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 ﻿must be added the important factor of the powerful sanction of the popular will behind the Government of free India.

267. It was thus the duty of the Government of India to ensure that the vacuum caused by the withdrawal of the British did not disturb the peace and tranquillity of the country. None of the Indian States had sovereign rights in the full sense of the term; nor did they have individually the necessary resources to claim or enjoy the attributes of a sovereign independent power. Even before the ascendency of the British power in India, there was only one king in India, "The King of Delhi". To this King, both by title and admission, the leading Princes acknowledged allegiance. "No sovereign State in India", says William Barton, "is in direct descent from the Moghul of the past". If in the 18th century, or even earlier, these States did not have an independent status, it was obvious that in the 20th century, when petty sovereignities were a patent anachronism, the assumption by States of independent status was not practical politics. Nor was it feasible for the States to form a Union by themselves. In the first instance, the chronic mutual jealousies of the Rulers and the fact that not all of them would have agreed to sabotage the hard-earned freedom of India, would have stood in the way of the development of such a project. Such a proposition would have been incompatible with India's independence and the fundamental geographical compulsions, no less than the democratic upsurge of the people of the States, would have ruled it out. Events in Travancore leading up to the accession of the State to the Dominion of India demonstrated that the growing sense of integral nationalism in the States' people would not allow the Rulers to thwart the national destiny of India. It was clear beyond doubt that the peoples' Government at the Centre could depend on the loyalty of the people of the States to which the alien rulers of India could lay no claim.

268. Without doubt the States were inchoate political entities; under British rule their juridicial and political personality had been supplemented by the Crown. The position was inescapable that with the withdrawal of the British the Government of India must step in and fill the vacuum. The trends in the States clearly indicated that with the end of British rule in India, the entire States structure would come down with a crash. The Government of India had, therefore to act promptly.

269. The first step in this direction was the accession of the States on the three subjects of Defence, External Affairs and Communications. This form of accession created only a tenuous constitutional relationship and