Political integration of India Political integration of India At the time of Indian independence in 1947, India was divided into two sets of territories, one under direct British rule, and the other under the suzerainty of the British Crown, with control over their internal affairs remaining in the hands of their hereditary rulers. The latter included 554 princely states, having different types of revenue sharing arrangements with the British, often depending on their size, population and local conditions. In addition, there were several colonial enclaves controlled by France and Portugal. The political integration of these territories into India was a declared objective of the
Colonial India and valuable parts of the British Empire and thus became known as "the jewel in the British crown". According to modern data, the Mughal Empire was a very wealthy country with many independent princely states therefore it is possible that the country's governance system was outsourced to the Europeans. Long after the decline of the Roman Empire's sea-borne trade with India, the Portuguese were the next Europeans to sail there for the purpose of trade, first arriving by ship in May 1498. The closing of the traditional trade routes in western Asia by the Ottoman Empire, and rivalry with the