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A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign[1] entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule,[2] subject to a subsidiary alliance and the suzerainty or paramountcy of the British crown.
At the time of the British withdrawal, 565 princely states were officially recognized in the Indian subcontinent,[3] apart from thousands of zamindari estates and jagirs. In 1947, princely states covered 40% of the area of pre-independence India and constituted 23% of its population.[4] The most important states had their own British political residencies: Hyderabad of the Nizams, Mysore and Travancore in the South, Jammu and Kashmir, and Indore in Central India. The most prominent among those – roughly a quarter of the total – had the status of a salute state, one whose ruler was entitled to a set number of gun salutes on ceremonial occasions.
The princely states varied greatly in status, size, and wealth; the premier 21-gun salute states of Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir were each over 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in size. In 1941, Hyderabad had a population of over 16 million, while Jammu and Kashmir had a population of slightly over 4 million. At the other end of the scale, the non-salute principality of Lawa covered an area of 49 km2 (19 sq mi), with a population of just below 3,000. Some two hundred of the lesser states even had an area of less than 25 km2 (10 sq mi).[5][6]
- ^ Ramusack 2004, pp. 85 Quote: "The British did not create the Indian princes. Before and during the European penetration of India, indigenous rulers achieved dominance through the military protection they provided to dependents and their skill in acquiring revenues to maintain their military and administrative organizations. Major Indian rulers exercised varying degrees and types of sovereign powers before they entered treaty relations with the British. What changed during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is that the British increasingly restricted the sovereignty of Indian rulers. The Company set boundaries; it extracted resources in the form of military personnel, subsidies or tribute payments, and the purchase of commercial goods at favorable prices, and limited opportunities for other alliances. From the 1810s onwards as the British expanded and consolidated their power, their centralized military despotism dramatically reduced the political options of Indian rulers." (p. 85)
- ^ Ramusack 2004, p. 87 Quote: "The British system of indirect rule over Indian states ... provided a model for the efficient use of scarce monetary and personnel resources that could be adopted to imperial acquisitions in Malaya and Africa. (p. 87)"
- ^ Bhargava, R. P. (1991), The Chamber of Princes, Northern Book Centre, pp. 312–323, ISBN 978-81-7211-005-5
- ^ Datar, Arvind P. (18 November 2013). "Who betrayed Sardar Patel?". The Hindu.
- ^ Markovits, Claude (2004). A history of modern India, 1480–1950. Anthem Press. pp. 386–409. ISBN 9781843310044.
- ^ The India Office and Burma Office List: 1945. Harrison & Sons, Ltd. 1945. pp. 33–37.