Viswanathan K's Thoughts

What did all those princes do post-independence? Several of them joined politics. Their success rate (getting elected) was very high, at 80%, writes John Zubrzycki in Dethroned . “(They) were able to exploit traditional ties based on rank, caste and economic dependence.”   At first, they aligned with the Congress, to ensure their privy purses and privileges remained. But with success, the bitterness that some felt, the betrayal of some promises, led several to switch sides. Vijayaraje Scindia was the most prominent switch. She even “ruled” over ten parliamentary constituencies, where nobody could win unless she “approved” them. Many of the erstwhile princes of Orrisa, Gujarat and Rajasthan also fought and won elections against the Congress. Gayatri Devi from Jaipur won by the largest margin (at that time).   Nehru, never a fan of privy purses, had, from 1953 onwards (after Patel’s death), tried coaxing the princes to voluntarily give it up. He argued that giving so m...

India’s policy on minerals. A bone of contention between states and the Center. I started reading a book on “wicked problems”, i.e., problems that are very hard to solve yet hugely consequential. (Wicked problems can’t be blamed on just politicians or oligarchs. They have multiple aspects, often contradictory. Any proposed solution impacts too many stakeholders, and there is never a perfect solution). Mineral policy falls in that category of wicked problem. ~~   This Policy Mandala post dives into it. It starts with an example – Coal. Something used to produce electricity that is then used across the country, with enormous second, third and N-th order benefits. “This creates a basic contradiction in India’s mineral economy: the resource is found locally, its value is realised nationally, but many costs of extraction are borne by the states and communities where mining takes place.”   Such a scenario then raises valid questions: “ Who should control mineral res...

As more and more princely states signed the Instrument of Accession, Menon was elated that the Balkanization of India had been averted. Patel would describe such handovers as voluntary and said the rulers would be remembered with respect and admiration for their choice. But, as is clear, many of them signed under pressure, under threats, under explicit and implicit hints that post-British rule, local uprisings would happen to overthrow the rulers (it was left unsaid whether the Congress would instigate such uprisings, but that was obvious), says John Zubrzycki in Dethroned .   Ok, so most of the 565 princely states were now joining India. How best to integrate them into the political union? The first step that Patel and VP Menon came up with was to combine the smaller states with other larger states like Bombay or Orrisa. Only the really large princely states like Gwalior and Baroda were allowed to stay as separate states.   Mountbatten agreed with the idea, even claim...

Since I’ve already covered Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir in other blogs, I won’t repeat the tales of those princely states in this series. In this one, I’ll cover a few of the other states though. ~~   Travancore . A well-run princely state. With access to the main trades of the Indian Ocean. Resource rich – teak, sandalwood, tea, spices, rubber, mica. 47% literacy (three times higher than British India). Progressive in many ways. Plus, it had the world’s second largest monazite reserves. What’s that? A rare earth whose by-product was thorium, a nuclear fuel. Very important in a world that had just entered the atomic age.   Thus, it was a good candidate for independence post-Britain, writes John Zubrzycki in Dethroned . Unsurprisingly, its dewan , CP Ramaswami Aiyar, announced to do just that. Nehru threatened an economic blockade and promised Travancore would collapse within 3 months. In response, Travancore banned the Congress from the state.   On the monazite reserv...

I used to think the Holocaust became a well-known event (in the West) right after the second World War ended, when the concentration camps were found, when the Nurmeburg trials happened. Which is why it came as a shock to me when Malcolm Gladwell wrote about that aspect (when did the Holocaust became universally known in the West) in his book Revenge of the Tipping Point .   European historians barely mentioned the holocaust in books written in 1961. Lots of details of the two World Wars, hardly a few mentions of the holocaust. Contrast that with how it is talked about in recent decades! Turns out even the holocaust survivors didn’t talk much about it, even to their own children. Why remains a speculation. Maybe they weren’t sure if the Christian majority around them would take kindly to be reminded of it, maybe they didn’t want to keep reliving those horrors. Back then, Jewish groups too didn’t want to paint the image of Jews as eternal victims, always needing to be protected ...

VP Menon was happy to be the behind-the-scenes man. Let Patel be the face. Menon was also astute enough to use flattery to persuade Mountbatten (“earning the gratitude of Indians for generations” by “achieving the basic unity of the country”) to tell the princes that they would have to pick a country – India or Pakistan; that independence was not an option. There was another reason he (and Patel) wanted Mountbatten involved – failure could be laid at his door; and everyone knew how much Mountbatten cared for glory and posterity, so he could be trusted to do his best once his name was publicly tied to the endeavour, explains John Zubrzycki in Dethroned .   But it became evident many princes didn’t like the options. Patel told Mountbatten not to worry, that India could(?) take them by force once the British left. Mountbatten wasn’t so sure – some of the bigger states had armies, were well-armed. He told Patel that such an approach might lead to civil war. One version of events sa...