Page:White Paper on Indian States (1950).pdf/170



A conference of the Rulers and representatives of Indian States was held at 3-30 in the Chamber of Princes on Friday, 25th July, 1947, His Excellency the Viceroy presiding.

Addressing the Conference, H.E. the Viceroy said:—

,

It is a great pleasure and a great privilege for me to address so many Rulers, Dewans and representatives of the States of India in this historic Chamber of Princes. It is my first and my last occasion that I have the privilege of addressing you as Crown Representative.

I would like to begin with by giving you a very brief history of the negotiations I have conducted since I have been out here and the line that I have taken up about the States.

There were two distinct problems that faced me. The first was how to transfer power to British India and the second, how to fit the Indian States into the picture in a manner which would be fair and just to all concerned.

I dealt first with problem of British India, because you will realise that until that problem was solved it was quite useless to try to start on a solution of the problem of the States. So I address my mind to that.

Here I digress. There was a universal acceptance among the States of the Cabinet Mission's Memorandum of May 12th and when the parties accepted my Statement of June 3rd they fully realised that withdrawal of Paramountcy would enable the States to regain complete sovereignty. That gave me a starting point from which to try and deal fairly with the States.

But before I got down to dealing with the States there was one other thing that I clearly had to do. I had to address myself to the problem of the mechanics of partition—a plan against my personal desires. As you all know, it took three years to separate Burma from India, in spite of the fact (as I can testify, as also His Highness of Bundi and others) that there are no roads running between India and Burma. Nevertheless, it took three years to arrange that partition. It took two years to separate the Province of Sind from Bombay. It took two years to separate the Province of Orissa from Bihar. Gentlemen, we decided that in less than $2 1⁄2$ months we shall have to go through the partitioning of one of the biggest countries in the world with 400 million inhabitants. There was a reason