Princely state

This article is about states ruled by princes in the British Raj, the Republic of India and Pakistan. For the global concept, see Principality.
Colonial India
Colonial India
Map of colonial India, distributed by the British Information Services (1942)
Austrian India 1778–1785
Swedish India 1731–1813
Dutch India 1605–1825
Danish India 1620–1869
French India 1668–1954
Portuguese India
(1505–1961)
Casa da Índia 1434–1833
Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633
British India
(1600–1947)
EIC in India 1600–1757
Company rule in India 1757–1858
British rule in Portuguese India 1797–1813
British Raj in India 1858–1947
British rule in Burma 1824–1948
Princely states 1721–1949
Partition of India 1947
Princely state
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A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign[1] entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule,[2] subject to a subsidiary alliance and the suzerainty or paramountcy of the British crown.

In 1920, Congress (party) under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi declared swaraj (self-rule) for Indians as its goal and asked the princes of India to establish responsible government.[3] Jawaharlal Nehru played a major role in pushing Congress to confront the princely states and declared in 1929 that "only people who have the right to determine the future of the States must be the people of these States".[4] In 1937, the Congress won in most parts of British India (not including the princely states) in the provincial elections, and started to intervene in the affairs of the states.[4] In the same year, Gandhi played a major role in proposing a federation involving a union between British India and the princely states, with an Indian central government. In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru observed that no princely state could prevail militarily against the army of independent India.[5]

At the time of the British withdrawal, 565 princely states were officially recognized in the Indian subcontinent,[6] apart from thousands of zamindari estates and jagirs. In 1947, princely states covered 40% of the area of pre-independence India and constituted 23% of its population.[7] The most important states had their own British political residencies: Hyderabad of the Nizams, Mysore, Pudukkottai and Travancore in the South, Jammu and Kashmir, and Indore in Central India. The most prominent among those – roughly a quarter of the total – had the status of a salute state, one whose ruler was entitled to a set number of gun salutes on ceremonial occasions.[citation needed]

The princely states varied greatly in status, size, and wealth; the premier 21-gun salute states of Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir were each over 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in size. In 1941, Hyderabad had a population of over 16 million, while Jammu and Kashmir had a population of slightly over 4 million. At the other end of the scale, the non-salute principality of Lawa covered an area of 49 km2 (19 sq mi), with a population of just below 3,000. Some two hundred of the lesser states even had an area of less than 25 km2 (10 sq mi).[8][9]

  1. ^ Ramusack 2004, pp. 85 Quote: "The British did not create the Indian princes. Before and during the European penetration of India, indigenous rulers achieved dominance through the military protection they provided to dependents and their skill in acquiring revenues to maintain their military and administrative organizations. Major Indian rulers exercised varying degrees and types of sovereign powers before they entered treaty relations with the British. What changed during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is that the British increasingly restricted the sovereignty of Indian rulers. The Company set boundaries; it extracted resources in the form of military personnel, subsidies or tribute payments, and the purchase of commercial goods at favorable prices, and limited opportunities for other alliances. From the 1810s onwards as the British expanded and consolidated their power, their centralized military despotism dramatically reduced the political options of Indian rulers." (p. 85)
  2. ^ Ramusack 2004, p. 87 Quote: "The British system of indirect rule over Indian states ... provided a model for the efficient use of scarce monetary and personnel resources that could be adopted to imperial acquisitions in Malaya and Africa. (p. 87)"
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sisson Wolpert was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference o824 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference books.google.co.in was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Bhargava, R. P. (1991), The Chamber of Princes, Northern Book Centre, pp. 312–323, ISBN 978-81-7211-005-5
  7. ^ Datar, Arvind P. (18 November 2013). "Who betrayed Sardar Patel?". The Hindu.
  8. ^ Markovits, Claude (2004). A history of modern India, 1480–1950. Anthem Press. pp. 386–409. ISBN 9781843310044.
  9. ^ The India Office and Burma Office List: 1945. Harrison & Sons, Ltd. 1945. pp. 33–37.