1. Letter from the Superintendent, Orissa Tributary Mahals to the Political Secretary, Government of Bengal, May 15, 1882, India Office Records (hereafter IOR) /P/2034, Proceedings of the Government of Bengal in the Political Department, June 1883, no. 26. In this article, I use material from the IOR, Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections, British Library, London; European Manuscripts (hereafter Mss Eur), Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collections, British Library, London; and the National Archives of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi.

2. These statistics exclude Burma and Ceylon. The exact number of princely states varied over time and the very category of “princely state” remained contested. See Copland, Ian, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ramusack, Barbara, The Indian Princes and their States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 2Google Scholar.

3. British India was directly administered by the British crown through the viceroy and governor-general, who was the executive head of the government of India and subject to the control of Parliament through the secretary of state for India, a member of the British cabinet.

4. I use the term “British government” to refer to various levels of British authority with respect to South Asia, including the crown, the secretary of state for India, the India Office in London, the government of India, the governments of various British Indian provinces, and British political officers in the princely states.

5. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 53. For analyses of the early development and working of this system, see Panikkar, K. N., British Diplomacy in North India: A Study of the Delhi Residency, 1803–1857 (New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1968)Google Scholar; Fisher, Michael H., Indirect Rule in India: Residents and the Residency System, 1764–1858 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Fisher, Michael H., “Diplomacy in India, 1526–1858,” in Britain's Oceanic Empire: Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550–1850, ed. Bowen, H. V., Mancke, Elizabeth, and Reid, John G. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 249–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Letter from the maharaja of Keonjhar to the Superintendent, Orissa Tributary Mahals, January 4, 1882, IOR/P/2034, Proceedings of the Government of Bengal in the Political Department, June 1883, no. 26.

7. For a discussion of the economic significance of elephants, see Mandala, Vijaya Ramadas, “The Raj and the Paradoxes of Wildlife Conservation: British Attitudes and Expediencies,” The Historical Journal 58 (2015): 101–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. The British Empire was an assemblage of disparate legal entities over which the British exercised different levels of sovereign power. By the early twentieth century, when the empire reached its greatest extent, these territories included dominions, colonies, protectorates, protected states, and mandates. For an overview of the differences in the legal positions of these entities, see Keith, Arthur Berriedale, The Governments of the British Empire (London: Macmillan and Co., 1935)Google Scholar.

9. Relying on the idea of linguistic indeterminacy, American legal realists have long argued that law is mutable, a product of human will, and a means to achieve social goals. See the overview in Collins, Hugh, “Law as Politics: Progressive American Perspectives,” in Introduction to Jurisprudence and Legal Theory: Commentary and Materials, ed. Penner, James, Schiff, David, and Nobles, Richard (London: LexisNexis Butterworths, 2002), 279–333Google Scholar.

10. In her pioneering work on jurisdictional disputes in legally diverse empires, Lauren Benton argues that plural legal orders in which individual litigants attempted to take advantage of imperial fragmentation gave way in the nineteenth century to a state-dominated order, as engagement with the state's legal institutions reinforced the authority of the colonial state itself. See Benton, Lauren, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 148–49Google Scholar.

11. Lauren Benton provides an overview of the struggles of British officials to classify the princely states by analyzing a late nineteenth-century crisis in the state of Baroda. See Benton, Lauren, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions: The Problem of Quasi-Sovereignty, 1870–1900,” Law and History Review 26 (2008): 595–619CrossRefGoogle Scholar. She also discusses these endeavors, linking them with the discourse about the backwardness of hill regions, in Benton, Lauren, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 222–78Google Scholar. Eric Lewis Beverley traces jurisdictional conflicts along the border between the state of Hyderabad and Bombay in British India, as well as Hyderabadi attempts to assert sovereignty over urban spaces. See Beverley, Eric Lewis, Hyderabad, British India, and the World: Muslim Networks and Minor Sovereignty, c. 1850–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 186–255CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Beyond the princely states, there is also work on the disputes generated by the lumpiness of sovereignty in the frontier regions of British India. See Bergmann, Christoph, “Confluent Territories and Overlapping Sovereignties: Britain's Nineteenth-Century Indian Empire in the Kumaon Himalaya,” Journal of Historical Geography 51 (2016): 88–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ray, Reeju, “Interrupted Sovereignties in the North East Frontier of British India, 1787–1870,” Modern Asian Studies 53 (2019): 606–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. In an early influential study, Nicholas Dirks argued that British colonialism preserved only the appearance of the precolonial regime, while there was a total collapse of earlier political structures and processes. The crown, he contended, was “hollow,” and the princely states were reduced to “theatre states” obsessed with the symbols of past glory. See Dirks, Nicholas, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar. For a more recent study making a similar argument, see Bhukya, Bhangya, “The Subordination of the Sovereigns: Colonialism and the Gond Rajas in Central India, 1818–1948,” Modern Asian Studies 47 (2013): 288–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other histories have more complicated notions of indigenous agency, the state, and sovereignty. Some scholars argue that the princely states provided the quintessential example of indigenous resistance to colonialism. See Singh, Hira, Colonial Hegemony and Popular Resistance: Princes, Peasants, and Paramount Power (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998)Google Scholar. Another stream of scholarship focuses on the construction of “alternative modernities” in the princely states through the centralization of power, and includes the attempts of several states to maneuver the partial autonomy they enjoyed in the colonial context. See Mayaram, Shail, Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Bhagavan, Manu, Sovereign Spheres: Princes, Education, and Empire in Colonial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Rai, Mridu, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights and the History of Kashmir (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nair, Janaki, Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region under Princely Rule (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2012)Google Scholar; and Beverley, Hyderabad, British India, and the World.

