British Paramountcy in India

PARAMOUNTCY The announcement by Travancore and Hyderabad to declare themselves Independent Sovereign States on 15th of August when India becomes a dominion and the inclination shown by other States to follow their example has created a new problem. The problem is a crucial one and requires to be seriously considered. There are two aspects to the question. Can the States declare themselves Independent ? Should they declare themselves Independent ? To begin with the first. The basis of the claim made by the States for a right to declare themselves independent lies in the Statement of 12th May 1946 issued by the Cabinet Mission in which they say that the British Government could not and will not in any circumstances transfer paramountcy to an Indian Government which means that the rights of the States which follow from their relationship to the Crown will no longer exist and that all the rights surrendered by the States to the paramount power will return to the States. The Statement of the Cabinet Mission that the Crown could not transfer paramountcy is obviously not a statement of political policy. It is a statement of law. The question is, is this a correct statement of the law as it applies to the States ? There is nothing original in the proposition set out by the Cabinet Mission. It is a mere repetition of the view propounded by the Butler Committee appointed in 1929 to examine the relationship between the Crown and the Indian States. As students of the subject know the Princes in the stand they took before the Butler Committee contended for two propositions :— (i) That Paramountcy could not override the terms and conditions contained in the Treaties between the Princes and the States but was limited by them. (ii) That the relations embodied in Paramountcy were of a personal nature between the Crown and the Princes and could not, therefore, be transferred by the Crown to an Indian Government