India is a very diverse country rich in culture, food, language, and heritage.
Once our first prime minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru Ji said “ India is not a country of 40 crore peoples but it is a country of 40 Crore opinion”. Before the independence of India, every leader whether from a radical or moderate group was clear that Britishers must leave our motherland at any how and at any cost.
The moment we got “Poorna Swaraj” leaders present at that time like Sardar Patel Ji, Ambedkar Ji, Nehru Ji, and many more said that parties will come and go power will transfer from one party to another party, people will change from one party to another party but our country India must be united no one should be able to divide India, as for us our motherland is first for which we struggle not for power.
This alone was not the reason to make India a union of states instead ofa federation of states. There were many factors responsible which were visible and insist drafting committee take corrective actions keeping in mind social welfare for all the people.
We can say that princely states were the main reasons who create concern and forced the drafting committee to make India union as 48 percent area before Independence were covered by these princely states. It was a very difficult task for Sardar Patel Ji and V.P Menon to convince the princes to merge in India and make the country united, for this they have to introduce Privy Purses( it is a payment made to royal families so that they can get ready to merge in India ) and many more promises, this shows they were only thinking for their benefit, not for the motherland.
Some princely states don’t want to join India at any cost even they want to be part of Pakistan or other countries and want to make their own nation which leaders of that time know very well this will create a loophole in the security of the nation and unification and our main objective for which crores of people sacrifice their blood and peace for almost more than 150 years, will be finished within a year.
Incidents which were majorly responsible to make India Union of States:-
Travancore
It was the first princely state who refused to merge in India and it was realized that Dewan of Travancore, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar wants the independent state of Travancore, and secretly they have a relationship with the UK government who were supporting thembecause they were interested in minerals of Travancore which can give an edge to Britain in the nuclear field.
Jodhpur
It was ruled by Hindu Rajput King having a large Hindu population instead of having an interest in joining Pakistan because Pakistan was offering some better deal to Hanvant Singh prince of jodhpur at that time.
Bhopal
In Bhopal, Muslim Nawab Hamidullah Khan was ruling over the Hindu majority population, who also wants to declare Bhopal as an independent state and made this decision clear to Mountbatten but later, he decided to join India as a large number of princes had acceded to India.
Hyderabad
This state was one of the richest princely states, rich in Hindu populated areasruled by Nizam Mir Usman Ali who was demanding an independent state and refused to join India. He asked for help from Jinnah which make them stronger over some time. He was purchasing arms from Europe and violence unleashed targeting Hindus. To combat the situation mission polo was launched by Sardar Patel Ji.
After 4 days of encounter in Hyderabad, it was in full control of the Indian Army. Later post of governor was offered to Nizam and he accepted that post.
Junagadh
It was situated on the southwestern end of Gujrat having a large Hindu population and ruled by Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III, and this princely state was part of Kathiawar states.
Nawab choose to join with Pakistan saying that Junagadh shares a sea border with Pakistan so we are acceding with them and if this happens then communal tension could rise at that time in Gujrat, then a plebiscite was conducted resultinginthe favor of India and Junagadh acceded in India.
Kashmir
Maharaja Hari Singh was a ruler of Kashmir at that time with a Muslim majority population. This state has important international boundaries with other countries. Raja Hari Singh decided standstill agreement both with India and Pakistan. This state was very important from a strategic point of view for India.
Pakistan broke the standstill agreement and sent an army to Kashmir many were killed and they captured most of the area of Kashmir.
Seeing the situation out of control Raja Hari Singh send his representative Sheikh Abdullah to India to ask for help in response to which India said Raja Hari Singh had to sign the instrument of accession then India will send his army and that happens and Kashmir became part of India with special status under article 370 and which was repealed on 5th August 2019 and abrogates the special status of Kashmir.
Other than this India was facing a severe level of communal violence, language issues and religious conflicts most of the things were imbalanced along with that relationship with other countries was not good too.
State within India don’t like each other like in south states majorly political leaders giving statement like if they will come in power they will remove other languages from states and only regional language will be promoted and the language they were talking about was not from other state instead it was also Indian language.
Due to these issues drafting committee during making of constitution of India ensures that at any cost India should not be divided and hence India became the Union of States.
BY: Aishwarya Jaiswal, student of Babu Banarasi Das University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh