Unpickled

Leather-tough old Vallabhbhai Patel, Minister in Charge of States Affairs, last week saw a chance to get rid of some of the princely states that pimple India. In little Nilgiri, near the east coast, Hindu Congress Party members who live in towns on the plains have been trying to get rid of their maharaja and join the Dominion. But most of his subjects are broad-faced, pug-nosed aborigines, who fled to the eastern hills nearly 40 centuries ago when Aryans invaded India. These near-naked tribesmen came down from the hills on the warpath (at the maharaja's prompting, said Congress supporters).

They swarmed about isolated Hindu towns, brandishing the four-foot bamboo bows and bamboo arrows, winged with vulture feathers, which they still use for hunting and war. The townsmen called for help. Patel ordered Orissa Province to take over the administration of Nilgiri. Police armed with rifles marched in from Orissa and scattered the aborigines. Then Patel took a train to Cuttack, capital of Orissa.

There he summoned the rulers of some two dozen eastern states who had so far not joined India. All but one (the tribesman ruler of Ranpur) are Hindus; their states are peopled largely by the aborigines. Patel ordered the princes to surrender all their powers. In return they could keep their titles, personal property, and get a tax-free pension (7 1/2 to 15% of their states' incomes). More than a dozen, in a midnight ceremony, signed Patel's terms. Next morning, Patel got on a train for Nagpur, capital of the Central Provinces. But Patel's secretary did not turn up. The train waited an hour. A search party sent by Patel found the secretary signing up the remaining maharajas who had balked the night before.

Next day in Nagpur, Patel got reluctant signatures from a dozen more maharajas. He returned to Delhi from his whirlwind trip within 96 hours from the time he set out, with eight million more people and 56,000 more square miles of territory (about the size of Illinois) for India.

The States Ministry hinted that about 340 other rulers would soon be converted into remittance men. "There are in India," said Patel ominously, "about 500 small states*--more than the total number of independent states in the world. Former alien rulers of our land preserved them like pickles, but now paramountcy has gone and India has become free." When one ruler asked whether India would guarantee that his new pension would be permanent, Patel answered, "Nobody can provide for all times."

*Of the 525 remaining princely states in India, fewer than 50 have more than half a million people. All the princely states except big Hyderabad (16,000,000) have surrendered control of their defense, communications and transport to the central government.

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