STATUS OF INDIAN PRINCES BY PYARELAL NAIR FOREWORD The following seven chapters are a result of Pyarelals deep study of the status of the Princes of India. They should have been published in pamphlet form long ago, and would have been but for my preoccupation. The writer is himself behind gaol walls. Therefore they are being published as they were written. They are an evergreen. They give to the busy public worker or student, in a compact form, an idea of the status of the Princes of whom there are nearly six hundred. The chief merit of the pamphlet is that it contains nothing but what is taken from authentic records. The existence of this gigantic autocracy is the greatest disproof of British democracy and is a credit neither to the Princes nor to the unhappy people who have to live under this undiluted autocracy. It is no credit to the Princes that they allow themselves powers which no human being, conscious of his dignity, should possess. It is no credit to the people who have mutely suffered the loss of elementary human freedom. And it is perhaps the greatest blot on British rule in India. But we are too near the event to realize the falsity called Princes India1 or Indian India. The system will break under its own intolerable weight. My humble non violent effort is to induce all the three parties to wash the triple sin. Even one of them can take the decisive step and it will affect all. But it will be glorious if the three together realize the enormity of the sin and by a combined effort wash it. Sevagram, Wardha M. K. GANDHI CONTENTS 1. Paramountcy and Non-Intervention 2. The Acid Test 3. A Maharaja Speaks 4. A Doughty Dewan 5. Princely Extravaganza 8. The Imperial Game and the States 7. Divide and Rule