Last modified: 2024-05-11 by ian macdonald
Keywords: india | princely states |
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Below, the states are ordered alphabetically, including those for which the number of guns is unknown.
The main source is A. Filcher (1984), Drapeaux et Armoiries des Etats princiers de l'Empire des Indies (Flags and Arms of the Princely States of the Empire of the Indies), Dreux, 1984, Neubecker (1992), Ziggioto (1998)
Other sources of information on the Indian princely states include:
Charles Allen and Sharada
Dwivedi
Lives of the Indian Princes
London: Century
Publishing, 1984
ISBN 0-7126-0910-5
or, if you crave a set of more
"academic" things:
Robin Jeffrey, ed.
People:
Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian
Princely States
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978
ISBN ???
19-560886-0
When it comes out, the volume on the Princes by Barbara Ramusack in the New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge Univ. Press, sometime "soon"?) will be good.
As a more general background, the choices are mostly all bad. The whole "Dissipate Maharaja" genre is dominant and useless (unless you want unfounded tales of sex and degradation, but we learn little about the states).
Ed Haynes, 3 April 1996, 9 July 1996
Other sources are:
http://www.indianrajputs.com/list/
http://www.royalark.net/India/salute.htm
https://sites.google.com/site/theprincelystates/
https://www.facebook.com/bharatiyariyasat/?ref=page_internal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_princely_states_of_British_India_(alphabetical)
https://cbkwgl.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/list-of-princely-states-of-india/
http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/List_of_princely_states_of_India_(alphabetical)
http://dimplecoins1.blogspot.com/2011/09/alphabetical-list-of-former-british.html
http://www.almanach.be/search/i/index.htm
https://www.worldstatesmen.org/India_princes_A-J.html
And several
books I have in PDF
"A Gazetteer of the Territories under the Government of the
East India Company and of the Native States on the Continent of India" by Edward
Thornton Esq. [1858]
"An Historical Sketch of the Native States of India
in Subsidiary Alliance with the British Government" by Colonel G.B. Malleson
C.S.I. [1875]
"Ancient and Modern India" by W. Cooke Taylor L.L.D. and
revised Third Edition by P.J. MacKenna Esq. [1857]
"Geography or First
Division of The English Cyclopaedia" Volume III by Charles Knight [1867]
"Memorandum on the Census of British India of 1871-1872" [1875]
"Report
on the Census of British Burma taken in August 1872" [1875]
"The British
Colonies - British India" by R. Montgomery Martin Esq. [no year is given, but it
is after 1853]
"The Modern History of the Indian Chies, Rajas, Zamindars
etc. - Native States" by Loke Nath Ghose [1879]
"The Native Chiefs and
their States in 1877" by G.R. Aberigh-MacKay [1878]
The books are not
flags or heraldry collections, but I used them for better understanding the
system and for historical or political facts.
Vanja Poposki, 29
October 2020
Definitions of terms:
JAGIR
A jagir was technically a feudal
life estate, as the grant reverted to the state upon the jagirdar's death.
However, in practice, jagirs became hereditary to the male lineal heir of the
jagirdar. The family was thus the de facto ruler of the territory, earned income
from part of the tax revenues and delivered the rest to the treasury of the
state during the Islamic rule period, and later in parts of India that came
under Afghan, Sikh and Rajput rulers. The jagirdar did not act alone, but
appointed administrative layers for revenue collection.
This feudal system
of land ownership is referred to as the jagirdar system. The system was
introduced by the Sultans of Delhi from the 13th century onwards, was later
adopted by the Mughal Empire, and continued under the British East India
Company.
Some Hindu jagirdars were converted into Muslim vassal states under
Mughal imperial sway, such as the Nawwabs of Kurnool. Most princely states of
India during the colonial British Raj era were jagirdars. Shortly following
independence from the British Crown in 1947, the jagirdar system was abolished
by the Indian Government in 1951.
The Supreme Court of India used the
following definition of jagir in a 15 April 1955 judgment:
The word 'jagir'
connoted originally grants made by Rajput Rulers to their clansmen for military
services rendered or to be rendered. Later on grants made for religious and
charitable purposes and even to non-Rajputs were called jagirs, and both in its
popular sense and legislative practice, the word jagir came to be used as
connoting all grants which conferred on the grantees rights in respect of land
revenue, and that is the sense in which the word jagir should be construed in
Article 31-A.
THIKANA
The territory of land under the control of a
Thakur was called thikana. Thakur is a historical feudal title of the Indian
subcontinent. It is also used as a surname in the present times. The female
variant of the title is Thakurani or Thakurain, also used to describe the wife
of a Thakur. the title Thakur was used to refer to "a man of intermediate but
mid–level caste, usually implying a landowning caste". Wadley further notes that
Thakur was viewed as a "more modest" title in comparison to Raja (King). Some
academics have suggested that Thakur was merely a title and not an office
whereby a holder was entitled to wield some power in the state". However, some
other academics have noted that this title had been used by "petty chiefs" in
the western areas of Himachal Pradesh.
The title was used by rulers of
several princely states, Some Thakurs were recognised with hereditary 9-gun
salutes.
ZAMINDARI
A zamindar, zomindar, zomidar, or jomidar, was
an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a state who accepted the suzerainty of
the Emperor of Hindustan. The term means land owner in Persian. Typically
hereditary, zamindars held enormous tracts of land and control over their
peasants, from whom they reserved the right to collect tax on behalf of imperial
courts or for military purposes.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the
advent of British imperialism, many wealthy and influential zamindars were
bestowed with princely and royal titles such as Maharaja (Great King), Raja
(King) and Nawab.
During the Mughal Empire, zamindars belonged to the
nobility and formed the ruling class. Under British Colonial rule, the permanent
settlement consolidated what became known as the zamindari system. The British
rewarded supportive zamindars by recognising them as princes. Many of the
region's princely states were pre-colonial zamindar holdings elevated to a
greater protocol. However, the British also reduced the land holdings of many
pre-colonial princely states and chieftaincy, demoting their status to a
zamindar from previously higher ranks of nobility.
The system was abolished
during land reforms in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1950, India in 1951 and
West Pakistan in 1959.
Unlike the autonomous or frontier chiefs, the
hereditary status of the zamindar class was circumscribed by the Mughals, and
the heir depended to a certain extent on the pleasure of the sovereign. Heirs
were set by descent or a times even adoption by religious laws. Under the
British Empire, the zamindars were to be subordinate to the crown and not act as
hereditary lords, but at times family politics was at the heart of naming an
heir. At times, a cousin could be named an heir with closer family relatives
present; a lawfully wedded wife could inherit the zamindari if the ruling
zamindar named her as an heir.
Valentin Poposki, 1 November 2020