13. The doctrine of paramountcy can be traced to treaties that the English East India Company signed with some rulers in the early nineteenth century. Many treaties involved an acknowledgement by the states of British overlordship (for example, a cession of the right to engage in diplomacy with foreign powers to the company) in return for a measure of state autonomy. Later, this idea of overlordship found expression in the doctrine of paramountcy, which became the basis of British relations with all princely states regardless of whether a treaty had been signed. By virtue of being the self-declared “paramount power,” the British claimed to possess both the right and the responsibility to take decisions on issues such as defense and external affairs, and also to interfere in the internal affairs of the states to maintain peace in the region. See Fisher, “Diplomacy in India,” 251, 260–64.

14. Early scholarship examining this relationship focused on the role played by international law in the subordination of non-European peoples. See Alexandrowicz, C. H., An Introduction to the History of the Law of Nations in the East Indies (16th, 17th and 18th Centuries) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Elias, T. O., Africa and the Development of International Law (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1972)Google Scholar; and Anand, R. P., New States and International Law (New Delhi: Vikas Publications, 1972)Google Scholar. Starting with Anghie, Antony, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the focus of critical scholarship has shifted to examining the effect that colonialism has had on the construction of international law doctrines such as sovereignty. See, for example, Bell, Duncan, ed., Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, A Search for Sovereignty; Lorca, Arnulf Becker, Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History, 1842–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, Lauren and Ford, Lisa, Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eslava, Luis, Fakhri, Michael, and Nesiah, Vasuki, eds., Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pitts, Jennifer, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. I borrow this term from Eric Hobsbawm. See Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987)Google Scholar.

16. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, 33–35.

17. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 238.

18. Ibid., 294.

19. Ibid., 245. For the argument that sovereignty was consolidated, albeit only for the “last five minutes” of the nineteenth century, into an abstract idea in terms of which it was absolute, exclusive within its territory, excluding other, overlapping authorities, and thereby an “on/off affair,” see Kennedy, David, “International Law and the Nineteenth Century: History of an Illusion,” Quinnipiac Law Review 17 (1997–98): 99–138Google Scholar.

20. Eric Beverley makes this point in relation to the state of Hyderabad. See Beverley, Hyderabad, British India, and the World, 54–72.

21. Legg, Stephen, “An International Anomaly? Sovereignty, the League of Nations and India's Princely Geographies,” Journal of Historical Geography 43 (2014): 96–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There were also questions about the position of the states within the broader constitutional scheme of India, particularly during the federation discussions of the 1930s. For a review of the stances of the various parties in this debate, particularly on the issue of the states’ sovereignty, see Muldoon, Andrew, Empire, Politics and the Creation of the 1935 India Act (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009)Google Scholar; Pillai, Sarath, “Fragmenting the Nation: Divisible Sovereignty and Travancore's Quest for Federal Independence,” Law and History Review 34 (2016): 743–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mantena, Rama Sundari, “Anticolonialism and Federation in Colonial India,” Ab Imperio (2018): 36–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Datla, Kavita Saraswathi, “Sovereignty and the End of Empire: The Transition to Independence in Colonial Hyderabad,” Ab Imperio (2018): 63–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Purushotham, Sunil, “Federating the Raj: Hyderabad, Sovereign Kingship, and Partition,” Modern Asian Studies 54 (2020): 157–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Copland, Ian, The British Raj and the Indian Princes: Paramountcy in Western India, 1857–1930 (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1982), 211–21Google Scholar; Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 19–20; and Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 92–97.

23. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 241.

24. Benton, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions,” 600.

25. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 265.

26. This is inspired by Lauren Benton's use of the term “jurisdictional jockeying.” She uses it to describe both the competition among colonial authorities to gain jurisdiction over disputes and the strategic use of institutional gaps by litigants in their own favor. See Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures, 2–33. I prefer to use “jurisdictional jousting” in order to provide a clearer focus on the competition among state authorities (i.e., the princely states and the British government) over jurisdiction rather than the actions of forum shopping in which a number of low-level participants engaged in the imperial world. Mitra Sharafi also takes inspiration from Benton, but prefers to use the term “jurisdictional jostling” to describe forum shopping in order to emphasize “the often clumsy nature of these moves,” as in her view, the term “jockeying” implies “a certain amount of skill.” See Sharafi, Mitra, “The Marital Patchwork of Colonial South Asia: Forum Shopping from Britain to Baroda,” Law and History Review 28 (2010): 981CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. I am influenced by E. P. Thompson's idea of law constituting a site of conflict where the aristocracy and the plebians engaged in battles to redefine the nature of property rights. See Thompson, E. P., Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (London: Allen Lane, 1975), 261–69Google Scholar.

