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 surplus Colonial surplus A colonial surplus is a way of measuring the effects of the relationship between colony and metropolis. A colony, in the sense of a region being ruled by a foreign overseas power, was in a different position from that of an independent country. As Maddison remarked some time ago of India, ‘The major burden of foreign rule arose from the fact that the British raj was a regime of expatriates.’ Such expatriates generate a flow of funds out of the colony. Something similar would have occurred in Latin America during the post-Spanish period of ‘informal rule’ by British