The main purpose of the book is to present a scholarly and comprehensive coverage of the primary material on the Princely stales, to ease the various difficulties faced by the students new to this field.
The book is divided into two parts. The narrative (Part I) outlines the complex relations between the British and the Indian states: it investigates the practice of paramountcy as it was developed by the British, and analyses the interaction between the theory and the practice Chapters 1 and 2 cover the development of the relationship up to 1857: a period characterised first by opportunism and expediency on the part of the British until they had secured a position of supremacy on the sub-continent, then by a studied neglect of their erstwhile allies until their situation became so parlous that the only remedy was outright annexation. Chapter 3 covers the subsequent seven decades: a period of highly developed, indirect imperial rule, clothed in the rhetoric of partnership and cooperation but, in the final analysis, upheld by the superior military and economic power of the British. Chapter 4 reconstructs the official perception of the theoretical basis of British paramountcy. while Chapter 5 outlines the de facto basis of the relationship between the British Crown and the Princely States. Ch. 6 examines the constitutional forces at work in the period leading up to independence and considers those attitudes and actions on the part of the princes that, as can be seen from Ch. 7, virtually ensured their integration and extinction after 1947.
The 200 speeches and documents in Part 2 span the period from the earliest British contact with the Indian princes (c.1759) to the demise of the Princely States in 1971. The contents are drawn from a wide range of sources: private letters and journals, speeches, official despatches and proclamations, acts of parliament, treaties, parliamentary statements and newspaper editorials. The documents have been taken from primary sources, while the most readily available published source is cited.
He has completed a post graduate degree at the Australian National University, his field of research being the Indian Princely States.
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