28. In considering both legal treatises and imperial legal practice, I follow Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford who assert that international legal language was intricately linked to the everyday administration of the British Empire. See Benton and Ford, Rage for Order. For debates on the appropriate methodology for writing histories of international law, particularly on the discussion of the broader “context” within which legal arguments were made in the past, see Orford, Anne, “On International Legal Method,” London Review of International Law 1 (2013): 166–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tarazona, Liliana Obregón, “Writing International Legal History: An Overview,” Monde(s) 7 (2015): 95–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Benton, Lauren, “Beyond Anachronism: Histories of International Law and Global Legal Politics,” Journal of the History of International Law 21 (2019): 7–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. I follow Rande Kostal in arguing that law was the language in which disputes over the exercise of political power were conducted across the British Empire. See Kostal, R. W., A Jurisprudence of Power: Victorian Empire and the Rule of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

30. I borrow this term from Jennifer Pitts. See Pitts, Boundaries of the International.

31. See the discussions in Craven, Matthew and Parfitt, Rose, “Statehood, Self-Determination, and Recognition,” in International Law, ed. Evans, Malcolm D., 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 177–226Google Scholar; and Crawford, James, Brownlie's Principles of Public International Law, 9th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 105–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. For example, John Westlake dedicated three of the eleven chapters of his international law textbook to colonial issues, including an entire chapter on “The Empire of India.” See Westlake, John, Chapters on the Principles of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894)Google Scholar. Scholars have noted that “the British rarely lost sight of the commanding ambitions of their Empire, which seemed particularly to condition their attitudes to any international juristic order.” See Cornish, William, “International Law,” in The Oxford History of the Laws of England, vol. 11, 1820–1914: English Legal System ed. Cornish, William, Anderson, J. Stuart, Cocks, Raymond, Lobban, Michael, Polden, Patrick, and Smith, Keith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 263Google Scholar.

33. The late nineteenth century is often seen as a formative period in the history of international law. For some, this is because of the “professionalization” of international law through the establishment of associations and chairs at universities. See Koskenniemi, Martti, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 11–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sylvest, Casper, “International Law in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” British Year Book of International Law 75 (2004): 9–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For others, it is because of changes in doctrine rather than the structure of the profession. See Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, 32–33; and Alexandrowicz, C. H., “Some Problems in the History of the Law of Nations in Asia,” in The Law of Nations in Global History, ed. Armitage, David and Pitts, Jennifer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 79–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Gong, Gerrit, The Standard of “Civilization” in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

35. The most comprehensive analysis of the effect of the idea of the “standard of civilization” on the construction of the doctrine of sovereignty in nineteenth-century international law is in Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, 32–114.

36. Westlake was appointed Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge in 1888. See Wells, Nathan, “Westlake, John (1828–1913),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Cannadine, David, online ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36840 (May 23, 2019).

37. Westlake, Chapters on the Principles of International Law, 81.

38. Ibid., 80.

39. T. E. Holland, “Hall, William Edward (1835–1894),” rev. Catherine Pease-Watkin, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11997 (May 23, 2019).

40. Hall, William Edward, International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 34Google Scholar.

41. A. Pearce Higgins, “The Late Doctor T. J. Lawrence,” British Year Book of International Law 1 (1920–21): 233.

42. Lawrence, T. J., The Principles of International Law (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1895), 4–5, 26Google Scholar.

43. Westlake, Chapters on the Principles of International Law, 102–3.

44. Ibid., 204.

45. Lauren Benton argues that Westlake continued to regard international law as having “the power of analogy” in relation to the princely states despite relegating them to the “imperial” field. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 239. However, Westlake's contemporaries in South Asia were more circumspect about his views on the princely states and his advocacy of a constitutional tie between the states and the British government; see, for example, the discussion on William Lee-Warner in this article.

46. Lawrence, The Principles of International Law, 68.

47. Hall, International Law, 23 n2.

48. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, 96.

49. Mantena, Karuna, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 81–84.

51. Chatterjee, Partha, The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For further discussion of the causes and consequences of the revolt, see Metcalf, Thomas, The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857–1870 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 219–27Google Scholar; Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 88–98; and Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 1–7.

52. Chatterjee, The Black Hole of Empire, 212. For a longer history of the engagement between the princely states and the British government, and particularly of ideas of sovereignty in the eighteenth century, see Travers, Robert, “A British Empire by Treaty in Eighteenth-Century India,” in Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600–1900, ed. Belmessous, Saliha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 132–60Google Scholar; and Datla, Kavita Saraswathi, “The Origins of Indirect Rule in India: Hyderabad and the British Imperial Order,” Law and History Review 33 (2015): 321–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. Fisher, “Diplomacy in India,” 265; and Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 52.

54. Bhagavan, Sovereign Spheres, 3–4.

55. R. C. J. Cocks, “Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner (1822–1888),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/17808 (May 23, 2019).

56. Maine had considered standing for the Whewell professorship as early as 1867, with a view to having a settled position after his upcoming return to England from India. See Feaver, George, From Status to Contract: A Biography of Sir Henry Maine 1822–1888 (London: Longmans, 1969), 109–10, 255–57Google Scholar.

57. Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 57, 177.

58. Ibid., 171.

59. Nearly two decades ago, Carl Landauer pointed out that Maine's multiple biographers rarely paid attention to his ideas on international law. See Landauer, Carl, “From Status to Treaty: Henry Sumner Maine's International Law,” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 15 (2002): 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This has changed in recent years, with scholars considering Maine's conception of sovereignty within the context of trends in Victorian international law, in social thought, or in imperial legal practice. See Lobban, Michael, “English Approaches to International Law in the Nineteenth Century,” in Time, History and International Law, ed. Craven, Matthew, Fitzmaurice, Malgosia, and Vogiatzi, Maria (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007), 65–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions,” 603–7; Sylvest, Casper, British Liberal Internationalism, 1880–1930: Making Progress? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 61–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 246–50; Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 113–18; and Pitts, Boundaries of the International, 148–84.

60. Henry Sumner Maine, “The Conception of Sovereignty and Its Importance in International Law,” Papers of the Juridical Society (1855): 40.

61. Maine, Henry Sumner, Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (London: John Murray, 1875), 360Google Scholar.

62. Ibid., 363.

63. Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 116.

