Spectrum Test: The Indian States - BPSC (Bihar) MCQ

• This policy was reflected in Warren Hastings' wars against the Marathas and Mysore, and aimed at creating buffer zones to defend the Company's frontiers.

• The main threat was from the Marathas and Afghan invaders (the Company undertook to organize Awadh's defence to safeguard Bengal's security).

• Wellesley's subsidiary alliance policy was an extension of ring-fence—which sought to reduce states' dependence on the British Government in India. Major powers such as Hyderabad, Awadh and the Marathas accepted subsidiary alliance.

• The policy of Subordinate Isolation (1813-1857): Now, the imperial idea grew. 

• The theory of paramount began to develop-Indian states were supposed to act in subordinate cooperation with the British government and acknowledge its supremacy. 

• The states surrendered all forms of external sovereignty but retained sovereignty in internal administration. 

• British Residents were transformed from a foreign power's diplomatic agents to executive and controlling officers of a superior government.

• In 1833, the Charter Act ended the Company's commercial functions even as it retained political functions. 

• It adopted the practice of insisting on prior approval/sanction for all matters of succession. 

• In 1834, the Board of Directors issued guidelines to annex states wherever and whenever possible.

• The paramount supremacy of the Crown presupposed and implied the subordination of states. 

• The British government exercised the right to interfere in the internal spheres of states-partly in the interest of the princes, partly in the interest of people's welfare, partly to secure proper conditions for British subjects and foreigners and partly in the interest of the whole of India. 

• The British government was further helped in this encroachment by modern developments in communication railways, roads, telegraph, canals, post offices, press and public opinion. 

• The Government of India exercised complete and undisputed control in international affairs—it could declare war, peace or neutrality for states.

• Curzon stretched the interpretation of old treaties to that the princes, in their capacity as servants of people, were supposed to work side-by-side with the governor-general in the scheme of Indian government. 

• He adopted a policy of patronage and 'intrusive surveillance'. He thought the relations between the states and government were neither feudal nor federal, but a type not based on a treaty but consisting of a series of relationships having grown under different historical conditions that, over time, gradually conformed to a single line. 

• The new trend seemed to reduce all states to a single type uniformly dependent on the British government and considered as an integral part of Indian political system.

• According to the Montford Reforms (1921) recommendations, a Chamber of Princes (Narendra Mandal) was set up as a consultative and advisory body having no say in the internal affairs of individual states and having no powers to discuss matters concerning existing rights and freedoms. 

• For the chamber, the Indian states were divided into three categories 

1. Directly represented—109 

2. Represented through representatives-127 

3. Recognized as feudal holdings or jagirs.

• Definition of extent of sovereignty and paramountcy was still undefined. The Butler committee was set up to examine the relationship between the princely states and the government. 

• It gave the following recommendations- 

• 1. Paramountcy must remain supreme and must fulfil its obligations, adopting and defining itself according to the shifting necessities of time and states' progressive development. 

• 2. States should not be handed over to an Indian Government in British India, responsible to an Indian legislature, without the consent of states. 

• Thus, "paramountcy" was left undefined and this hydra-headed creature was left to feed on usage, Crown's prerogative and the princes' implied consent.

• Attlee's statement made it clear that states were free to join either of the two dominions. 

• Mountbatten refused to give a sovereign status to the states Sardar Patel, who was in charge of the states' ministry in the interim cabinet, helped by V.P. Menon, the secretary in the ministry, appealed to the patriotic feeling of rulers to join the Indian dominion in matters of defence, communication and external affairs—the three areas which had been part of the paramountcy of the Crown and over which the states had no control anyway. 

• By August 15, 1947, 136 states had joined the Indian Union, but others remained precariously outside.