How the plan to vivisect India was foiled

By Ashutosh Kumar Thakur
There was no dearth of secessionist claims. It seems like throughout the second half of the century, after the Indian Union came into being, almost every corner of the country wanted a separate nation, every province harbored a desire to be declared a sovereign state.

The idea was to create a third dominion called “Princestan” where the 565 princely states would stay outside the ambit of the two free states and retain paramountcy under the aegis of the departing British. The success of such a malevolent plan would have made the newly independent nation unstable and vulnerable.

However, three persons stood in the way of the nefarious British plan to balkanize India. This is the hitherto untold story of how Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Mountbatten and Sardar Patel battled the rulers of the princely states at every twist and turn to foil that cunning plan, even as the process of decolonization had begun.

According to the author Sandeep Bamzai, this was how “Princestan” was formed. An intricately researched and elegantly written epic history peopled with larger-than-life characters, it is the work of a major scholar at the peak of his abilities. He puts in great effort to add perspectives from a variety of sources – letters, memoirs, biographies, news reports and even his personal experiences – to ensure that we understand what was going through the minds of not only those in power, but also those fighting to oppose them.

The beauty of this book (Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India; by Sandeep Bamzai; Rupa & Co) lies in the author’s sincere and unbiased approach blended with a unique writing style. The sensitivity and thoughtfulness that the writer has displayed while describing every anecdote are incredible.

Princestan’ is principally a political history – Bamzai covers the major events that occurred in India right after Independence, and their impact on the political and social landscape.

How a section of diabolical princes actually managed to a large extent to stay out of the ambit of Hindustan and Pakistan till brought to heel by Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel and Lord Mountbatten in what people believed was a relay run. The princes never wanted independence. The Nizam of Hyderabad convinced the British to be called His Exalted Highness.

The princes together representing the British Monarchy in India actually had something called Narender Mandal which was the chamber of princes and the Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes was the Nawab of Bhopal Hamidullah Khan.

Further, you come across in the book many reference points about a diabolical plan being hatched at the behest of British PM Winston Churchill and Viceroy Lord Wavell using Mohd Ali Jinnah and the canny head of the Political Department Sir Conrad Corfield to ‘keep a bit of India’ as they pushed forward with a plan to decolonize India. To balkanize India, they encouraged a catalogue of crafty Indian Princes to speak the forked tongue of freedom from the Indian National Congress and independence for themselves.

Led by the saboteur Nawab of Bhopal and a handful of other powerful princes, they wanted to create a Third Dominion called Princestan in parallel to India and Pakistan. This is the story of how that plan to vivisect India was foiled.

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