John Zubrzycki, "Dethroned: The Downfall of India’s Princely States" (Hurst, 2024)

New Books in South Asian Studies · Nov 30, 2023 · 56m

Post-independence India had a big problem–about 40% of its land wasn’t, well, India. Instead, this land was in the hands of the princely states: Rulers who had signed agreements accepting the rule of the British Empire, while getting a relatively free hand to rule their local jurisdictions.

And these weren’t small states. Hyderabad–whose ruler made noises about independence, at least initially–had a larger income than Belgium, and was bigger than all but twenty UN member countries.

But the power of the princes was so eroded over time that, by 1971, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi could…