The accession of Junagadh, 1947–48

Colonial sovereignty, state violence and post-independence India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8961001
AutoresRakesh Ankit (0000-0001-7772-5606, Jindal Global University, Haryana, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen53
Número3
Páginas371-404
Fecha de publicación2016-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0019464616651167
OpenAlexW2492604845
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas18

By revisiting the events from July 1947 to February 1948 that comprised the accession of the princely state of Junagadh to India, this article gives an insight into the newly independent Dominion’s ‘mobilisation of violence’ in re-fashioning its sovereignty and authority. In doing so, it adds to the growing historical literature on state formation in India that argues that multiple crises of the period 1947–49—post-partition violence in Punjab and Delhi, rebellion, accession and war in Kashmir and the so-called ‘police-action’ in Hyderabad—far from being aberrations to the emerging Indian nation-state were, instead, affairs through which its new sovereignty evolved. The mobilisation of Indian defence forces in the lead up to the accession of Junagadh in November 1947 and the management of violence directed at Junagadh’s Muslims afterwards are yet another instance of the forcible incorporation of Indian princely states and Indian Muslims into the reconstructed post-colonial state. Present in this matrix were also the ‘sub-states’ within Junagadh and the attendant questions of their autonomy, an instrumentalist alarmism about popular will and unrest and a hastily conducted referendum. These aspects of this contested accession have remained overshadowed in the historical record and are here revised to provide an alternative narrative

Accession · Ancient history · Colonial rule · Colonialism · Dominion · Economic history · Independence (probability theory · Partition (number theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · History · Law · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora