White Paper on Indian States (1950)/Part 11/Territorial Integration

by Ministry of States, Government of India

Territorial Integration

224. One of the important consequences of the adoption of the new Constitution is the completion of the process of the territorial integration of States. The States geographically contiguous to the Dominion of India, as they existed before the Constitution of India became operative, could be divided into two main categories:

(i) the acceding States, and

(ii) the non-acceding States.

There were only two non-acceding States, namely, Hyderabad and Junagadh. The acceding States could be sub-divided into the following groups:—

(a) States which were not affected by the process of integration and continued as separate units, i.e. Mysore and Jammu and Kashmir;

(b) Unions of States;

(c) Centrally-merged States;

(d) Provincially-merged States; and

(e) Khasi Hill States Federation.

Under the new Constitution, all the constituent units, both Provinces and States—the latter term includes non-acceding States—have been classified into three classes, viz:

(1) Part A States which correspond to the former Governors' Provinces,

(2) Part B States which comprise the Unions of States and the States of Hyderabad, Mysore and Jammu and Kashmir, and

(3) Part C States which correspond to the former Chief Commissioners' Provinces.

The new Constitution effects the territorial integration of States by means of a two-fold process. Firstly, Article 1 of the Constitution defines the territories of India to include the territories of all the States specified in the First Schedule, including Part B States. This is an important departure from the scheme embodied in the Act of 1935 in that, while section 311(1) of that Act defined India to include British India together with all territories of Indian Rulers, the Act did not define the territories of the Indian Federation. Secondly, with the inauguration of the new Constitution, the merged States have lost all vestiges of existence as separate entities. This will be clear from the position set out in the paragraphs which follow.

225. Provincially merged States.—As has been stated before, by virtue of an Order under Section 290A of the Government of India Act, 1935 these States were being administered as if they formed part of the Province concerned. Even after the application of the statutory Order under Section 290A to these States, they did not form part of the Provinces but retained their separate entity, however, otiose it might have been. The First Schedule to the new Constitution provides that the territory of each of the States specified in Part A, shall include the territories which by virtue of an Order under section 290A of the Government of India Act, 1935, were, immediately before the commencement of the Constitution, being administered as if they formed part of the Province. The effect of this provision is that with the enforcement of the new Constitution, the process of merger of States, which was carried a step forward by the statutory Order under section 290A, has been completed; the provincially merged States will not now merely be administered as if they formed part of the Provinces but actually form part of the Provinces. The Constitution also provides for the administration of the Khasi Hill States, to which reference has been made earlier, as part of Assam in accordance with the special provisions relating to tribal areas.

226. Centrally-administered States.—Proceeding on the lines of the Provincially-merged States, the new Constitution provides that the Centrally administered areas, which were governed by virtue of an order under Section 290A as if they were a Chief Commissioner's Province, will acquire the full status of Part C States (Chief Commissioners' States). Here again the territorial merger of the Centrally merged States has been completed with the enforcement of the new Constitution.