A princely state (also called native state) was a nominally sovereign: "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 Indian 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." entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British Indian government, but rather by an indigenous ruler under a form of indirect rule, "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." subject to a subsidiary alliance and the suzerainty or paramountcy of the British Crown. The rulers of the princely states were very largely allowed to govern their own territories, but were not allowed relations with states outside the Indian Empire, and were not allowed to fight wars against other princely states. British pressure on the rulers to modernize their domains increased over the period.
In 1920, the Indian National Congress party under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi declared swaraj (self-rule) for Indians as its goal and asked the princes of India to establish responsible government. Jawaharlal Nehru played a major role in pushing Congress to confront the princely states and declared in 1929 that "the only people who have the right to determine the future of the Princely States must be the people of these States". In the 1937 Indian provincial elections, the Congress won in most parts of India, excluding the princely states, where there were no elections, as they were not provinces; it started to seek to intervene in the affairs of the states. In the same year, Gandhi played a major role in proposing a federation involving a union between British India and the princely states, with an Indian central government. In 1946, Nehru observed that no princely state could prevail militarily against the army of independent India.
At the time of the British withdrawal, 565 princely states were officially recognized in the Indian Subcontinent, 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. The most important princely states had their own Indian political residencies, quasi-diplomatic missions of the British Raj: Hyderabad State, Mysore, Pudukkottai and Travancore in the South, Jammu and Kashmir and Gwalior in North and Indore in Central India. The most prominent of them – 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 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 , with a population of just below 3,000. Some two hundred of the lesser states even had an area of less than .
After 15 August 1947, most of the princely states soon acceded to India or Pakistan, or were annexed, as in the case of Hyderabad; but for some years many continued to exist within the new nations, until suppressed. There were several princely states in modern Pakistan, though they had relatively small sizes, except for Bahawalpur, which was large but thinly populated. The territory of modern Bangladesh had no princely states.
History
The princely states were the traditional monarchical states of India who had formed, under various degrees of pressure, subsidiary alliances with the East India Company. These relationships were taken over by the British Raj after 1858. Some dynasties, especially of Rajput princes, were very long-established, but others dated back to the turbulent period of the disintegration of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century, including the numerous Maratha states. Some princely states, mainly with Muslim ruling families, had a foreign origin due to the long period of external migration to India. Some of these were the rulers of Hyderabad (Turco-Persians), Bhopal (Afghans) and Janjira. Among the Hindu kingdoms, most of the rulers were Kshatriya. Only the Rajput states, Manipur, and a scattering of South Indian kingdoms could trace their lineage to the pre-Mughal period. Many dynasties conquered by the Maratha confederacy, Sikh Empire and others involved in the Mughal collapse remained without territories.
Where the EIC had generally regarded the princes unfavourably, as politically untrustworthy, wastefully extravagant, resistant to the development of India, and poor rulers of their peoples, the top level of the new British Raj came to see them more favourably, as a force for stability in Indian society, and one capable of being encouraged to exert themselves to improve the economy and social conditions of their peoples. The general refusal of the princes to join the rebels in the Indian Mutiny had not gone unnoticed. Schools such as Mayo College and Aitchison College (in Lahore), modelled on the English public schools, were set up to educate boys from princely families. Among others, the successive holders of the titles of Maharaja of Mysore and Maharaja of Jaipur were regarded as model rulers.Cannadine, David, Ornamentalism; How the British Saw Their Empire, pp 42-55, 2002, Oxford University Press, , Google books
The rulers of some of the princely states had a last moment of real power during the Partition of India as the Indian Independence Act 1947 (passed in Britain) allowed their rulers to choose whether to join India or Pakistan.
British relationship with the princely states
India under the British Raj (the "Indian Empire") consisted of two types of territory: British India and the native states or princely states. In its Interpretation Act 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions:
(4.) The expression "British India" shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. (5.) The expression "India" shall mean British India together with any territories of any native prince or chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India.Interpretation Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 63), s. 18
In general the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) also to refer to the regions under the rule of the East India Company in India from 1774 to 1858.1. Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume IV, published under the authority of the Secretary of State for India-in-Council, 1909, Oxford University Press. page 5. Quote: "The history of British India falls, as observed by Sir C. P. Ilbert in his Government of India, into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century the East India Company is a trading corporation, existing on the sufferance of the native powers and in rivalry with the merchant companies of Holland and France. During the next century the Company acquires and consolidates its dominion, shares its sovereignty in increasing proportions with the Crown, and gradually loses its mercantile privileges and functions. After the mutiny of 1857 the remaining powers of the Company are transferred to the Crown, and then follows an era of peace in which India awakens to new life and progress." 2. The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the ... by Robert Harry Drayton, Statutes of the Realm – Law – 1770 Page 211 (3) "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed ..." 3. Edney, M. E. (1997) , University of Chicago Press. 480 pages. 4. Hawes, C.J. (1996) Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773–1833. Routledge, 217 pages. . Quote1: "Before passing on to the political history of British India, which properly begins with the Anglo-French Wars in the Carnatic, ... (p. 463)" Quote2: "The political history of the British in India begins in the eighteenth century with the French Wars in the Carnatic. (p.471)"
The British Crown's suzerainty over 175 princely states, generally the largest and most important, was exercised in the name of the British Crown by the central government of British India under the Viceroy; the remaining approximately 400 states were influenced by Agents answerable to the provincial governments of British India under a governor, lieutenant-governor, or chief commissioner. A clear distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the legislation enacted by the British Parliament, and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the courts of the princely states existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.
Not all the princely states were in modern India or Pakistan. The standard list of Princely States, the Alqabnamah, began alphabetically with Abu Dhabi. The list also features Bhutan, Bahrain, and Ajman as "Protectorates" of the Viceroy, and features Nepal as an "independent state", with the Aga Khan also appearing as a prince without any land.
Princely status and titles
The Indian rulers bore various titles including Maharaja or Raja ("king"), Emir, Raje, Nizam, Wadiyar (used only by the Maharajas of Mysore, meaning "lord"), Agniraj Maharaj for the rulers of Bhaddaiyan Raj, Chogyal, Nawab ("governor"), Nayak, Wāli, Inamdar, Saranjamdar and many others. Whatever the literal meaning and traditional prestige of the ruler's actual title, the British government translated them all as "prince", to avoid the implication that the native rulers could be "kings" with status equal to that of the British monarch.
More prestigious Hindu rulers (mostly existing before the Mughal Empire, or having split from such old states) often used the title "Raja", or a variant such as Raje, Rai, Rana, Babu, Rao, Rawat, or Rawal. Also in this 'class' were several Thakurs or Tagore and a few particular titles, such as Sardar, Mankari, Deshmukh, Sar Desai, Istamuradar, Saranjamdar, Raja Inamdar, etc. The most prestigious Hindu rulers usually had the prefix "maha-" ("great", compare for example "grand duke") in their titles, as in Maharaja, Maharana, Maharao, etc. This was used in many princely states including Nagpur, Kolhapur, Gwalior, Baroda, Mewar, Travancore and Cochin. The state of Travancore also had queens regent styled Maharani, applied only to the sister of the ruler in Kerala.