White Paper on Indian States (1950)/Part 1
PART I
THE PROBLEM OF THE STATES
The problem of Indian States in the form in which it was inherited by free India, was an accident of the ascendency of British power in India. The institution of rulership had, no doubt, been a recognised feature of ancient Indian polity and the States had studded the map of India even before the advent of the British in this country. However, the Princes, their status and their possessions constituting the Indian States system, as it was stabilised under British rule, were all evolved during the first two decades of the 19th century as a concomitant of the rise of British power in India. It was during this period that a "strange and unknown volcanic force made its way through the soft and yielding strata of Indian society" and "crystallised" Indian States into the form in which they were found at the time of the withdrawal of the British from India. The process of re-moulding the States structure was practically completed as early as 1819 and the framework of this structure was sustained in all its essentials all through the remaining 180 years of British rule in India. The problem of Indian States was an inevitable consequence of a system which virtually brought history to a standstill in a multitude of isolated principalities forming about two fifths of the territory of India and scattered over the whole of this sub-continent.
CONTENTS Pages 7 8 9 9 11 12 12 13 14 15