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their correct perspective, we have to remember that they are linked with the momentous developments affecting the most vital interests of this country. These guarantees form part of the historic settlements which enshrine in them the consummation of the great ideal of geographical, political and economic unification of India, an ideal which for centuries remained a distant dream and which appeared as remote and as difficult of attainment as ever even after the advent of Indian independence.
Human memory is proverbially short. Meeting in October, 1949, we are apt to forget the magnitude of the problem which confronted us in August 1947. As the Honourable Members are aware, the so-called lapse of paramountcy was a part of the plan announced on June 3rd 1947, which was accepted by the Congress. We agreed to this arrangement in the same manner as we agreed to the partition of India. We accepted it because we had no option to act otherwise. While there was recognition in the various announcements of the British Government of the fundamental fact that each State should link up its future with that Dominion with which it was geographically contiguous, the Indian Independence Act released the States from all their obligations to the British Crown. In their various authoritative pronouncements, the British spokesmen recognised that with the lapse of paramountcy, technically and legally the States would become independent. They even conceded that theoretically the States were free to link their future with whichever Dominion they liked although, in saying so, they referred to certain geographical compulsions, which could not be evaded. The situation was indeed fraught with immeasurable potentialities of disruption, for some of the Rulers did wish to exercise their technical right to declare independence and others to join the neighbouring Dominion. If the Rulers had exercised their right in such an unpatriotic manner they would have found considerable support from influential elements hostile to the interests of this country.
It was against this unpropitious background that the Government of India invited the Rulers of the States to accede on three