64. Maine, Lectures on the Early History of Institutions, 383, 389–93.

65. Maine, Henry Sumner, International Law (London: John Murray, 1888), 20–21Google Scholar.

66. Ibid., 58.

67. As the key theoretical basis of the British understanding of princely state sovereignty, Maine's minute has received considerable scholarly attention. It is extracted as one of the main documents defining the relationship between the princely states and the British government in Sever, Adrian, ed., Documents and Speeches on the Indian Princely States, vol. 1 (Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1985)Google Scholar. Both princely state historians and legal historians have discussed it. See Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 94–96; Benton, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions,” 604–7; and Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 247–50. For a discussion of the Kathiawar dispute more generally, see Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 98–112.

68. McLeod, John, Sovereignty, Power, Control: Politics in the States of Western India, 1916–1947 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 14–19Google Scholar.

69. In 1858, the East India Company's Court of Directors wrote, “We cannot, however, dismiss the correspondence which has arisen out of these questions of jurisdiction, without expressing our surprise that an officer in the high political position occupied by Major Davidson (Resident at Baroda), should have declared his opinion that ‘the whole province of Kattyawar, with the exception of the districts belonging to the Gaekwar is British territory and its inhabitants are British subjects.’” See Despatch of the Court of Directors, no. 8, 31 March 1858, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

70. Minute by Governor of Bombay, July 22, 1860, IOR/L/PS/6/532; Letter from the Under-Secretary, Government of India to the Government of Bombay, no. 3174, July 12, 1861, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

71. Extract from the Proceedings of the Finance Department, Government of India, February 10, 1862, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

72. Letter from the Chief Secretary, Government of Bombay to the Government of India, no. 119, October 17, 1863, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

73. Minute by Henry Bartle Frere, the Governor of Bombay, March 21, 1863, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

74. Note by Henry Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary, Government of India, April 13, 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

75. Minute by Henry Sumner Maine, March 22, 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

76. Minute by Henry Sumner Maine, March 22, 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

77. Minute by H. B. Harington, March 16, 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

78. Minute by the Viceroy and Governor-General and President of the Council of India, February 23, 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/532.

79. Despatch of the Secretary of State for India to the Government of India, no. 79, 16 December 1864, IOR/L/PS/6/597.

80. Lauren Benton, however, argues that Maine distanced the princely states from international law. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 249.

81. As Jennifer Pitts notes, the “inclusion” of certain entities into the international community on unequal terms was often the basis for the dispossession and subjugation of indigenous peoples. See Pitts, Boundaries of the International, 8–10.

82. Maine's influence is unsurprising, as his texts were required reading for members of the Indian Civil Service. See Mantena, Alibis of Empire, 155.

83. The name and organization of the department changed significantly over time. In 1843, it was named the Foreign Department, in 1914, it was renamed the Foreign and Political Department, and in 1937, it was renamed Political Department. Overviews can be found in Coen, Terence Creagh, The Indian Political Service: A Study in Indirect Rule (London: Chatto & Windus, 1971)Google Scholar; and William Murray Hogben, “The Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India, 1876–1919: A Study in Imperial Careers and Attitudes” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1973). For uniformity, I will refer to the department as the Political Department.

84. O'Malley, L. S. S., The Indian Civil Service, 1601–1930, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass, 1965), 160Google Scholar.

85. Hogben, “The Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India,” vi.

86. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 105.

87. Copland, Ian, “The Other Guardians: Ideology and Performance in the Indian Political Service,” in People, Princes and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States, ed. Jeffrey, Robin (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1973), 287Google Scholar.

88. The first annual open competitive examination for recruitment to the Indian Civil Service was held in 1855; men recruited in the early decades of open competition were referred to as “competition wallahs.” See Takehiko Honda, “Competition wallahs (act. 1855–1891),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/95501 (May 23, 2019).

89. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 101.

90. For other analyses of these texts, see Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 211–21; Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 19–20; Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 92–97; Benton, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions,” 600–607; and Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 242–50.

91. Aitchison, Charles U., The Native States of India: An Attempt to Elucidate a Few of the Principles which Underlie their Relations with the British Government, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1881)Google Scholar.

92. A. J. Arbuthnot, “Aitchison, Sir Charles Umpherston (1832–1896),” rev. Ian Talbot, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/253 (May 23, 2019).

93. Maine, Henry Sumner, Ancient Law (London: John Murray, 1861)Google Scholar.

94. Aitchison, The Native States of India, 34.

95. Ibid., 34.

96. Ibid., 6.

97. Ibid., 2.

98. Aitchison, Charles U., ed., A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries, 14 vols., 5th ed. (Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1929–1933)Google Scholar. The first volume was published in 1862; eleven volumes appeared by 1892, and the Political Department continued to update the collection after Aitchison's retirement. See Arbuthnot, “Aitchison, Sir Charles Umpherston.”

99. Arbuthnot, “Aitchison, Sir Charles Umpherston.”

100. Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 19.

101. Katherine Prior, “Tupper, Sir (Charles) Lewis (1848–1910),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36577 (May 23, 2019).

102. Tupper, Charles Lewis, “India and Sir Henry Maine,” Journal of the Society of Arts 46 (1898): 390Google Scholar.

103. Tupper, Charles Lewis, Our Indian Protectorate: An Introduction to the Study of the Relations between the British Government and its Indian Feudatories (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1893)Google Scholar.

104. Ibid., 6.

105. Ibid., 2.

106. Ibid., 4–5.

107. Ian Copland and Barbara Ramusack both argue that Tupper considered the relationship between the princely states and the British government to be a feudal one. See Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 218; and Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 96–97. Lauren Benton contends that Tupper rejected the use of the term “international” in favor of the term “political” law. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 244 n67.

