Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/538

476 tier of the British Asiatic dominion is the outmost political boundary projected, as one might say, beyond the administrative border; and it must be particularly observed that the outmost boundary is here specified, because British India – the territory under the government of India – has interior as well as exterior boundaries. In such countries as France or Spain, and indeed in almost all modern kingdoms, the government exercises a level and consolidated rulership over a compact national estate, with a frontier surrounding it like a ring fence.

But the Indian Empire sweeps within the circle of its dominion a number of native states, which are enclosed and landlocked in the midst of British territory. We have seen that many of these states were built up out of the dilapidated provinces of the Moghul Empire by rebellious governors or military leaders, who began by pretending to rule as delegates or representatives of the emperor, and ended by openly assuming independence, as soon as the paralysis of central government permitted them to throw aside the pretext. With the fall of the Moghul Empire came the rise of the British dominion, and in the course of a century some of the imperial provinces were again absorbed by conquest or cession into British India; while others were left as self-governing states under the English protectorate. There is also an important group of Rajput chiefships which have always been independent under the suzerainty of the paramount power.

In all these states the rulers are debarred from mak-