When the Jawaharlal Nehru government published its second white paper on Indian states in March 1950, it adopted a self-congratulatory tone, describing the process of integration as “nothing short of a revolution”. Included in its pages was a statement by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel lauding the states for their “voluntary” surrender of power and insisting that the solution to their problem had been offered in the “friendliest disposition” with “nothing but the ultimate good of the Princes and their people at heart”.
Drawing from the evidence in my latest book titled Dethroned, published by Juggernaut, I conclude that the process of integration was neither voluntary nor friendly. Nor was it the “bloodless revolution” that Patel described in a speech in 1948.
Like the white paper, most narratives of the integration praise Patel and VP Menon, his deputy in the States Department, for convincing a majority of the 552 states, which found themselves within the borders of the new dominion, to join a united India. Even the violence accompanying the ‘Police Action’ that ended Hyderabad’s bid for independence is downplayed.
Broken promises and betrayal
Presiding over nearly half of India’s land mass and holding the power of life and death over a third of its population, the princes ranged from enlightened democrats to sadistic autocrats. Under the terms of the Indian Independence Act of 1947, each had the right to declare their state’s independence or choose whether to accede to India or Pakistan.
Convincing the headstrong rulers of the 552 princely states would inevitably require arm-twisting and result in accusations of broken promises and betrayal. But that is only part of the story.
In addition to Hyderabad, the list of states that claimed their right to declare independence included Travancore, Kashmir, and Bhopal. Others, notably Bilaspur, Dholpur, Indore, Jodhpur, Rampur, Bharatpur, Junagadh, Manavadar, Dasuda, Vanod, Jainabad, Bajuna, and Radhanpur either flirted with independence or considered joining the new dominion of Pakistan. Radhanpur delayed signing its Instrument of Accession for nearly a month after 15 August 1947. Piploda in Central India waited until March the following year. In Alwar and Bharatpur, Muslims attempted to join forces with their co-religionists in Punjab to form an independent Meostan, while the state’s Jat rulers hunkered for a separate Jatistan.
Fuelled in part by the lack of sympathy being shown by the Congress toward the plight of their inhabitants, the Sikh rulers of states such as Faridkot and Patiala started devising plans for the formation of an independent Sikhistan.
Another threat to India’s unity came from the miscellany of states that littered the vast hinterland between Delhi and the future state of Pakistan. These included Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, and Narsingarh, who were receptive to Nawab of Bhopal Hamidullah Khan’s idea of forming a single unit to play Pakistan against India, thereby increasing the influence of the princes. Patel would accuse Hamidullah of thrusting ‘a dagger into the very heart of India’ by attempting to create a pro-Pakistan confederation of states comprising Bhopal, Indore, Jodhpur, and Udaipur.
Patel was also vexed by the Rajput states, whose largely anti-Congress rulers, according to him, “still dreamt of the power of their sword[s] and still thought of carving out a kingdom for themselves”. He would compare the situation facing the government in early 1948 to “a powder magazine, which a single spark may set ablaze”.
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A violent affair
The integration of the states was a violent affair. More than 25,000 lives were lost and many thousands displaced because the Nehru government sent the Army into Hyderabad in September 1948. Although India managed to nullify Junagadh’s bid to join Pakistan through a show of force, the aftermath was accompanied by violence abetted by state apathy against its minority Muslim population. When Rampur’s ruler rejected overtures by Mohammad Ali Jinnah to join Pakistan, local Muslim League activists went on a rampage, setting fire to numerous government buildings and burning a police inspector alive.
Some of the worst violence took place in Alwar and Bharatpur, where the Meo Muslim minorities suffered at a terrible scale. In the first several months of 1947, as many as 30,000 Muslims were killed, up to 20,000 forcefully converted, and an estimated 1 lakh forced to flee the two states for the relative safety of the neighbouring district of Gurgaon. Entire villages were razed and scores of mosques desecrated by activists belonging to local branches of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha. Many of the Muslims who fled these states never returned, preferring to migrate to Pakistan. When Nehru demanded that Patel restrain the rulers of the two states, his request was ignored.
The integration of Kashmir was also preceded by extreme violence, with bands of armed Hindus and Sikhs, together with soldiers from Maharaja Hari Singh’s forces, attacking Muslim villages. The violence was worst in the district of Jammu, where two lakh people reportedly “just disappeared, remaining untraceable, having been butchered or died from epidemic or exposure”.
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Unions and mergers
When India finally achieved Independence, it was still geographically and politically fragmented. While several larger princely states were making strides toward representative government, the vast majority were outposts of autocracy, too small to introduce efficient administrations, too conservative to contemplate democratic reform. Only by a process of integration could India hope to become a functional nation-state. But that would require rolling back promises made just a few months earlier not to interfere in the princes’ internal affairs. The map of India would have to be redrawn.
Menon and Patel achieved this through a two-stage process – creating unions of states and merging smaller states with existing provinces. Initially, their focus was only on smaller states such as Orissa and Chhattisgarh, which, everyone apart from their rulers, agreed were not viable. The two leaders’ strategy would soon embrace even the so-called viable states such as Jaipur, Bikaner, Gwalior, Indore, and Baroda, which they promised would remain as separate entities. This process, too, was far from voluntary. When the Raja of Patna wavered about signing an instrument merging his state with the province of Orissa, Menon told him that his administration would be taken over by force. A few months later, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) began receiving reports that several disaffected rulers from Chhattisgarh were in secret talks with right-wing groups to overthrow the Nehru administration.
Other states that objected to merger arrangements included tiny Janjira in southern Bombay and the much larger and more important state of Kolhapur. They were brought to heel through a mix of inducements ranging from threats of deposition to forcible annexation. They were integrated through a mix of inducements ranging from threats of deposition to force. For all the coercion, violence and broken promises, Menon and Patel could justifiably pride themselves on achieving their goal of creating a politically cohesive India and of extending a responsible, democratically elected government to the people of the states. No longer could the ruling princes run their states like fiefdoms; no longer could they remain unaccountable to the people. By the end of 1950, all princely unions, with the exception of Kashmir, had adopted the new Indian Constitution — but this had come at a cost, which is hardly acknowledged today.
John Zubrzycki is the author of ‘Dethroned: Patel, Menon and the Integration of Princely India’. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)