue flow, the British developed for themselves a more important place in society than ever the warriors had possessed: even their loosely jointed tribute system guaranteed them a higher regular income.