White Paper on Indian States (1950)/Foreword to the Revised Edition
FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION
The White Paper on Indian States issued on July 5, 1948, contained a survey of the developments in respect of States during the first year of the existence of the Ministry of States. During the period of a year and a half which has followed the issue of that White Paper, the policy of integration pursued by the Government of India has made further progress. The States integrated during this period include Mayurbhanj, Kolhapur, Baroda, Rampur, Tehri-Garhwal, Benaras and Cooch-Behar, which have been merged in Provinces; Bhopal, Tripura and Manipur which have been taken over as centrally administered units; Travancore and Cochin, whose Union emerges as a new unit on the Indian map; and the remaining Rajputana States of Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer which have been integrated in the reconstituted United State of Rajasthan. An outstanding development during this period has been the establishment of constitutional relationship between the Centre and the State of Hyderabad.
2. The process of welding over 500 diverse States into viable and sizeable units and converting them into democracies has now been carried to its final objective. This process started with the elimination of the chain of small States that severed the Provinces of Orissa and Bihar from the Central Provinces; next it solved the cross-jurisdictional puzzle of the vast assemblage of the States of Kathiawar; and, as it gathered momentum, its wide sweep covered even a number of major States. As against five hundred and odd units known as States, the new Constitution of India specifies in Part B of the First Schedule only 8[1] such units.
3. The operations for revivifying the palsied limbs of India's body-politic were rendered swift and smooth by the welcome realisation on the part of the Princes that in a free India it would be unpatriotic for them to cling to a legalistic stand on time-worn treaties or their anachronistic prerogatives and powers. Moving voluntarily with the times, the Princes, big and small, co-operated in exploding the myth that India's independence would founder on the rock of Princely intransigence. The edifice of democratic India rises on the true foundation of the co-ordinated effort of the Princes and the people.
4. The task of reconstruction of States is not over with the signing of the Covenants and Agreements of Merger. It was inevitable that the profound change that has come over the States should bring in its wake a crop of difficult administrative problems. Local affiliations and political habits die hard; not all the newly-established units, therefore, could be expected to settle easily in the new mould. A radical change-over from an autocratic set-up, which had been maintained for a century and a half, to a democratic order and the task of piecing together into a co-ordinated pattern the diverse administrative systems of integrated States could by no means be easy. In many States, even the rudiments of administrative machinery did not exist. In a number of others political and administrative institutions were to be found only in an embryonic stage. The problem, therefore, is not merely one of replacing the super-structure of the administrative systems in States; nor even of reconstructing in them the organs of State. A modern system of Government has to be built in the States and in many of them a start had to he made from the very beginning. The task requires all the patience of the brick-layer; it also requires the vision of the planner and the skill of the engineer.
5. The process of integration having been completed, the States now enter the phase of consolidation. As compared to integration the building up of a well-knit administration in the States and the inculcation of democratic responsibility in their people are a much harder, though less spectacular piece of work. This work has already been taken in hand. The fact, however, remains that a very considerable leeway has still to be made up in the field of bringing the administration of States to the Provincial level and ushering in a new social and economic order. To this task the Government of India are now bending their energy.
6. What has already been achieved is nothing short of a revolution. Except for a jar in the case of Hyderabad, this revolution has taken place so smoothly and peacefully, and we are so near in time to the events themselves, that a clear appreciation of the magnitude of this achievement may be hampered. Very few even amongst those having faith in the political integrity of the Indian people to say nothing of the prophets of evil and those who worked for India's disruption, viewing the perplexing and gigantic problem oi Princely India in the anxious bewildering circumstances following the partition of India, could have conceived as possible, the revolutionary change that has come over India within a short span of about two and a half years.
7. The White Paper, which has now been brought up to date, carries the survey of developments in relation to States right up to the attainment by them of their legitimate position as full-fledged constituent units of the Indian Union under the new Constitution of India. It has also been expanded to explain fully the historical setting of the problem of the States.
8. The matter contained in the Paper has been re-arranged and divided into twelve Parts. Parts I, II and III deal with the background of the problem; Part IV details the events leading up to the accession of States to the Dominion of India; Part V contains a survey of the process of integration of States; Part VI describes the process of democratisation of States; Part VII outlines the main features of the overall settlements made with the Rulers as embodied in the Covenants and Agreements of Merger; Part VIII shows the progress made in the direction of the consolidation of the gains from the administrative integration of States in the field both of the establishment of a modern system of Government in the integrated States and of the approximation of their constitutional relationship with the Centre to that of the Provinces; Part IX explains the scheme of the Federal Financial Integration of States; Part X describes the nature of the Centre's responsibility during the transitional phase in respect of the States and the manner in which it is proposed to discharge this responsibility; Part XI describes the position of the States under the new Constitution; and finally Part XII surveys in retrospect the operation of the Government of India's policy of integration and democratisation of States.
March, 1950.
- ↑ Of the nine States specified in Part B, Vindhya Pradesh has been removed from this category under the Constitution (Amendment of the First and Fourth Schedules) Order, 1950, issued by the Governor General on 25th January, 1950.