Cripps Mission 
Letter from the Secretary to the Crown Representative to the India Office
June 25, 1942

Legal Document No 77

2. His Highness's letter is carefully documented and it will be seen that it is signed by him in Lois capacity as Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes and is described in the final sentence as an official letter. It concludes with a specific request that "an authoritative and early announcement" should be made by His Majesty s Government in order "to eliminate the Princes" serious concern and misgivings on these matters.
3. His Excellency the Crown Representative has little doubt that such concern and misgivings are in fact genuinely entertained by the great majority of Indian Princes, particularly by the more conservative among then1, and is not inclined to attach any great importance to such public declarations in the opposite sense as have been made by their Highnesses of Kashmir and Indore. The Princes may to some extent derive comfort and re-assurance from the generous terms in which His Majesty has referred in his message to India published on the 13th June 194n to "their traditions of loyalty and attachment to his Throne" and to their unstinting offers of men and money and personal services for the war. But they are not likely to be reassured by a reference to the fact that Sir Stafford Cripps' offer was in terms withdrawn when the negotiations broke down. The Princes probably feel that should negotiations be resumed in the event of the great political parties in British India showing a more responsive attitude, the Cripps declaration would certainly from the starting point of such negotiations and would be regarded as the minimum measure of concession and advance open to discussion.
4. In particular, perplexity is expressed in pare II (a) of the Chancellor's letter with regard to the statement made by the Lord Privy Seal in the house of commons to the effect that he was "certain that this House would wish the British Administration in India to do all it can to encourage and expedite the development of suitable representative institutions in all Indian States." It is impossible to reconcile this statement with the earlier declaration of policy of His Majesty's Government made m the form of replies to questions asked in Parliament in 1938, and referred to in His Excellency the Crown Representatives address to the Chamber of Princes in 1939. On the first occasion, on  1st February 1938, the Under Secretary of State replied that "It is not the policy of the Paramount Power in ordinary circumstances to intervene ii, the internal administration of full powered States." This was confirmed on the 16th December of the same year when the reply given to Sir John Wardlaw-Milne was that "His Majesty's Government have no intention of bringing any form of pressure to bear upon Rulers to initiate constitutional changes. It rests with the Rulers themselves to decide what form of Government they should adopt in the diverse conditions of Indian States".
5. There thus exists a direct discrepancy in a matter of cardinal importance, which, in His Excellency's opinion, requires elucidation at the earliest possible opportunity, since, if the view expressed by the Lord Privy Seal is to be interpreted as the considered view of His Majesty's Government as now constituted, our existing policy in regard to constitutional reforms in States stands in need of radical revision.
6. I am also to invite particular attention to paragraph III (d) of the Chancellor's letter which contains a brief and surprisingly restrained reference to what is perhaps the most legitimate of all the objections which the Princes could raise to the draft declaration, namely, that by acceding to the new Union they would be committed to a possible...perhaps even probable severance of their cherished relations with the British Crown. His Highness has not mentioned the obvious remedy, i. e. that in joining the, Union, the States should be allowed to reserve the right to secede from it if at any time the Union were to decide to leave the British Commonwealth of Nations. His Excellency believes that, in the absence of such a provision, few if any, of the great States would join the Union.