Western India States Agency

The Western India States Agency was an administrative group created in British India in 1924 to oversee the princely states on the Kathiawar peninsula and the adjacent areas. This new unit essentially combines Kutch , the Pālanpur Agency (Banas Kantha), Rewā Kāntha Agency and Kathiawar Agency . The Mahī Kāntha Agency was added in 1933. Control of the states passed from the provincial administration of the Bombay presidency to the central administration ( Government of India, GoI).

history

Note: Details on the individual states are given in the main articles of the predecessor agencies.

The Agency did not, as the name suggests, cover all of western India, but only about the northern half of Gujarat with 5.2 million inhabitants in 1941 on about 102,395 km². In this area, however, existed most of the "sovereign" princely states, namely approx. 435, of which 42 were significant enough to receive a seat in the Chamber of Princes founded in 1921 . The borders were changed in 1933 and 1943. After the annexation of the important state of Baroda , it was renamed Baroda, Western India and Gujarat States Agency in 1944 .

Tariff collection

Half of the seaports in India that were not under direct British control were in the agency's realm. However, these were economically insignificant for ocean going ships until the dredging and the construction of jetties between the world wars - at the expense of the princes. The right to collect tariffs and to set the amount rests with the princes, whose households received this income. With the construction of the railway lines in the 20th century, these ports became attractive to importers doing business in northern India because of the low freight rates. As early as 1905–1917 there was an external customs border ( Viragam Line ). This was lifted when the princes agreed to align their tariffs with the British. Bhavnagar had the right to re-export uncontrolled to British India since the agreement. In the next few years, some ports, especially Bedi and Bhavnagar, were expanded for ocean-going ships, the port fees were significantly lower than in Bombay or Karachi . The increased competitiveness led to a strong increase in the tariff income of the princes, which the British did not want to accept. From July 1927 the Viragam Line was reintroduced. A disadvantageous compromise was negotiated with some states in 1930 on the sharing of revenues. Lord Dunedin, as the independent arbitrator, ruled in January 1934 that the Prince of Nawanagar was entitled to his duties. The blockade of Bhavnagar, which had benefited from the import of cheap East African cotton for Ahmedabad's weaving mills since 1931 , continued until 1946. The same was done with Kutch, who had little trade, because it refused to apply the single rate of duty.

independence movement

Gandhi fasts "until death" in Pajkot (1939)

The Congress (INC) renounced long for agitation in the princely states. In Rajkot (with 75,000 inhabitants), unique in India, there was a legislature that was directly elected by the people since 1923. The progressive Thakur Lakhairaj died on Feb. 2, 1930. He was followed in April 1931 by his reactionary son Dharmendra Singhji. After strikes in 1936, protests against gambling and monopolies broke out in the summer of 1938. The British Cadell was used as a divan to prevent the INC from winning the election. Sardar Patel organized a Satyagraha , which ended on December 26, 1938 after negotiations and the release of all political prisoners. The agreement was broken just a month later. Gandhi then went personally to Rajkot, fasted for four days "to death" in March and managed to set up an arbitration committee that put the Thakur in the wrong. However, the Satyagraha was canceled because Gandhi assessed the activities of the Muslim League as violent. The events politicized the population of the region sustainably. In the autocratic ruled Limbdi , where the campaign of civil disobedience from 1930–1931 was massively suppressed, almost the entire merchant class ( banias ) - at least 3,000 of the 44,000 inhabitants - exodus in February 1939 when the Raja peasants incited riots against the democracy movement. In the rest of India a boycott of the country's cotton began, the last refugees did not return until mid-1943, when the state was under a British regent because of minors.

Administrative structure

The title of chief colonial official, based in Rajkot Civil Station, was from Oct. 10, 1924 to Apr. 1, 1937 "Agent to the Governor General in the States of Western India" (AGG). Then he was "Resident for the States of Western India," from November 5, 1944 then Resident at Baroda and for the States of Western India and Gujarat. Until 1937 he was responsible to the GoI - led by the Governor General - in the form of the Foreign and Political Department . After the constitutional amendment, the Political Department was subordinate to the Secretary of State, but since it was also responsible to the Viceroy - in his capacity as "Crown Representative" - ​​the difference was semantic. The division of states into classes was officially abolished, but remained in use. The states entitled to salute , which had full jurisdiction, communicated directly with the AGG, the smaller units via the locally responsible agency. These were:

• Eastern Kathiawar Agency (from 1926)
• Western Kathiawar Agency (from 1926)
• Sabar Kantha Agency (merged with Eastern Kathiawar on September 1, 1943)
• Banas Kantha Agency (formerly: Palanpur Agency).

