India has entered a phase where so-called injustice is being set right: after hue and cry about Sardar Vallbhbhai Patel not being made the Prime Minister of India now is the turn to call his Secretary V. P. Menon “an unsung hero” of the Integration of the Princely States! The controversy about Nehru’s (Krishna) Menon versus Patel’s (V. P.) Menon is being raised. No doubt, the strongest Indian leader Sardar Patel and the Secretary of the States Ministry worked as a team for the Integration of the Indian States but to create the impression “the Sardar as the engine and Menon the fuel of unified India” is surely insulting the Iron Man of India by Menon’s great granddaughter Narayani Basu who wrote “VP Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India”. Menon rose from a railway stoker and clerk to the Constitutional Advisor to the British Viceroy of India but barrister Sardar Patel was not just an engine without fuel!
In February 1947, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Vice President of the Interim Government, had assured the Negotiating Committee of the Chamber of Princes that neither the monarchical form of government, nor the integrity of the States, would be touched. Lord Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy in India, through his declaration of 3 June 1947 made it clear to the Princely States: “Even if the rulers acceded on three subjects of defence, foreign affairs and communications, their internal autonomy in other matters remained unaffected. The Sardar, the Home Member, had repeated this guarantee in his statement of 5 July and on 25 July 1947, Mountbatten in his speech to the Chamber of Princes reiterated the assurance. The States Ministry headed by Sardar Patel followed the policy of integration on the basis of the above assurances.
On 12 October 1949, Sardar Patel persuaded the Constituent Assembly to include Articles 291 and 362 in the Constitution to guarantee the payment of Privy Purses and also preserve the personal rights, privileges and dignities of the rulers. His brilliant speech bears clear testimony to his statesmanship and deserves to be carefully read: “The privy purse settlements are, therefore, in the nature of consideration for the surrender by the rulers of all their ruling powers and also for the dissolution of the States as separate units … Need we cavil then at the small – I purposely use the word small – price we have paid for the bloodless revolution which has affected the destinies of millions of our people? … “The capacity for mischief and trouble on the part of the rulers if the settlement with them would not have been reached on a negotiated basis was far greater than could be imagined at this stage.”
Patel stated further: “Let us do justice to them; let us place ourselves in their position and then assess the value of their sacrifice. The rulers have now discharged their part of the obligations by transferring all ruling powers by agreeing to the integration of their States. The main part of our obligation under these agreements is to ensure that the guarantee given by us in respect of privy purses are fully implemented. Our failure to do so would be a breach of faith and seriously prejudice the stabilization of the new order.”
“The grant of privy purses to the rulers was a sort of quid pro quo for the surrender by them of all their ruling powers and for the dissolution of their States,” records V. P. Menon, the Secretary of the States Ministry in “Integration of the Indian States” and adds: “Apart from the privy purses, we permitted them to retain certain private properties and guaranteed them the personal rights, privileges and dignities which they had hitherto been enjoying. We believed that these concessions would, in due course, enable the rulers and their successors to adjust themselves to the new social and economic pattern.”
“We evolved what came to be known as the ‘Eastern States formula’, under which the ruler of a State with an average annual revenue of Rs. 15 lakh would get an annual privy purse of Rs. 1,30,00. Under the Deccan States formula, he would have got Rs.1,62,500 or nearly 25 per cent more. Under the Political Department’s formula, the figure would have been Rs.3,00,000. It may be mentioned here that out of 554 States, over 450 had an annual revenue of less than Rs.15 lakh. Saurashtra was the only instance in which we departed from the Eastern States formula and gave a higher rate of privy purse.”
In the eleven cases the States Ministry departed from the ceiling of Rs. 10 lakh. They are: Gwalior (Rs.25 lakh), Indore (Rs.15 lakh), Patiala (Rs. 17 lakh), Baroda (Rs. 26.5 lakh), Jaipur (Rs. 18 lakh), Jodhpur (Rs. 17.5 lakh), Bikaner (Rs. 17 lakh),Travancore (Rs. 18 lakh), Bhopal (Rs. 11 lakh), Mysore (Rs. 26 lakh) and Hyderabad (Rs. 50 lakh in Hyderabad currency which works out to Rs. 43 lakh in Indian currency). Excluding these eleven, there were 91 rulers who drew a privy purse of Rs.1 lakh and above. Of these, 47 drew above Rs.1 lakh but below Rs. 2 lakh, 31 drew above Rs. 2 lakh but below Rs. 5 lakh, and 13 drew between Rs.1 lakh and Rs.50,000 per annum. The remaining 396 rulers drew below Rs.50,000 per annum. For instance, there was the ruler of Katodia in Saurashtra, who drew Rs.192 per annum while the rulers of the twenty-two non-salute States of Vindhya Pradesh drew an average monthly privy purse of Rs.700.The total of the Privy purses, according to the White Paper laid before the Parliament, amounts to Rs. 580 lakh !
V. P. Menon estimates a rough calculation of the total amount thus spent would be in the region of Rs. 20 crore a year. He gives an interesting description of the Nizam of Hyderabad: “..he had surrendered in 1949, at the instance of the States Ministry, his personal estates yielding an annual net revenue of Rs.124 lakh, in return for a compensation of Rs. 25 lakh per annum during his life-time. He had agreed to give an annual loan of Rs. 50 lakh for a limited period towards the Tumgabhadra project. Besides this, he invested over Rs. 40 crore from his private resources in government securities and shares. He has also formed a trust of his jewellery. The proceeds of any jewellery which may be sold will also be invested mainly in Government securities. Recently the Nizam has created a trust of over Rs. 5 crore known as the ‘Nizam’s Charitable Trust’. Charities are not confined to Hyderabad but extend without distinction of caste or creed to whole of India.”
After Patel’s death, there were repeated demands to abolish the Privy Purses, but the Prime Minister Pandit Nehru refused to do so.
Next Column: Breach of Faith: Abolition of Privy Purses
Photo Line:
Sardar Patel and V. P. Menon with Maharaja of Kochin
