Making of Modern India

Module 48
Integration of Princely States
Academic Script

The Indian nationalist leadership in the early days of independence, had to deal
with the problem of the peaceful integration of the princely states within the newly
emerging Indian union. The integration of the states during 1947 and 1948 was
however only one, although the most important, stage in the drawing up of the
territorial boundaries of the independent Indian state. What we now see as the
map of India was drawn during the early years after independence. When the few
small French and Portuguese colonies, like Pondicherry or Goa that still existed
as European colonies, even after the British withdrawal from India, were finally
incorporated within the Indian union in the course of the 1950s, culminating in the
accession of Goa in 1961, the territorial boundary of the Indian state became
clearly defined.

The Princely States in 1947

Under colonial rule nearly one third of the territory of the Indian sub-continent
was ruled by the native states. The rulers of these states had in the past signed
treaties with the British at different points of time since the late 18th century.
While in their internal governance the rulers of these states enjoyed a good deal
of local autonomy, their armies and external relations were subjected to
regulation by the political office of the British Indian government, which kept
control over the states through British Residents in the princely courts. The
princely states were of varied sizes and importance. A few like the state of
Baroda or Hyderabad were large, resourceful and powerful. At the other end of
the spectrum existed smaller states like the ones which constituted the Orissa
group of states or the Kathiawad states of Gujarat. Bringing these states into the
Indian union was one of the most difficult tasks that the Congress leadership
faced at the time of independence. The small states were more easily amenable
to persuasion while the large ones often posed problems. Vallabhbhai Patel who
had political experience in the States people movement in Gujarat, ably assisted
by V. P. Menon, a career civil servant, ultimately succeeded in stitching them
within the Indian union.

At a time when the creation of Pakistan had undermined the nationalist vision of
a united India, the inclination on the part of some of these states to remain
outside the Indian union emerged as an important threat to the nationalist vision
of an integrated India. On the other hand, since the late 1930s when the
Congress had become more directly involved in the States’ people’s movements,
the princely order seemed to many radical Congressmen as retrogressive and
contradictory to the spirit of modern democracy. Whatever might have been the
moral inspiration behind the Congress leadership’s ideological aversion for the
princely order, their integration in the end came to depend largely on Patel’s

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maneuvering,- combining persuasion with coercion. Following independence the
story of this integration created a few dramatic moments in the history of the
accession of Junagarh, Hyderabad and Kashmir to the Indian union. But before
the enactment of this drama the story of integration can be traced to the shifts
and turns of Indian politics during the 1940s. During the tortuous negotiations of
1945-46, some of the more articulate princely rulers began to claim that once the
British withdrew from India, the treaty relations that the states had hitherto
maintained with British paramountcy would become automatically dissolved. The
princes therefore were in no obligation to remain tied with the state that was to
succeed British India. On the contrary, the dissolution of paramountcy was to set
them free from this bondage. Not unnaturally, the Congress leadership
considered these arguments as thinly disguised threats to jeopardize the
Congress dream of an integrated and powerful India.

The British and the Princes on the eve of independence

The suspicion of the Congress leaders about a secret British design to

encourage the princes to resist integration with India, was strengthened by an
announcement by the British Prime Minister Clement Atlee in February 1947.
The Labour Party Prime Minister who had otherwise been sympathetic to the
Indian aspiration for independence suggested that with the transfer of power to
the Indian Constituent Assembly, the treaty obligations between the native states
and the paramount power would cease to be relevant. It was on this ground that
the Chamber of Princes, led by the rulers of Travancore and Hyderabad claimed
independence, arguing that the princes would remain free not to join any of the
two dominions, - India and Pakistan, which were to emerge out of British India,
after partitioning India came to be seen as the only viable option for transfer of
power. Once the treaties with the British government of India were dissolved,
they would be free to exercise their choice of remaining separated from either
India or Pakistan. M. A. Jinnah, now in a relatively formidable position following
the partition decision, in an attempt to weaken the territorial basis of the Indian
union with which most of the states were likely to be integrated for sheer
geographical reasons, also expressed similar views on the eve of independence.
Atlee, however, qualified his position subsequently by suggesting that in the
changing context after India’s independence, it would be good policy for the
princely states to merge into either of the two dominions. The Congress
leadership for obvious reasons was alarmed by such statements fearing that the
continued presence of the princely order in post-colonial India was likely to limit
the natural frontiers of the independent Indian state. The princely enclaves,
existing within Indian territory on the other hand could stand in the way of the
nation building process. Sensing danger in such statements, Nehru insisted on
the creation of a Department of states when the political office which regulated
the affairs of the princely states in the British India was wound up. The interim
government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru put Vallabhbhai Patel in charge of the
Department of states with a view to carrying on negotiations with the princes.