108. Tupper, Our Indian Protectorate, 7–9.

109. Henry Mortimer Durand was a former foreign secretary of the government of India and his book, Leading Cases, was an important text on Indian political practice. See H. V. Lovett, “Durand, Sir (Henry) Mortimer (1850–1924),” rev. S. Gopal, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/32941 (May 23, 2019). Tupper's first revision was titled Political Law and Policy and although it was acknowledged to be a brilliant piece of legal theorizing, it was considered insufficiently practical for the men in the field. Hence, Tupper was seconded to the government of India to enable him to produce his second version. See Prior, “Tupper, Sir (Charles) Lewis”; and Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 217–18.

110. Tupper, Charles Lewis, Indian Political Practice: A Collection of the Decisions of the Government of India in Political Cases, 4 vols. (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1895; repr., Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1974)Google Scholar.

111. Hogben, “The Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India,” 194–97. By way of an example, the legal counsel representing the princes before the Indian States Committee in 1928 was denied access to copies of Indian Political Practice on account of its confidential nature. See Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 70.

112. Tupper, Our Indian Protectorate, 10.

113. Parallels can perhaps be drawn with Tupper's other great work of the period, a multi-volume treatise titled Punjab Customary Law, which was an attempt to codify local unwritten customs into some kind of usable precedent. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer who pointed out the compatibility of these two projects.

114. Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 217.

115. Lee-Warner, William, The Native States of India (London: Macmillan and Co., 1910), 30–34Google Scholar.

116. Ian Copland and Barbara Ramusack claim that Tupper was chosen over Lee-Warner because he was willing to characterize the relationship between the princely states and the British government as a feudal rather than a constitutional one. See Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 218; and Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 97.

117. F. H. Brown, “Warner, Sir William Lee- (1846–1914),” rev. Katherine Prior, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/34472 (May 23, 2019).

118. Ian Copland claims that Lee-Warner considered the tie between the states and the British government to be a constitutional one. See Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 218. Lauren Benton also argues that Lee-Warner considered international law to be inapplicable to the states. See Benton, “From International Law to Imperial Constitutions,” 602 n24.

119. Lee-Warner, The Native States of India, 390.

120. Ibid., 398.

121. Ibid., 399–400.

122. Ibid., 397.

123. Westlake, Chapters on the Principles of International Law, 213–14.

124. Ibid., 223–24.

125. Lee-Warner, William, “The Native States of India: A Rejoinder,” Law Quarterly Review 27 (1911): 84Google Scholar.

126. Letter from William Lee-Warner to John Westlake, April 14, 1898, William Lee-Warner Papers, Mss Eur F92/3.

127. Lee-Warner, “The Native States of India,” 86–87.

128. Ibid., 85.

129. Ibid., 85.

130. See Lee-Warner's comments on Tupper, “India and Sir Henry Maine,” 401.

131. See Lee-Warner's comments on Tupper, ibid., 400–401.

132. For other discussions of precedent in the context of the states, see Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 215; Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 19–20; and Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 96. Lauren Benton, however, argues that “indeterminacy” was the core of British policy, as officials relied on imperial prerogatives rather than the systematization of political relations. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 250–60.

133. Lauren Benton also argues that disputes continued to fester between the princely states and the British Government but contends that they were often settled through the claim that the suspension of law was a core feature of imperial law itself. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 241, 250. I consider the articulation of divisible sovereignty to result in a deeper engagement with the language of law by the parties.

134. This jurisdiction can be traced to seventeenth-century agreements between the East India Company and Mughal emperors, which permitted the English to adjudicate internal disputes in their factories. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the British government started to claim more expansive jurisdiction. See Jain, M. P., Outlines of Indian Legal History, 5th ed. (Bombay: N. M. Tripathi, 1990), 8Google Scholar. In general, there is extensive literature on extraterritorial jurisdiction claimed by European empires in non-European territories. See Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures, 201–52; Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, 85–86; Kayaoğlu, Turan, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cassel, Pär Kristoffer, Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Becker Lorca, Mestizo International Law, 76–97; and Chen, Li, Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

135. The term “European British subjects” was defined in section 71 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1872 as, “(1) All subjects of Her Majesty, born, naturalized, or domiciled in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland or in any European, American, or Australian Colonies or possessions of Her Majesty, or in the Colony of New Zealand, or in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope or Natal. (2) The children or grandchildren of any such person by legitimate consent.”

136. Lauren Benton briefly discusses the Liddell case to argue that indeterminacy was core to the British articulation of divisible sovereignty. See Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 257–58.

137. Petition from John Liddell to the Governor in Council, Madras, September 3, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, October 1868, no. 1.

138. A copy of the witness statements as well as the appellate court judgment in the case can be found in Papers on Prosecution in Sadr Court of John Liddell, Late Commercial Agent at Alleppey, referred by the maharaja of Travancore for disposal by this Court, IOR/L/PJ/5/405.

139. Petition from John Liddell to the Governor in Council, Madras, September 3, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, October 1868, no. 1.

140. Notification in the Madras Gazette, no. 221, January 10, 1867, IOR/P/441/8, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, August 1870, no. 1.

141. Opinion of the Advocate-General, Government of Madras, September 28, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, October 1868, no. 2.

142. Letter from the Resident at Travancore to the diwan of Travancore, no. 776, October 12, 1868, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 24.

143. For discussions of Madhava Rao's life and service in various princely states, see Pillai, G. Paramaswaran, “Raja Sir T. Madava Row,” in Representative Men of Southern India (Madras: Price Current Press, 1896), 33–48Google Scholar; and “Raja Sir T. Madhav Rao,” in Indian Statesmen: Dewans and Prime Ministers of Native States (Madras: G. A. Natesan & Co., 1927), 193–224.