Receivership

The two villages that made up Rai-Sankli remained under the agent's control for twenty years after Chief Gopaldas was deposed in 1921 because of his sympathies for the INC, although there were enough male descendants available, but all of them were close to the Congress. Soon after independence, Nehru reinstated Gopaldas. The ruler before Sardagarh (146 km²) was deposed and exiled in 1933 for criminal machinations, those of Tharād and Morwara , Vasavad (44 km²) in 1939, Ilol (50 km²) in 1940, Amlīyārā (= Amabilaria, 155 km² ). and Jetpur in 1945 left in office, but disempowered. Likewise, a British Prime Minister was put in front of the Maharaoh of Kutch in 1941 without the underlying customs dispute being resolved.

Territorial reform

As part of the Walker Settlement in 1807 and finally in 1858, the British had guaranteed the continued existence of the remaining princely states. In Kathiawar everyone paying tribute to Gaekwar was recognized as a "state", although their domain often only extended over a few villages. Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes , the Governor of Bombay, proposed territorial reform in 1932, which was implemented as an attachment scheme in 1943 . In the process, dwarf states were forcibly united with those entitled to salute. First of all, all states with revenues below Rs. 100,000 were eliminated, and of the 36 remaining, 22 more were to follow soon. Badhwa (18 km², 1644 inhabitants) and Ghodasar (41 km², 6722 E.) tried to take legal action to oppose the Anschluss. In July 1944, the direct subordination of the remaining countries was ended. The rapid political change up to independence prevented further major changes.

independence

In 1947 the rulers ceded their sovereign rights to the Indian Union and became constitutional masters. First a Regional Commissioner was installed in Rajkot, under the new Ministry of States . On February 16, 1948, the United State of Kathiawar (Saurashtra State) was established. In the five-member Presidium of Rulers, to which the Rajas of Nawanagar and Bhavnagar automatically belonged, the princes remained politically represented. The states of the Maha Kantha region went up in April 1948 in the Sabarkantha district of the state of Bombay.

literature

• Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison : A collection of treaties engagements, and sanads relating to India and neighboring countries. 5th edition. Calcutta 1929-33.
• Ian Copland: The British Raj and the Indian Princes. Paramountcy in Western India, 1857-1930. New Delhi 1982.
• Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency. Bombay 1877-1904, Vol. V: Kutch, Banas Kantha, Mahi Kantha; Vol. VIII: Saurashtra
• William Wilson Hunter (Ed.): Imperial Gazetteer of India. Oxford 1908-1931.
• John McLeod: Sovereignty, power, control: politics in the States of Western India, 1916-1947. Leiden et al. 1999, ISBN 90-04-11343-6 .
• Edward Lydall: Enough of Action. London 1949.
• HH The Maharajah of Patiala : The Problem of the Indian States. In: Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Vol. 7, No. 6, Nov 1928, pp. 389-406.
• Statistical Abstracts for British India… 1930-31 to 1939-40. London, April 1943, No. 78 (Cmd. 6441)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ From 584 or 638 across India. ("584:" All India States 'Peoples' Conference; Resolution No. 6: What are the Indian States; Ludhiana 1939; "638:" Government of India; Memoranda on the Indian States 1935; 1936)
2. ^ John R. Wood: Rajkot: Indian Nationalism in the Princely Context. In: Robin Jeffery: People, Princes and Paramount Power. New Delhi 1987, pp. 435-449.
3. ^ List of incumbents in McLeod (1999), app. II
4. ↑ The decision of the Judicial Commissioner RWH Davies on Dec. 6, 1943 that the territorial reform was unconstitutional until the parliament in Westminster passed a corresponding law had no practical effect. The India (Attachment of States) Act , introduced on February 8, came into force on March 21, 1944. The still uncooperative Herr von Badhwa was deposed in March 1946. (McLeod (1999), pp. 143 f., 156)
5. ↑ In this edition, the colonial rulers deleted the references to Baroda's sovereignty over certain dwarf states, which were disadvantageous for them. (McLeod (1999), p. 123, footnote 19)