‘Princestan’ is many pages of revelations: Jairam Ramesh

By Sukant Deepak New Delhi, Feb 16 : Stressing that author and journalist Sandeep Bamzais recently released book ‘Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India manages to unearth multiple facets of the period between 1945 and 1947, Congress MP and writer Jairam Ramesh said that though history tells us that the British transferred power to India and Pakistan, there was also a third party to which the British were toying with the idea of transferring power to.
“Most of our historical discussions and discourses tend to neglect Princestan. We focus only on the transfer of power to India and Pakistan. Bamzai has not only brought together all the material on Princestan but also tells his readers a fascinating tale of how three key personalities — Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten, helped by V.P. Menon played a decisive role in ensuring that India did not get Balkanized, and the partition that took place was only into two dominions — India and Pakistan.” Published by Rupa Publications, the book, which sheds light on a plan devised by some powerful princes to not join either India or Pakistan in run-up to independence, was discussed during a launch event organised by Oxford Bookstores on Monday.
Recalling that the idea of writing the book came to him while researching for the first book of the trilogy, ‘Deconstructing the Accession: Bonfire of Kashmiriyat’, when he came across rare material bequeathed to him by his grandfather, who was the OSD to the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the author said, “It was a treasure trove. I was to later discover that most of it was not even in the available at National Archives or the Nehru Museum.
“In my possession are first copies of all documents in the form of letters and correspondences. It made all sense to build it into a bigger book, about all the ambition of 565 princely states. Of course, being a working journalist, snatching time to sit down and write a book is not easy. However, in 2015, during a sabbatical, I got down to work on this book. ORF was kind enough to give me a fellowship for that period.” Though a student of economics and not history, the author immersed himself in the documents, and researched at the Nehru Museum and National Archives. Adding that research also involves corroborating the material in hand, Bamzai says that it is important to interpret history in light of new material and findings.