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obligations in relation to States to persons not under the Crown's authority, conditional on the agreement of the States. In paragraph 58 of the report, the Committee said:

"The States demand that without their own agreement, the rights and obligations of the Paramount Power should not be assigned to persons who are not under its control, for instance, an Indian Government in British India responsible to an Indian Legislature. If any Government in the nature of a dominion government should be constituted in British India, such a government would clearly be a new government resting on a new and written constitution. The contingency has not arisen;......We feel bound however to draw attention to the really grave apprehension of the Princes on this score and to record our strong opinion that in view of the fact of the historical nature of the relationship between the Paramount Power and the Princes, the latter should not be transferred without their own agreement to a relationship with a new government in British India responsible to an Indian Legislature".

22. The new concept of personal relationship between the States and the Crown found expression in the Act of 1935 and drove further the wedge between the States and the rest of India. Paramountcy which had become "the method by which the executive of British India aggrandized itself at the expense of the Indian States" now set in motion the reverse process of depriving the British Indian Executive of all constitutional status vis-a-vis the States. Ia complete disregard of patent historical facts and the established constitutional procedure, a new functionary, the Crown Representative, was now brought into existence to conduct the relations of the Crown with the States. The relations between the States and the Government of India were hereafter to be through the circuitous route of the Crown Representative. At one stroke of the pen, the States were "delinked" from the Governor General in Council and "pegged" to the British Crown. The policy of balance and counterpoise thus forged for the imperial political armoury another formidable weapon, the problem of the States.