The Sovereignty of the Native Indian States

Abstract

Before British India can ever be given complete home rule, the knotty problem of the relation of the native states to such a dominion must be considered. Nationalists in British India maintain that whenever complete dominion status is offered to their country, it will assume in respect to the states the same position that the crown holds toward them; meanwhile, spokesmen for the princes insist that such a step can and should never be taken without their consent. Whatever viewpoint prevails, before India can function as an independent, self-sufficient unit, some arrangement, presumably of a federal character, must certainly be effected.An analysis of the numerous views held concerning the legal relation of the native states to the British Empire enables one to discern three principal theories: first, that held by most crown officials and Indian nationalists, which maintains the sovereignty of the crown; second, the view of the Indian princes, which attempts to prove the retention by them of the “residuary” sovereignty; and, third, the intermediate opinion of many publicists, both of Europe and of India, which asserts the existence of a divided sovereignty.Desiring to ascertain the location of the legal sovereign in the political tangle presented by the apparently anomalous position of the princes, one is obliged to discard the theory of a divided sovereignty. Speaking in juridical terms, it is necessary to posit in some agency the source of legal sovereignty, even though its political exercise may be vested in more than one entity. There thus remains but two diametrically opposed theories, one that predicates the existence of supreme legal authority in the crown, and the other which confers it upon the rulers of the Indian states.