The Princely States and the Kashmir Question

Britain had indirectly and less expensively ruled the princely states, measuring some 716,000 square miles, with an estimated 93 million people, a little more than one-fourth of the sub-continent’s population. Although the problems and aspirations of the people in British India and the princely states were the same, the Indian National Congress had until the late 1930s stayed away from a direct role in the states. Britain used the princes to obstruct the establishment of an Indian federation under the act of 1935. In July 1947, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel took over the Ministry of States. Even before he took over the Ministry of States, Sardar Patel appealed to the nobler sentiments of the princes and asked them to make sacrifices in the cause of the freedom of their country. Only three states refused to sign. These were Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Jammu and Kashmir.