Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The former rulers of Princely India present to many people a simple stereotype. Surrounded by pomp and luxury, they are thought to have headed autocratic and tradition-based regimes in which their word was law and their desires untrammeled, since they were considered to be in some way divine because of their descent from such deities as the sun and moon. Moreover this view, by implication, contrasts with the democratic regime which followed the accession and merging of their States into the Indian Union in 1948.