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Earlier Nehru had criticized the Cabinet Mission for not providing for elective
representation of the population of the princely states in the proposed
Constituent Assembly. Nehru and the Congress leadership sent out warnings to
the princes about the possibility of mass movements in these states in support of
the demand for integration with India. When the Cabinet Mission assuaged the
princes by recognizing their right to send their nominees to the Constituent
Assembly, in the All India State Peoples’ Conference at Udaipur and Gwalior
during 1945 and 1946 Nehru threatened them with unleashing popular
movements in these states unless they decided to join the Constituent Assembly,
- something which the princes wished to avoid till the last moment in order to
retain their distinct identities.

Till the late 1930s when the Congress started promoting popular movements in
the states, the princely states remained somewhat isolated from the mainstream
of Indian political life. The British however were keen to use the princes as a
counterweight to the Congress since the 1930s by drawing them into the
constitutional arrangements that the Act of the 1935 sought to create at the
central level. The loyalism of the conservative princes made the British think that
their presence in the proposed federal assembly would be of much value to the
British in their attempt to disarm the Congress. Earlier during the Round Table
conferences the British had followed the strategy of using the princes as a
bulwark against the Congress in the Constitutional structure of the empire. For all
these reasons the relative isolation of the princely states from the mainstream
political life in British India, was to some extent broken by the political
developments during the 1930s. The federation scheme proposed by the
Government of India Act of 1935 however remained a nonstarter largely due to
the reluctance of the princes to join a federation even if the British guaranteed
them greater weightage in the federal assembly. With the outbreak of the Second
World War the federal part of the 1935 Act went into the cold storage.

The Princely States and the Federation Scheme

The princely rulers had mixed feelings about this scheme. Some of them had
seen the federation idea as a substantial loosening of British control over their
territories. For them it created the prospect of freedom from the regular
interference by political officers and reduced subsidy to the British army. Some of
the smaller states, however, feared that this would expose them to the onslaught
of democratic movements radiating from British India. Instead of a federation in
which they are expected to co-exist with the politicians from British India, they
preferred a Union of states by way of expanding the Chamber of princes to
include the smaller states which had hitherto remained excluded from this. The
Congress naturally opposed this idea and decided to forge close links with the
Prajamandal movement in the princely states in order to put pressure on the
princely rulers. It was at this juncture that the Second World War intervened and
the federation plan was shelved.

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The matter was reopened again around the middle of the 1940s when after the
end of the war the British were anxious to arrive at a constitutional settlement in
India. Earlier in 1942 the Cripps mission worked on the 1935 scheme of giving
the princes a space in the proposed Constituent assembly. Cripps also
suggested the possibility of substantial revision in the treaties as well. Ambiguity
in Cripps’s language made the princess apprehensive about the withdrawal of
British protection, in view of their greater anxiety to assuage the Congress. The
princes were also aware of the fact that among the British Labour party leaders,
there was little sympathy for princely autocracy. For the princes however the
British Cabinet came up with reassuring statements, perhaps to cultivate their
support in the war effort by way of helping the British in recruiting the soldiers.
After the war when the constitutional negotiations were reopened the rulers of the
princely states found it difficult to coordinate their activity. The lack of
coordination among them weakened their position during the protracted
negotiations on the eve of independence. The Cabinet Mission which visited
India during March 1946 paid lip service to their claim of independence by
affirming that the British paramountcy would not be transferred to the government
of independent India. Yet at the same time the Cabinet Mission was optimistic
about the princes joining the union voluntarily by actively participating in the
deliberations of the constituent assembly.

Changing Political Compulsions for the Indian Princes

In the end, however, the princes hardly had a choice. The political compulsions in
the changing context of decolonization made accession to one of the two
dominions somewhat inevitable. By the time India achieved independence, the
political equations had radically changed making it difficult for the princes to
survive under British protection. There was a groundswell of pro-accession
sentiment among the subject population which through the earlier decade of
Prajamandal activity had developed sympathy and support for the Congress.
Such popular pressures from below decided the issues as far as the small states
were concerned. Eventually sixteen states joined the Constituent Assembly.
Moreover, the princes could no longer remain isolated from the political
happenings in British India. Communalization of politics also made its impact on
their choices. For communal reasons the Nawab of Bhopal sided with the Muslim
League, the ruler of Patiala became a spokesman of the Sikhs and the Rajput
ruler of Alwar became a patron of the Hindu Mahasabha. Retaining a distinct
status was virtually impossible, for which reason the older scheme of the Union
of states was not likely to materialize. In December 1947 when the Orissa states
proposed to create a regional combination of small native states of the region,
Congress activism in states like Talcher and Dhenkanal rendered this regional
union of princes impossible. The Prajamandal movement created the broader
context in which staying out of the Indian union was not likely to be feasible.

