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Description of  Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia (The History and Theory of International Law)

What constitutes a sovereign state in the international legal sphere? This question has been central to international law for centuries. Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia provides a compelling exploration of the history of sovereignty through an analysis of the jurisdictional politics involving a specific set of historical legal entities. Governed by local rulers, the princely states of colonial South Asia were subject to British paramountcy whilst remaining legally distinct from directly ruled British India. Their legal status and the extent of their rights remained the subject of feverish debates through the entirety of British colonial rule. This book traces the ways in which the language of sovereignty shaped the discourse surrounding the legal status of the princely states to illustrate how the doctrine of sovereignty came to structure political imagination in colonial South Asia and the framework of the modern Indian state. Opening with a survey of the place of the princely states in the colonial structures of South Asia, Read more