145
did not enable the Government of India to discharge effectively its responsibility as the Central Government of India vis-a-vis the States. The question before the Government of India was whether the rest of the gap should be filled on a progressive or a retrogressive basis. If autocracy was allowed to fill the breach then the contrast between the States and the Provinces, which was already very sharp even before independence, would have inevitably led to an explosive situation. The only alternative was to fill the vacuum by expanding the scope of the constitutional relationship between the States and the Centre.
270. The paramountcy relationship between the Crown and the States was essentially an extra-constitutional relationship; it was a political relationship. It, no doubt, covered a wide field including the internal administration of the States. Such an arrangement worked because firstly the relationship between the supreme power and the Rulers was solely of a political nature, and secondly the medium for the exercise of the paramountcy functions in the administrative field was provided by the Rulers, who exercised full authority and power concerning the governance of their States and whose orders were not questioned by any Courts of law in the States. The decisions in respect of dynastic matters were implemented because of military sanctions of paramountcy.
271. Under this kind of paramountcy there was scope for the continuance of States in varying phases of development with varying degrees of sovereignties. Constitutional relationship on the other hand presupposes constitutionalisation and rationalisation of the various units linked by a constitutional relationship; it presupposes sizeable units with political and administrative organs adequate to the obligations of full-fledged constituent units of a federal State. It also presupposes a workable uniformity between the units in respect of their political and administrative set-up. If the breach was, therefore, to be filled by expanding the constitutional relationship between the States and the Centre, integration and democratisation were inevitable.
Organic Unification of India
272. The policy of integration and democratisation, which the Government of India have applied to the States, constituted thus the only solution of the problem of States, and the only method of fitting in the States in the new set-up of India. This was, therefore, no emotional approach, nor, any expansionist policy, nor power politics. Highly practical reasons of geography, all-compelling defence and internal security requirements, basic economic needs of the country, and other equally strong considerations rendered a real organic unification of India imperative.
