The Story of the Integration of the Indian States

Title: The Story of the Integration of the Indian States

Author: V P Menon

Publisher: Orient Longmans, 1956 (First)

ISBN: 9780405045752 (typical)

Pages: 511

When India became independent, the country was a kaleidoscope of small and large states of various hues and shades. The bigger provinces were under direct British rule, but the native princely states, which were 554 in number, were scattered over the entire area. Nobody could have imagined that all these principalities would be merged into a single union within two years – a blink of an eye as far as national timescales are concerned. But Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Vappala Pangunny Menon, his adviser and secretary to the States ministry achieved the impossible in such a short time. They tamed the quarrelsome princes and convinced them of the need first to accede to India and then to merge their states with others or British Indian provinces. With patience, tact, compromise and a little bit of coercion when all else failed, the states were eventually pulled under the wings of the Indian republic. V P Menon tells the story of that heroic effort that has not received the grateful attention of India because the state machinery was bent upon conferring on Nehru the laughable epithet of the architect of modern India. The country trod the path of economic progress only when Nehru’s policies were thrown out with contempt in the liberalization era. How then can he still be called the architect? However, the focus on Nehru in state-approved history came at the cost of Sardar Patel.

India maintained its unity of culture at all times but politically it was a hopeless case during most of its existence. Rare exceptions like the Mauryas and Guptas may be cherry-picked, but they were just that, rather than the rule. The British united it politically – no doubt, for their own ends – but united it indeed came to be. Menon acknowledges the British contribution with an encomium that “no greater achievement can be credited to the British than that they brought about India’s enduring political consolidation. But for this accomplishment and the rise of national consciousness in its wake, the government of free India could hardly have taken the final step of bringing about the peaceful integration of the princely states” (p.3). The East India Company established its administration from the districts to the Governor General. The administration was impersonal and no hereditary posts were envisaged as done by the native rajas. The company’s officers were imbued with a sense of their mission and introduced the principles and practices which obtained in their country. The East India Company annexed many states outright to their dominions, but abandoned this policy after 1857, considering the limitless help in men and material they received from the local princes in suppressing the Mutiny. This temporarily halted the drive for unification. The Simon Commission report submitted in 1930 restarted the process by hinting of a federation of all states. It proposed setting up of a standing consultative body containing representatives from British India and the states, to be called the Council for Greater India. The federal portion of the reforms enunciated by the 1935 Government of India Act was not implemented due to reluctance of the princes over loss of revenue. At that time, World War 2 intervened and all consultations were stopped.

Menon was very active in the bureaucratic circles after the end of the War and provides a blow by blow account of the British effort to grant freedom in a peaceful way. Stafford Cripps proposed a union in which the states were given the privilege to opt out if they so desired. Such states would still continue the same treaty relationship with the Crown. Both the Congress and the Muslim League rejected this half-way offer. As late as 1946, Viceory Wavell was assuring the princes their continued positions of power and prestige. The Cabinet Mission specified in no uncertain terms that paramountcy of the British would end with the handing over of power and the new dominions would not be the overlords of the states. It was left to the princes to negotiate and make a working arrangement with the new states. For a brief time, the princes were quite content at the fact that they were now free to take decisions that concerned their future. This was a short-lived dream. The new dominions – India and Pakistan – wanted the states to accede to them on the three subjects of external affairs, defence and communications. The Centre’s right to enter any state for protection of internal security was guaranteed in the defence clause. A Standstill Agreement was also signed by the states that transferred the arrangements which they had had with the Crown to the new governments until alternate schemes were finalized.

This book describes the feverish pitch of India’s struggle to ensure accession of all states that were contiguous to it. Pakistan was breathing down their neck. When Maharajah Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur was initially disinclined to accede, Jinnah gave him a signed blank sheet of paper, asking him to fill in the conditions to join Pakistan. But soon, the public unrest in that predominantly Hindu state forced him to accede to India. Menon thankfully acknowledges Lord Mountbatten’s support, who was the first Governor General of free India, in swaying the decisions of some princes to India. He notes that Mountbatten had abundant love for India. Some states proved intransigent at first, especially Travancore under its Dewan Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer. Hyderabad, Kashmir and Junagadh were stubborn in keeping their independent existence and later Junagadh in fact acceded to Pakistan. Their show of force against nearby Mangrol, which had acceded to India, was met with Sardar’s military muscle. Eventually, the Muslim Nawab of Junagadh fled to Pakistan and the state joined India.

