24
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA WILL NOT RECOGNISE ANY PRINCELY STATE AS SOVEREIGN INDEPENDENT
There was a move for declaring India as an Independent Sovereign Country and there was a question, what would be the position of the Princely States? The Princely States were of the opinion that they will also have Independent Sovereign States, as they are also under the control of British Govt. ‘Travancore’ and ‘Hyderabad’ were the main Princely States. The Cabinet Mission also upheld this view but Dr. B. R. Ambedkar opposed the view and issued a statement showing how the Cabinet Mission’s view was wrong for the nation. He further stressed that all the Princely States should be merged in India, in the interest of the sovereignty of the country. The statement read as follows: Editors.
“The only way by which the Indian States can free themselves from Paramountcy is by bringing about a merger of sovereignty or suzerainty. This can happen only when the Indian States join the Indian Union as constituent units” says Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, former member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and a leading constitutional lawyer, in a statement opposing the declaration of independence by certain States. The Indian States, Dr. Ambedkar says, will be sovereign to the extent they are, but they cannot be independent so long as they remain under the suzerainty, as they must, of the Crown, if India becomes independent. The States should realise, he adds, that their existence as Sovereign Independent States will not be worth fine years’ purchase. Dr. Ambedkar goes on, the basis of the claim made by the States for a right to declare themselves independent lies in the Statement of May 12, 1946 issued by the Cabinet Mission, in which they say that the British Government could not and will not in any circumstances transfer Paramountcy to an Indian Government which means that the rights of the States which follow from their relationship to the Crown will no longer exist, and that all the rights surrenderd by the States to the Paramount power will return to the States.
Mischievous Doctrine
The doctrine that Paramountcy cannot be transferred to an Indian Government, is a most mischievous doctrine, and is based