VI. Integration and Merger

After World War II began and a position of non-cooperation was adopted by the Congress, the British government tried to break the deadlock through the Cripps Mission (1942), Wavell Plan (1945), Cabinet Mission (1946) and Attlee’s statement (February 1947).

Cripps held that the British government did not contemplate transferring paramountcy of Crown to any other party in India. The states tried various schemes to forge a union of their own, envisaging themselves as sovereign in status or as a third force in the Indian political scene. The June 3rd Plan and Attlee’s statement made it clear that the states were free to join either of the two dominions, and Mountbatten refused to give a sovereign status to the states.

Sardar Patel, who was in charge of the states’ ministry in the interim cabinet, helped by V.P. Menon, the secretary in the ministry, appealed to the patriotic feeling of rulers to join the Indian dominion in matters of defence, communication and external affairs—the three areas which had been part of the paramountcy of the Crown and over which the states had anyway no control. By August 15, 1947, 136 states had joined the Indian Union but others remained precariously outside.