If the princes had thought that they could exert their sweet will on the people on all matters except the three subjects relegated to the Centre, their hopes were soon dashed by the flow of events which came thick and fast. Clamour for governments responsible to the wishes of the people were rising from all corners. Most of the states were not in a position to dally with popular government and democracy owing to their small sizes and meagre financial resources. There were 222 states in the region of Kathiawar itself, of which Vijanoness had an area of just 185 acres, with a population of 206 and annual income of Rs. 500! There were scattered islands of territory outside their individual boundaries. In the 57,000 square kilometer area of Saurashtra, there were 860 different jurisdictions that hindered movement of people and trade. Sardar and Menon set about on the task of merging unviable states into unions, to other states or to nearby provinces. This was the second stage of integration. The rulers were effectively threatened to hand over power or else the responsible governments which they’d eventually be forced to concede would agree anyway. In that case, the decision would be against their will and without any compensation. In its place, Menon promised liberal Privy Purse payments to the rulers with which they can settle down to a quiet life in lieu of sovereignty. The situation was very fluid and the unsettled nature of the things was fully utilized by the author. The pettiness of the rajas came out when talks progressed. Menon lists out a few instances of the Travancore raja who was unwilling even to meet his co-ruler in the new state, the raja of Cochin. Some princes protested at the amalgamation and wanted plebiscite. Menon preempted them by telling that he could not believe it to be their intention to deny the representative character of Nehru, Sardar and the central cabinet. Reminiscing with obvious delight and slight mischief, Menon remarks that ‘much water had flowed under the bridge’, referring to the total surrender of the native principalities from the initial demand of accession on just three subjects. In the end, out of the 554 states, 216 were merged to nearby provinces, 5 were taken over as Chief Commissioner’s provinces, 310 were consolidated into six unions, 21 Punjab hill states were merged into Himachal Pradesh and Mysore and Hyderabad remained untouched.

The firsthand experience of the author in merging Hyderabad and Kashmir are detailed in the book. Ever since the Kashmir issue was referred to the United Nations, it ceased to be controlled by the States ministry and the External Affairs ministry took over. But in Hyderabad, his experience was comprehensive from the initial posturing of the Nizam to his unconditional surrender. Hindus comprised 85 per cent of the state’s population but the Nizam had stuffed his administration, police and armed forces with Muslims. Initially he refused to accede to India and wanted dominion status. To buttress his claim and to blackmail India, an organization called the Ittihad ul-Muslimeen was launched to intimidate and suppress the Hindus of Hyderabad. Kazim Razvi was its leader and its members were called Razakars who were given a free run of the place. The Nizam conducted parleys with Jinnah and appointed Mir Laik Ali, who had represented Pakistan in the UN as the president of his executive council. He arm-twisted the Indian government to sign a standstill agreement without accession, but followed it up immediately with two ordinances that banned export of precious metals to India and prohibited the use of Indian currency as legal tender in his state. Moreover, he displayed where his real sympathies lay with a loan of Rs. 20 crores to Pakistan. Razvi’s incendiary speeches and attempts to cleanse Hyderabad of its non-Muslim population were escalating the tension with each passing day. With a Koran on one hand and a sword on the other, he exclaimed jihad against India and swore that the 45 million Muslims in India would be their fifth-columnists in the case of a war. On 22 May 1948, the mail train from Madras to Bombay was waylaid at Gangapur station. Several male passengers were killed and the assailants kidnapped many women passengers. The Nizam was testing the patience of India and counting upon the lucky chance that its troops were tied up in Kashmir and some British politicians were demanding independence for Hyderabad. Finally, Indian forces barged in by a pincer movement and humbled its troops within 108 hours of fighting. The Nizam was allowed to remain as the head of state and he returned the favour by faithfully signing on the dotted line whenever asked for. However, Menon gives only scant details of the invasion.

A serious drawback of the book is that its author is not as candid as the readers wish him to be. Even though he had retired from service by the time he wrote this book, Menon still keeps the veil of secrecy and stays on the narrow course offered by the official version. The economic blockade of Junagadh and Hyderabad doesn’t find mention in the narrative because it was put in place covertly. Detailed coverage of the articles, schedules and letters reproduced verbatim is a little trying on the reader. At the same time, he has presented some interesting anecdotes and asides such as the Gangajal Fund of Gwalior and the air crash involving the Maharajah of Jaipur. An accusation levelled against Menon’s ministry was its generous spirit in granting privy purses to deposed rulers. This argument is categorically refuted by the author with clear logic and facts.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star