Very true about contracts and private property rights, especially when it comes to those of its own citizens. This brings me to another question on whether you can consider the jagirs of erstwhile kings as their personal properties – they were most certainly developed / built / bought using taxes they collected from their subjects or just snatched away.

That was a clever thing for KNS to do. I think it’s harder for Mr Ali to change his first name to “Prince of Arcot”. As for Maharaja Nitin Pai, well, that would be just the thing to do when I consider an alternate career as a cook, priest or yoga master. Needless to say, I have no such plans at this time.

In his book, VP Menon states that the privy purses were guaranteed to the rulers for life. As for their successors, it varies. But generally it was that these would be decided by governments at the time, and in no case would exceed Rs 10 lakhs per year. (Menon estimates that the total privy purse bill at that time amounted to Rs 20 crores a year. No adjustment for inflation. But excluding the richest states of Mysore and Hyderabad, the Indian Union had already received about Rs 77 crores when the cash balances of the rulers was transferred to the state governments).

As for the fair bargain—well, a contract is a contract. If the terms under which the princes had acceded were so, then the Indian republic had to keep its side of the bargain. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Indian republic have consistently shown their contempt for private property rights and sanctity of contracts.

If the latter is true and it was promised that all future generations of the Indian population would continue to pay future generations of ‘princes’ for a peaceful integration and transition to democracy effected between 1947-50, I wonder if it would have been a fair bargain.

And I wonder if the state needs to keep a bargain (even if it is in the constitution) if it is considered unfair in the long run. I wonder if the privy purses, even if they were not abolished in 1971, would have gone unchallenged in the courts till now.

An article in The Hindu also says that the status is protected by the Constitution. I am looking for the exact provision that does so. A free-text search in the Constitution doesn’t return any results for “arcot”.

An aside about Kunwar Natwar Singh.. apparently he changed his name legally so that “Kunwar” became his legal first name.. and nobody had any choice but to call him KNS rather than Mr. NS. But that doesn’t mean that his title of crown prince was recognized.

Time for you to become Maharaja Nitin Pai?