Page:White Paper on Indian States (1950).pdf/27

 

 

23. Sub-section (1) of Section 811 of the Government of India Act, 1935, as originally enacted, defined 'Indian State' as including "any territory, whether described as a State, an Estate, a Jagir or otherwise, belonging to or under the suzerainty of a Ruler who is under the suzerainty of His Majesty and not being a part of British India". In political practice the term applied to a political community occupying a territory in India of defined boundaries and subject to a common Ruler who enjoyed or exercised, as belonging to him, any of the functions and attributes of internal sovereignty duly recognised by the Paramount Power.

24. The Butler Committee and the Simon Commission applied this elastic term to 562 units, whereas the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms referred to 600 units as States. The term covered, at one end of the scale, units like Hyderabad and Kashmir which were of the size of the United Kingdom, and at the other end minute holdings in Kathiawar extending only to a few acres.

25. Out of the total area enclosed within the territories of pre-Partition India, i.e., 1,581,410 square miles, the Indian States covered an area of 715,964 square miles, which constituted about 45 per cent. of the total Indian territories. In post-Partition India, the area covered by the States geographically contiguous to India was reduced to 587,949 square miles, being about 48 per cent. of the total area of the Dominion of India, viz.. 1,221,072 square miles. The State of Jammu and Kashmir with a territory of 84,471 square miles and the Hyderabad State closely following it with a territory of 82,313 square miles constituted the largest territorial units amongst the States. There were 15 States which had territories of more than 10,000 square miles and 67 having territories ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 square miles. There were 202 States each having an area of less than 10 square miles.

28. The total population of the States according to the census figures of 1941 was 93.2 millions, constituting about 24 per cent. of the total population of pre-Partition India, namely, 389 millions; after Partition the total population of the Dominion of India was reduced to 318.9 millions