9. May 2008 by admin.

A princely state is any state under the reign of a prince and is thus a principality taken in the broad sense. The term refers not only to sovereign nations ruled by monarchs but also to lower polities ruled by various high nobles. Such states may be sovereign or not and their reigning ‘princes’ may actually rule or be reduced in power, as under colonial indirect rule, sometimes becoming mere figureheads.

Specifically, the term “Princely States” (also called “Native States” or “Indian States”) was used to refer to sovereign entities of British India that were not under the direct control of the British government but instead entered into treaties directly with the British monarch.

In English, the term “princely state” generally refers to a historical native state of the British Empire under an autochthonous princely house, while the term principality is preferred for analogous western feudal units.

Historically there were hundreds of native states in British India and in some other parts of the British Empire (mainly under the chartered British East India Company). These states were mostly brought into the British colonial sphere of influence by the East India Company, and after 1858 formally under the British crown, which assumed the role of paramount ruler and the title of “Emperor of India” as political (not dynastic) self-declared heir to the Padshah i-Hind of the former Mughal dynasty.

Unlike the British Provinces of India such as Bengal, Bombay, Madras, Central Provinces, United Provinces, which were ruled directly by the British government, rulers of princely states had treaty arrangements directly with their personal suzerain, the British Monarch. These treaties allowed a degree of local autonomy, and each state had its own laws, languages, holidays, ministers and princely ruler. Each was still under British protection and was thus essentially a vassal state.

At the time of independence in 1947 a few hundred[1] such states existed in British India. 565 states were represented in a special chamber of the Indian legislative assembly called the Chamber of Princes.

The Indian rulers bore various titles — including Maharaja (”great king”), Badshah (”emperor”), Raja (”king”), Nawab (”governor”), Nizam, Wali, and many others. Whatever the literal meaning and traditional prestige of the ruler’s actual title, the British government translated them all as “prince,” in order to avoid the implication that the native rulers could be “kings” with status equal to that of the British monarch.
At the time of Indian independence, only five rulers — the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharaja of Mysore, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda and the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior — were entitled to a 21-gun salute. Five more rulers — the Nawab of Bhopal, the Maharaja Holkar of Indore, the Maharana of Udaipur, the Maharaja of Kolhapur and the Maharaja of Travancore — were entitled to 19-gun salutes. The most senior princely ruler was the (Muslim) Nizam of Hyderabad, who was entitled to the unique style Exalted Highness. Other princely rulers entitled to salutes of 11 guns (soon 9 guns too) or more were entitled to the style Highness. No special style was used by rulers entitled to lesser gun salutes.

As paramount ruler, and successor to the Mughals, the British King-Emperor of India, for whom the style of Majesty was reserved, was entitled to an ‘imperial’ 101-gun salute — in the European tradition also the number of guns fired to announce the birth of a (male) heir to the throne.

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9. May 2008 by admin.

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