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 obligations in relation to States to persons not under the Crown's authority, conditional on the agreement of the States. In paragraph 58 of the report, the Committee said:

22. The new concept of personal relationship between the States and the Crown found expression in the Act of 1935 and drove further the wedge between the States and the rest of India. Paramountcy which had become "the method by which the executive of British India aggrandized itself at the expense of the Indian States" now set in motion the reverse process of depriving the British Indian Executive of all constitutional status vis-a-vis the States. Ia complete disregard of patent historical facts and the established constitutional procedure, a new functionary, the Crown Representative, was now brought into existence to conduct the relations of the Crown with the States. The relations between the States and the Government of India were hereafter to be through the circuitous route of the Crown Representative. At one stroke of the pen, the States were "delinked" from the Governor General in Council and "pegged" to the British Crown. The policy of balance and counterpoise thus forged for the imperial political armoury another formidable weapon, the problem of the States.