INDIA: On Ceasing to Be

An incongruous visitor sat uncomfortably in a straight-backed chair among the followers gathered at Mohandas Gandhi's evening prayers last week. What Gandhi said made His Highness of Faridkot, ruler of 200,000 in the Punjab, more uncomfortable.

Like the other rulers of India's 562 Princely States, Faridkot will face sudden political loneliness when the British withdraw late this summer. The princes have to decide quickly whether to throw their lot with one of the new Indian nations or try to go it alone. Faridkot, together with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharaja of Travancore, had declared he wished to retain his...

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