The emergence of communalism in India is often attributed to British colonial rule. The distribution of rights and privileges along religious lines is alleged to have divided people in mutually exclusive, hostile social groups. Historians seldom discuss the turn, development of communal relations might have taken without British poltical interference. Fortunately, the Indian princely states, which maintained a semi-autonomous existence until Independence, offer an unparalleled field of comparison. Nevertheless, studies of communal relations in these states have remained rather limited. In this book, the situation in Travancore, Baroda and Hyderabad in the 1930 will be analysed from a comparative perspective.