144. Letter from the diwan of Travancore to the Resident at Travancore, October 19, 1868, IOR/P/438/18, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1870, no. 18.

145. Letter from the diwan of Travancore to the Resident at Travancore, October 20, 1868, IOR/P/438/18, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1870, no. 18.

146. Letter from the diwan of Travancore to the Resident at Travancore, October 23, 1868, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 24.

147. Charles Edward Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography (London: Swan Sonnenschem & Co., 1906), 280.

148. Opinion by J. D. Mayne on the Liddell case, November 11, 1868, IOR/P/438/18, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1870, no. 18.

149. Minute by H. D. Phillips, Member of the Council of the Government of Madras, November 13, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, December 1868, no. 25.

150. Minute by Francis Napier, President of the Council of the Government of Madras, November 15, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, December 1868, no. 24.

151. Minute by A. J. Arbuthnot, Member of the Council of the Government of Madras, November 21, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, December 1868, no. 26.

152. Resolution of the Government of Madras, no. 274, December 14, 1868, IOR/P/441/6, Proceedings of the Government of Madras in the Political Department, December 1868, no. 30.

153. Maine, Henry, “Trial of European British Subjects under Jurisdiction assumed by Native States,” in Duff, Montstuart Elphinstone Grant, Sir Henry Maine: A Brief Memoir of His Life, with Some of his Indian Speeches and Minutes, ed. Stokes, Whitley (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1892), 400–401Google Scholar.

154. Resolution of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, no. 158J, 8 August 1871, IOR/P/748, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, August 1871, no. 24.

155. Notification of the Government of India, Foreign Department, no. 8J, January 9, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, January 1874, no. 12.

156. For a description of Sashiah Shastri's life, see Aiyar, B. V. Kamesvara, Sir A. Sashiah Shastri, An Indian Statesman: A Biographical Sketch (Madras: Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co., 1902)Google Scholar.

157. Letter from the diwan of Travancore to the Resident at Travancore, April 13, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 24.

158. Memorandum of the Resident at Travancore on criminal jurisdiction over European British subjects, April 25, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 25.

159. Letter from the Acting Chief Secretary, Government of Madras to the Foreign Secretary, Government of India, no. 252/3, June 24, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings in the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 22.

160. Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Chief Secretary, Government of Madras, no. 189J, October 12, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 30.

161. Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Government of India, no. 99, August 14, 1873, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1873, no. 16; Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Government of India, no. 97, July 23, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 28.

162. Jurisdiction of the Nizam over Europeans, 1895, IOR/R/2/81/188; Letter from the Political Secretary, Government of India to Manley O. Hudson, Harvard University, February 23, 1927, NAI, Foreign and Political Department, 567-Internal, 1926; Trial of Europeans and Americans not in the service of the Nizam, 1940, IOR/R/1/1/4810.

163. Political Department Note clarifying the present position in regard to the exercise of jurisdiction over Europeans and Americans and British Indians in Indian States, October 8, 1937, IOR/R/2/901/416.

164. Despatch from the Government of India to the Secretary of State for India, no. 3, September 1, 1873, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1873, no. 9; Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Chief Secretary, Government of Madras, no. 175J, August 29, 1873, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1873, no. 34.

165. Circular from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Governments of Madras, Bombay, and Bengal, no. 188J, October 12, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, October 1874, no. 29.

166. Although trespass is primarily a civil wrong, British Indian legislation also criminalized trespass under certain circumstances. See Sections 441–47, Indian Penal Code, 1860.

167. Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Chief Secretary, Government of Madras, no. 9J, January 9, 1874, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, January 1874, no. 13.

168. Political Department Note on Jurisdiction to be exercised over British Indian subjects and servants of government for offenses committed in the territory of Indian States, NAI, Foreign and Political Department, 808-Internal (Secret), 1926.

169. Resolution of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, no. 158J, August 8, 1871, IOR/P/748, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, August 1871, no. 24.

170. Letter from the diwan of Travancore to the Resident at Travancore, October 19, 1868, IOR/P/438/18, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1870, no. 18.

171. This statement was made in a letter from the government of India and was issued after a query from the resident at Travancore seeking clarifications about the extent of British jurisdiction over Europeans in the princely states. See Letter from the Secretary, Government of India to the Secretary, Government of Madras, no. 24, June 12, 1837, IOR/F/4/1811/74609.

172. Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Chief Secretary, Government of Madras, no. 175J, August 29, 1873, IOR/P/752, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Judicial, September 1873, no. 34.

173. Tupper, Indian Political Practice, 3:8–11.

174. Jurisdiction of the Nizam over Europeans, 1895, IOR/R/2/81/188; Political Department Note on Jurisdiction to be exercised over British Indian subjects and servants of Government for offences committed in the territory of Indian States, NAI, Foreign and Political Department, 808-Internal (Secret), 1926; Political Department Note, April 30, 1928, NAI, Foreign and Political Department, 243-Internal, 1928.

175. Kawashima, Koji, Missionaries and a Hindu State: Travancore, 1858–1936 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 37–38Google Scholar.

176. In a lecture delivered to the maharaja of Baroda when he was diwan of the state, Madhava Rao argued the best means for a prince to ensure his state's survival was to “govern his state well.” See Rao, T. Madhava, Minor Hints: Lectures delivered to the Maharaja Gaekwar, Sayaji Rao (Bombay: British India Press, c. 1881), 285–89Google Scholar.

