ABSTRACT
On 2nd February 1947 His Majesty’s Government announced its intention of transferring power to Indian hands by June 1948, whether a constitution had been agreed or not. The frontiers of India and Pakistan were fixed in the Act on a some-what rough-and-ready basis, but provision was made for the appointment of a boundary commission to demarcate them exactly. Once the paramount power had gone, either the states had to become integral parts of the Indian or Pakistan Unions or else the sub-continent must again become a congeries of mutually suspicious and perhaps hostile states. The transfer of power, the might with which Britain defended the Indian states was based on and largely financed by British India. The very basis of this power was gone and it was unthinkable that Britain should maintain an army in princely India to defend the princes against the Indian Union.
