Praja Mandals and the Integration of Rajasthan: Seven Stages

Rajasthan did not exist as a single political unit before 1948. The region, then called Rajputana, was a patchwork of 19 princely states, three chiefships (Lava, Kushalgarh and Neemrana) and the British-administered territory of Ajmer-Merwara, all watched over by the Rajputana Agency with its headquarters at Mount Abu. Two stories made the modern state. The first is the Praja Mandal movement, in which the subjects of these states demanded civil liberties and responsible government. The second is the integration of 1948 to 1956, in which the states were merged in seven stages. Examiners treat the two as one chapter, so the founders, the years and the stage-wise capitals have to be learnt together.

Why Praja Mandals were formed

The Indian National Congress worked in British India and not inside the princely states, so the people of the states built bodies of their own. The All India States Peoples Conference, founded in 1927 at Bombay, gave them a common platform, and from the early 1930s a Praja Mandal, literally a council of the people, was set up in state after state. Their first demands were constitutional rather than revolutionary: an end to begar and lag-bag, which were forced labour and arbitrary levies, lower land revenue, freedom of the press and of association, and a legislature with elected members. The Congress session at Haripura in 1938 declared that complete independence included the princely states but asked their people to fight their own battle. The Tripuri session of 1939 allowed the Congress to assist them directly, and from that year the Praja Mandals became openly political.

The main Praja Mandals and their leaders

Satyagrahas and sacrifices

The movement was not only petitions. The Jaipur Praja Mandal was declared unlawful and answered with a satyagraha in 1939 led by Hiralal Shastri. In Marwar the Praja Mandal fought the tenancy law and the state ban on its meetings; Balmukund Bissa, one of its workers, died in Jodhpur jail in June 1942 after a hunger strike, and is remembered as Marwar's martyr. The Mewar Praja Mandal under Manikya Lal Verma answered the Quit India call of 1942 in Udaipur. Earlier peasant struggles had already trained the region in organised protest, the Bijolia and Begun movements of Mewar being the best known. By 1947 almost every state in Rajputana had a Praja Mandal able to put a popular ministry in place.

How Rajasthan was integrated, stage by stage

After 15 August 1947 the States Department under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, with V. P. Menon as its secretary, obtained the Instrument of Accession from each ruler and then merged the small states into viable units. In Rajputana this took seven stages.

The name Matsya Union was suggested by K. M. Munshi after the ancient Matsya territory, and its Rajpramukh was the Maharaja of Dholpur with Shobha Ram Kumawat as Prime Minister. Gokul Lal Asawa headed the Rajasthan Union at Kota and Manikya Lal Verma the United State of Rajasthan at Udaipur. Greater Rajasthan was inaugurated by Sardar Patel on 30 March 1949, which is why 30 March is kept as Rajasthan Day; Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur became Rajpramukh, the Maharana of Udaipur was made Maharajpramukh, and Hiralal Shastri became the first head of its government.

After the reorganisation of 1956

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 brought Ajmer-Merwara, the Abu Road tehsil from Bombay state and the Sunel Tappa area into Rajasthan, while the Sironj tehsil of Kota went to Madhya Pradesh. The hereditary post of Rajpramukh was abolished and a Governor appointed by the President took its place, Gurmukh Nihal Singh being the first. Rajasthan then took the shape and the boundaries it has today, and the state became the largest in India by area.