177. Jeffrey, Robin, The Decline of Nayar Dominance: Society and Politics in Travancore, 1847–1908 (London: Chatto & Windus for Sussex University Press, 1976), 74Google Scholar.

178. An example of these distinctions can be seen in the complicated eight tier classification of the jurisdiction of the Kathiawar states developed by the political agent, Richard Keatinge, and allegedly based on the “progress” of the states. The categories ranged from “first class” (full civil and criminal jurisdiction, except over European British subjects) through to “seventh class” (very limited criminal and no civil jurisdiction) to chiefs of non-jurisdictional states who were not placed in any class. The classification was not watertight; states argued for increases in their jurisdictional powers, whereas the British argued that the non-provision of “good government” was a ground for states to be stripped of jurisdiction. See Copland, The British Raj and the Princes, 108–12; and Mcleod, Sovereignty, Power, Control, 119, 247.

179. For a description of these reforms, see Jeffrey, The Decline of Nayar Dominance, 70–103.

180. Ibid., 74.

181. The first telegraph line in South Asia was laid in 1851, and the entire system was opened to the public in 1855. See Gorman, Mel, “Sir William O'Shaughnessy, Lord Dalhousie, and the Establishment of the Telegraph System in India,” Technology and Culture 12 (1971): 581–601CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

182. Choudhury, Deep Kanta Lahiri, Telegraphic Imperialism: Crisis and Panic in the Indian Empire, c. 1830–1920 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 7–8, 37–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

183. Conflicts generated by struggles over the control of infrastructure and resources were common. See, for example, the overview of a dispute over water and dams with Mysore in Amrith, Sunil, Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia's History (London: Allen Lane, 2018), 129–31, 161–63Google Scholar; and the discussion of a dispute over railways with Mysore in Priyasha Saksena, “Jousting Over Jurisdiction: Sovereignty and International Law in Colonial South Asia, c. 1858–1950” (SJD diss., Harvard Law School, 2018), 107–22. These conflicts could have far-reaching consequences. In some instances, states managed to carve out relative autonomy to pursue their own development strategies. See Kale, Sunila S., “Structures of Power: Electrification in Colonial India,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 34 (2014): 457–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In others, private companies exploited ambiguities over the legal status of the states to gain access to mineral resources at minimal cost. See Rainau, Mircea, “‘A Mass of Anomalies’: Land, Law, and Sovereignty in an Indian Company Town,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 60 (2018): 369–77Google Scholar.

184. Letter from the Foreign Under-Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, June 16, 1883, IOR/P/2331, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, Financial, Judicial, Military, July 1884, no. 63.

185. For a discussion of Shahabuddin's life, see “Kazi Shahabuddin,” in Indian Statesmen, 225–32.

186. Letter from the diwan of Baroda to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, January 14, 1884, IOR/P/2331, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, Financial, Judicial, Military, July 1884, no. 67.

187. Letter from the Officiating Foreign Under-Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, March 19, 1884, IOR/P/2331, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, Financial, Judicial, Military, July 1884, no. 68.

188. Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, July 23, 1884, IOR/P/2331, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, Financial, Judicial, Military, July 1884, no. 71.

189. Draft Telegraph nibandh, IOR/P/3038, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, May 1887, no. 274.

190. Letter from the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda to the Foreign Secretary, Government of India, February 15, 1886, IOR/P/3038, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, May 1887, no. 273.

191. Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, May 12, 1887, IOR/P/3038, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, May 1887, no. 276.

192. Letter from the Officiating Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda to the Foreign Secretary, Government of India, May 6, 1890, IOR/P/3742, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, July 1890, no. 343.

193. Letter from the Public Works Secretary, Government of India to the Public Works Secretary, Government of Bombay, Railway Branch, June 21, 1890, IOR/P/3742, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, July 1890, no. 348.

194. Letter from the diwan of Baroda to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, August 11, 1891, IOR/P/3968, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, October 1891, no. 319.

195. Letter from the Officiating Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda to the Foreign Secretary, Government of India, August 15, 1891, IOR/P/3968, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, October 1891, no. 318.

196. Letter from the Foreign Under-Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, October 13, 1891, IOR/P/3968, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, October 1891, no. 320.

197. Letter from the diwan of Baroda to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, February 1, 1893, IOR/P/4401, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, August 1893, no. 59.

198. Letter from the Foreign Under-Secretary, Government of India to the Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda, July 18, 1893, IOR/P/4401, Proceedings of the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Internal, August 1893, no. 69.

199. See, in particular, Madhava Rao, Minor Hints, 285–89.

200. “Kazi Shahabuddin,” 230–31.

201. David Hardiman, “Baroda: The Structure of a ‘Progressive’ State,” in People, Princes and Paramount Power, 107–35.

202. “Kazi Shahabuddin,” 228.

203. Tupper, Indian Political Practice, 1:194–95.

204. For complaints by the princely states about the loss of such control, see Appendix 8 to Cabinet Paper RTC 31(2), Relations with Indian States, September 1931, IOR/L/PS/13/550.

205. In 1863, Bhopal protested the exercise of jurisdiction by the British political agent over British subjects residing in the state. For a more detailed discussion, see Sen, D. K., The Indian States, their Status, Rights and Obligations (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1930), 99–101Google Scholar.

206. Hyderabad attempted to shut down a court that settled civil cases among Europeans residing in the state. See Beverley, Hyderabad, British India, and the World, 221–56.

207. I borrow this term from A. P. Nicholson. See Nicholson, A. P., Scraps of Paper: India's Broken Treaties, Her Princes, and the Problem (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1930)Google Scholar.

