ABSTRACT
In 1947, just before and after the partition of India, thousands of people made migration choices that did not involve flight to ‘the other dominion’, choices that revealed a deep lack of trust in both India and Pakistan. They escaped to princely states, seeking the protection of rajas, raisahebs, jamsahebs, nizams and nawabs. Just when the Constituent Assemblies of the new republics were debating the terms of national citizenship, their would-be citizens fled in search of subjecthood. This essay attempts to piece together this little-known history from fragmentary and scattered sources. It first discusses the patterns of migration to give a sense of their scope and scale. Next, it teases out some of the hopes and expectations that animated the migrants, and princes’ responses to them. Finally, it touches briefly upon Gandhi’s engagement with these migrants and the princes whose shelter they sought. The very fact that many people of the subcontinent sought alternatives to republican citizenship demands our attention. As things turned out, these aspirations for post-imperial subjecthood failed. Nonetheless, they are deeply significant.
