Page:White Paper on Indian States (1950).pdf/151
141
particular satisfaction the reference in the announcement of the Prime Minister to the fulfilment of the Treaty obligations to the Indian States".
It would be wrong to assume that this resolution really represented the unanimous wishes of the Princes; it was only an indication of the complex which rendered it impossible for Princes to think of India freed from the foreign yoke, or of a constitutional relationship with the Government at the Centre in which the Crown did not find a place.
Declaration of Lapse of Paramountcy: A Consequence of the Theory of Personal Contract
261. The decision regarding the lapse of paramountcy was a direct consequence of the theory of personal contract and of the 'non-transferability' of treaty rights without the consent of the Rulers. The doctrine of lapse of paramountcy over Indian States was developed by British legal acumen for conserving the "comradeship in danger and difficulty" between the Imperial power and the Rulers in a context when complete withdrawal of British Power had not been envisaged as a real possibility. However, even after an irrevocable decision had been taken by the British to withdraw from India, the theory that history could be reversed and that with the withdrawal of the British, Indian States comprising two-fifths of the land must return to a state of unorganised political isolation, was persevered in with a determination bordering on recklessness.
Inherent Impracticability of Lapse of Paramountcy
262. The Cabinet Mission's Memorandum on Paramountcy and subsequent declarations recognised the inherent impracticability of the decision whereby all links between the States and the Central Government were to terminate at one stroke of the pen. The British spokesmen endeavoured to mitigate the evils of this decision by advising the States to link their lot with the Dominion and recognised that federal or political relationship between the States and the Centre was inevitable. Lord Mountbatten, speaking at a Conference of the Princes on July 25, 1947, said "that link (with the British Crown) is now to be broken. If nothing can be put in its place, only chaos can result".
It is a plain fact that an India broken into hundreds of independent entities would have inevitably lapsed speedily into a state of chaos. An India hopelessly divided against herself could in no way discharge the responsibilities which her strategic position no less than her moral heritage imposed on her. Far from being a stabilising factor such an India