208. Witt, John Fabian, “Anglo-American Empire and the Crisis of the Legal Frame (Will the Real British Empire Please Stand Up?),” Harvard Law Review 120 (2006–7): 783–84Google Scholar.

209. For a discussion of Vattel's influence on the American colonists, see Armitage, David, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 222–25Google Scholar.

210. For a discussion of this argument of semi-peripheral international lawyers, see Becker Lorca, Mestizo International Law, 62–65.

211. For example, the Kathiawar rulers relied on the “rights of independent sovereignty” to limit the support provided by the British to girassias (local landholders), who often set up alternate power bases challenging sovereign authority. See Memo submitted by the vakeels of Junagadh, Nawanagar, Bhavnagar and Dhrangadhra, July 11, 1871, IOR/L/PS/6/597; Letter from the nawab of Junagadh, the jam of Nawanagar, the thakur of Bhavnagar, the thakur of Dhrole, the thakur of Wadhawan, the thakur of Choora, the khan of Bantwa, and the malik of Banjana to the Governor and President in Council, Bombay, January 1, 1872, IOR/L/PS/6/597; and Letter from the Foreign Secretary, Government of India to the Political Secretary, Government of Bombay, no. 1451P, July 2, 1872, IOR/L/PS/6/597. See also, Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 112–16.

212. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and their States, 112, 182–86.

213. Fisher, Indirect Rule in India, 459.

214. Metcalf, Thomas R., Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 45Google Scholar.

215. See Copland, The British Raj and the Indian Princes, 298; and Fisher, Indirect Rule in India, 459. Lauren Benton notes that nineteenth-century international lawyers and colonial officials also drew comparisons between the princely states and Native American tribes that were considered to be “domestic dependent nations” within the United States; however, she also concedes that the histories of these two types of polities were quite different. See, Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 271–76.

216. Metcalf, Imperial Connections, 32–45; and Fisher, Indirect Rule in India, 461–77. In fact, Mahmood Mamdani argues that there was little difference between direct and indirect rule in Africa. See Mamdani, Mahmood, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Mamdani, Mahmood, Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

217. In correspondence with the Colonial Office, India Office officials repeatedly noted that the princely states’ rulers exercised far more sovereign powers than other rulers such as the Malay sultans. See Smith, Simon C., British Relations with the Malay Rulers from Decentralization to Malayan Independence, 1930–1957 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995), 51–53Google Scholar. See also Report of the Indian States Committee, 1928–29 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1929), para. 43.

218. Panikkar, K. M., An Introduction to the Study of the Relations of Indian States with the Government of India (London: Martin Hopkinson, 1927), xixGoogle Scholar.

219. However, despite wresting concessions from colonial officials, the states were not recognized as “sovereign states” in later international law treatises. See Oppenheim, Lassa, International Law: A Treatise, vol. 1, Peace (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905), 135 n1Google Scholar. Most interwar British international lawyers acknowledged the divisibility of sovereignty but were broadly unconcerned with the specific question of the sovereignty of entities such as the states, largely on account of the wholesale critiques of the concept of sovereignty itself in the aftermath of the First World War. See Lauterpacht, Hersch, “Westlake and Present Day International Law,” Economica 15 (1925): 307–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brierly, J. L., “The Sovereign State Today,” in The Basis of Obligation in International Law and Other Papers, ed. Lauterpacht, Hersch and Waldock, C. H. M. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 348–57Google Scholar.

220. The disappearance of the states in the wake of Indian independence was astonishingly rapid. See Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 269–70. This is surprising because others, such as the Malay sultans, managed to survive a similar transition. One reason for the difference could be that the princes had an antagonistic relationship with Indian nationalists, as opposed to the Malay sultans, who managed to reach an accommodation with Malay nationalists. On this latter relationship, see Smith, British Relations with the Malay Rulers, 167–99.

221. Kennedy, David, “The Disciplines of International Law and Policy,” Leiden Journal of International Law 12 (1999): 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

222. In the interwar period, the states faced both British intervention and criticism from Indian nationalists. To balance their relationships with British India and the crown while also carving out a space for themselves, they started to rely on a version of divisible sovereignty. For a fuller discussion, see Saksena, “Jousting over Jurisdiction,” 137–363.

223. For example, Indian officials relied on the idea of territorial sovereignty in disputes over the state of Hyderabad and the Indus basin. See Noorani, A. G., The Destruction of Hyderabad (London: Hurst & Company, 2014), 247–68Google Scholar; and Haines, Daniel, Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 43–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

224. See Antony Anghie, “Bandung and the Origins of Third World Sovereignty,” in Bandung, Global History, and International Law, 535–51.

225. For the argument that Madhava Rao was not a political radical as he made no case for democracy, see Puntambekar, S. V., “Raja Sir T. Madhava Rao's Prince or the Law of Dependent Monarchies,” Indian Journal of Political Science 5 (1944): 293–305Google Scholar.

226. See Sharafi, Mitra, “A New History of Colonial Lawyering: Likhovski and Legal Identities in the British Empire,” Law & Social Inquiry 32 (2007): 1064CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Newbigin, Eleanor, Denault, Leigh, and De, Rohit, “Introduction: Personal Law, Identity Politics and Civil Society in Colonial South Asia,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 46 (2009): 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

227. On this point, see Merry, Sally Engle, “Review Essay: Law and Colonialism,” Law and Society Review 25 (1991): 889–922CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

228. For discussions of the parallels between colonial legal arguments and contemporary debates over humanitarian intervention, see Orford, Anne, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 45–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Orford, Anne, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.