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Vallabhbhai Patel and the Integration of the States

Against this backdrop, Vallabhbhai Patel and V. P. Menon began their work of
persuasion in the newly created Department of states. Patel worked with the
concept of a stand still agreement, which implied that the independent state of
India would continue some of the agreements that the princes had signed with
the British, in return for the signing of Instrument of Accession by the rulers. The
Instrument of Accession was expected to cede to the Indian government or to the
government of Pakistan if a ruler wished to join Pakistan, control over defence,
external affairs and communications. In return the princes would enjoy a privy
purse and some other privileges, befitting their princely status. Under Patel’s
persuasion between the 2nd and 14th August 1947, 114 states acceded to India.
The solitary exception was Bhawalpur which decided to join Pakistan. Once the
Instrument of Accession was signed pressures was borne upon them later in
December 1947 to sign merger agreements with the objective of merging them
into the adjacent Indian provinces.

Junagarh, Kashmir and Hyderabad

Some of the larger states however continued to resist the idea of accession even
after the transfer of power. Among them Mysore was compelled by the local
political bodies to join the Indian union by the end of 1947 to create the basis of
the state of Karnataka in independent India. The accession of Hyderabad,
Kashmir and Junagarh provided the dramatic content in the story of integration.
And in each of these cases, alike Mysore where the accession was preceded by
a ‘Mysore Chalo’ movement by Congress organizations since September 1947,
popular pressures decided the issue before police and military action achieved
the integration. Junagarh was a small state on the coast of Gujarat, the Muslim
ruler of which was keen to join Pakistan, despite the fact that the state with a
predominantly Hindu population was surrounded by Indian territory on all sides.
In opposition to the Nawab’s plan to join Pakistan, popular organizations which
favoured integration with India started a movement. Under popular pressures
Shah Nawaz Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Junagarh asked for India’s
intervention. Police action at Junagarh restored order and consequently in
February 1948 in a plebiscite the people of the state decided to join India.

Kashmir presents us with a somewhat different story. There was already before
independence an ongoing movement organized by Sheikh Abdulla’s National
Conference against the tyranny of the Hindu ruler Hari Singh. Nehru supported
Sheikh Abdulla’s National Conference which in turn was willing to join the Indian
union by retaining a measure of autonomy for the people who were emotionally
attached to the idea of Kashmiriyat. While this movement was continuing, Patel
was negotiating with the Dewan for an early settlement by the ruler in favour of
Indian union. Hari Singh resisted this idea till a military intervention from Pakistan
forced him to seek India’s protection by signing the Instrument of Accession.

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We have an equally dramatic story in Hyderabad. Hyderabad had already seen
the emergence of a powerful Prajamandal movement supported by
Congressmen from the Andhra region. After the transfer of power in an attempt
to retain his independence the Nizam of Hyderabad organized a paramilitary
force, the Razakars in order to contain the pro-integration activities by local
Congressmen. By way of resisting these measures adopted by the Nizam,
Congress sent volunteers to Hyderabad to mobilize opinion in favour of
integration. In addition the Communist leadership which was then involved in an
agrarian struggle in the Telengana region in the Nizam’s territory also provided
the popular impetus in the movement against the Nizam’s tyranny. It was against
this backdrop that the police action, master minded by Patel managed to
browbeat the Nizam to accept the accession to the Indian union. Sumit Sarkar
suggests that Patel’s effort to arrive at a quick settlement was motivated also by
the desire to contain the growing communist influence among the peasants in
Telengana.

Popular Pressures and Integration with India

The history of the integration of the states therefore cannot be written without the
account of the States’ people’s movements which had been continuing since the
1930s, eventually to create a broader political context in which the people of the
state readily welcomed integration with India. While the role of Vallabhbhai Patel
and V. P. Menon in persuading and at times coercing the princely rulers to see
reason in their decision to join the Indian union, has been rightly emphasized, the
story of integration has to consider the context of popular movements which
made it easier for Patel to work out his strategies. Patel successfully assured the
princes that their privileges would remain protected, once they decided to sign
the Instrument of Accession. The rulers of the princely states also came to
receive important government appointments, while a few of them subsequently
became involved in parliamentary politics. The privileges that the government of
India guaranteed however were abolished later in 1969 by Indira Gandhi. At the
time when the princes were drawn into the Indian union, they realized that
accession to India only implied surrendering rights which they did not enjoy in
any case under British paramountcy. It was difficult for them to realize at that
moment that accession to India would subsequently entail radical political
changes which eventually would leave their impact on their status. Undoubtedly,
Patel’s statesmanship managed to remove their doubts about what was going to
be their fate in a democratic independent India. In cases where persuasions
failed, Patel used coercive technique. But such strategies succeeded because
there was already a popular movement. The history of accession of states like
Mysore or Hyderabad adequately demonstrates this aspect of the integration of
the states.