GAME OF THRONES

Manu S. Pillai throws light on the oft-ignored histories of India’s princely states in False Allies

- Amar Farooqul

FALSE ALLIES

India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma

by Manu S. Pillai JUGGERNAUT

HISTORIES OF BRITISH rule in India, especially textbooks, often focus on areas which were directly administered—presidencies and provinces—ignoring the huge number of princely or ‘native’ states that were ruled indirectly. This represents a major absence as the over 550 states which constituted princely India, together acc­ounted for nearly two­fifths of the territory of the Indian empire. Until quite recently, published research on princely states was woefully inadequate. However, there is now a sizeable body of scholarly studies on the sub­ject, though these are mostly monographs or articles of a specialised nature. Manu S. Pillai has produced an acc­essible and well­researched book largely based on this literature to tell us the story of these political entities.

Given the sheer number, as well as the enormous diversity of states in terms of size, geography and histories of their respective relation­ ships with the British, it is no easy task to pen an account that would be sufficiently comprehensive to give the reader a good idea about this diversity and, at the same time, rich in the kind of fascinating detail which makes for an absorbing nar­rative. Pillai performs this feat adroitly, selecting five princely states: Travancore, Baroda, Mysore, Pudukkot­tai and, somewhat unexpect­edly, Mewar, which has not received much attention in the context of the modern period. What connects them is the oeuvre of Ravi Varma.