Cripps Mission from the Marquess of Linlithgow to Mr. Amery
May 18, 1942

Legal Document No 75

(Extract)

First of all for a word about the States. I fear that Cripps' comment on the paramountcy issue is of a piece with certain other not very carefully considered statements which he made (so far I can see without any authority from the Cabinet and certainly without consultation with me); and we shall have to regard our hands as free in regard to this, for the issue is one of fundamental importance. I am myself quite unconvinced by Cripps' arguments, but, apart from that, this is not the sort of major issue which can properly be given away by any individual Cabinet Minister, or even by the Cabinet as a whole without a very close investigation. You may be perfect!; certain that you are right in thinking that few, if any, of the Princes, even at the price of escaping from paramountcy, would dream of coming into a union in which their domestic affairs would be subject to control or interference by an Indian Government more particularly an Indian Government to which as you say. 'local agitators in their States" would have pretty easy access.

I am not much impressed either by the suggestion that the States might form a federation or dominion of their own and I doubt if Congress or the Muslim League would take any such proposal too seriously. It is a good debating suggestion but I would not treat it more seriously than that, and the practical difficulties presented by the existence of these minor States and the problem of adjusting relations between a "State Dominion", a Dominion of British India, and such units as might elect, whether in British India or in the States to remain outside either dominion would be not a very easy one.