They lived in fairy-tale palaces, amassed untold fortunes in diamonds and treasured stones, maintained fleets of Rolls-Royces, and travelled in specifically appointed practice carriages, arriving within the capital Delhi to the sound of thunderous gun salutes. They had the ability of life and dying over their topics, and hundreds of minions attended to their each want.

On the eve of Indian independence in 1947, India’s 562 princes occupied almost half its landmass and dominated over a 3rd of its inhabitants. As Britain’s most loyal allies, they had been nearly untouchable – solely those that dedicated essentially the most heinous of crimes had been censured, or, within the rarest of instances, eliminated. In the endgame of empire, nevertheless, they had been the most important losers, and three-quarters of a century later, all however the richest, and essentially the most politically energetic, reside peculiar and mundane lives.

Looking intently on the tumultuous occasions main as much as independence and its aftermath, as I did whereas researching my new e-book,it’s clear that the princes, whereas fatally undermined by division and delusion, had been let down by the ability they trusted essentially the most.

The rulers’ greatest likelihood of having the ability to protect their kingdoms, and co-exist with an impartial and democratic India, was to develop into extra democratic themselves. However, British officers pressed tepidly, if in any respect, for such reforms, leaving the princes with a false sense of safety.

When Lord Louis Mountbatten turned the final Viceroy, the princes thought their saviour had arrived. Surely, an aristocrat like him wouldn’t throw them to the nationalist wolves? However, Mountbatten had solely restricted understanding of the subcontinent and left the issue of what to do in regards to the princely states too late. He additionally despatched out contradictory messages, insisting on the one hand that Britain would by no means ‘tear up’ its treaties with the states or compel them to hitch India or Pakistan, whereas on the similar time going behind the again of India Office officers in London and doing all the pieces he may to deliver the princes to heel.

The nationalists had been by no means large followers of the princes. In explicit, Jawaharlal Nehru, who would develop into impartial India’s first prime minister, couldn’t abdomen the existence of what he described as “sinks of reaction and incompetence and unrestrained autocratic power, sometimes exercised by vicious and degraded individuals”.

Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress celebration’s chief, and the person who, as states minister, would finally take care of the princes, was much less visceral in his reactions, however adamant that if India was to be a territorially and politically viable nation, the princely states needed to be a part of it. Any deviation from this aim would threat plunging “a dagger into the very heart of India”.

In concept, the princes may select between acceding to India or Pakistan or declaring their independence as soon as the treaties that had sure them to the British Crown lapsed on the switch of energy.

But, confronted with the mixed juggernaut of Mountbatten, Patel, and his deputy, the bureaucrat and master-tactician VP Menon, they discovered the area shrinking round them. Accede to India, they had been informed, and you should have management over all however three topics: defence, overseas affairs and communications. Your inside affairs will likely be untouched. Refuse and threat being overthrown by your topics with out anybody coming to your support.

With a way of foreboding and helplessness, most ended up signing accession treaties. The few that resisted, notably Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad would ultimately be annexed at gunpoint, a so-called ‘police motion” in Hyderabad costing 25,000 lives.

Soon enough, the promises made to the princes while signing them up were broken. Smaller states were forced to merge with existing provinces such as Orissa or into newly established unions of states such as Rajasthan. Even the larger, better governed states such as Gwalior, Mysore, Jodhpur and Jaipur, that Patel and Menon had promised would remain autonomous units, were absorbed into larger entities until the map of India looked much like it does today.

There is no doubt that integration was a lucrative exercise – for the winners. India gained roughly the same territory and population it had lost because of Partition and the creation of Pakistan, as well as cash and investments amounting to almost one billion rupees (84 billion rupees or £80bn today). In return, half of the former rulers were given tax-free privy purses that ranged in value from the £20,000 per year paid to the munificent Maharaja of Mysore to about £40 for the humble Talukdar of Katodia who worked as a clerk and travelled everywhere on a bicycle to save money.

This arrangement would last for just two decades. Men and women from royal families entered politics, some standing for Congress, now headed by Nehru’s daughter Indira, but most for opposition parties. Like her father, Indira abhorred the princes – and their success in dethroning Congress candidates was eating into her parliamentary majority. Believing that such a move would play well in her populist agenda, she tried to get a compliant president to derecognise the princes, only to be stymied by the Supreme Court, which ruled that it was beyond the president’s powers to issue such an order.

Undeterred and flush with a two-thirds parliamentary majority after the 1971 elections, Gandhi successfully introduced a bill into the Lok Sabha to amend the constitution and strip the princes of their titles, privileges and privy purses. As far as she was concerned, the time had come to end “a system that has no relevance in our society”.

Few Indians mourned the passing of the princely order and the cries of betrayal emanating from the former durbar halls ring hollow in today’s world. Unlike Britain, monarchy has no place in India’s democracy. Yet, the means to this end was often twisted. When the cards were dealt, the princes were given an unfair hand.

John Zubrzycki is the author of Dethroned: Patel, Menon and the Integration of Princely India, published by Juggernaut

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