A House of Lords in India

I was re-reading "The Peshawar Lancers" the other day and in it, there's a description of various Indian princes and rajahs sitting in the House of Lords.

So how might we get it so there's an Indian House of Lords incorporating the leaders of the princely states and other VIPs in OTL?

I put this in post-1900 because I'm imagining it as a response to growing demands for Indian independence--this would be both a concession to the Indians and a check on the democratic independence movement.

I would imagine if there was a House of Lords, there'd have to be a House of Commons too.
 

Thande

Donor
The trouble is that the Indian independence movement by the 20th century saw the nobles as cat's-paws, as the ones who remained were the ones who hadn't turned against the British in the Sepoy Mutiny (or rather were the grandsons of those ones). Witness the shameful treatment of the remaining princely states and their rulers post-1947 in both India and Pakistan.
 

Susano

Banned
Witness the shameful treatment of the remaining princely states and their rulers post-1947 in both India and Pakistan.
Shameful? How? Its not like those states had any popular support, and the pre-French Revolutionary notion that rulers have independant rights to their titles and holdings (a la succession wars where its about the rights of a person) should be long dead by now!
 

Thande

Donor
Shameful? How? Its not like those states had any popular support, and the pre-French Revolutionary notion that rulers have independant rights to their titles and holdings (a la succession wars where its about the rights of a person) should be long dead by now!

You can make that argument, certainly, but it's not as if they were in open rebellion when they were invaded. At the least, there should have been a plebiscite. And not all of them lacked popular support - in particular several of the Pakistani ones, which is ultimately one of the reasons Pakistan is such a basket case today.
 
The trouble is that the Indian independence movement by the 20th century saw the nobles as cat's-paws, as the ones who remained were the ones who hadn't turned against the British in the Sepoy Mutiny (or rather were the grandsons of those ones). Witness the shameful treatment of the remaining princely states and their rulers post-1947 in both India and Pakistan.

I never said the Indian independence movement would like them. :)

I was just wondering what effects this institution existing would have on the lead-up to Independence and the Independence process itself.

For example, could they stop the Partition?
 

Susano

Banned
You can make that argument, certainly, but it's not as if they were in open rebellion when they were invaded. At the least, there should have been a plebiscite. And not all of them lacked popular support - in particular several of the Pakistani ones, which is ultimately one of the reasons Pakistan is such a basket case today.

Oky, there should have been plebiscites. But that wouldnt have changed much in the end, anyways. However, this argument about the princely states seem to be very popular in certain British colonialist circles, like that one clown who was recently banned. And that seems to display a certain attitude of "The uppity Indian people toppling* rulers by Britain's grace". An attitude of being angry about a second round of decolonialisation. Which it was, hence I have absolutely no sympathy for those British tamed and dmoesticated, pompous little princelings.

*well, the Indish people from without and not from the inside as youve said, but same effect.
 
I was re-reading "The Peshawar Lancers" the other day and in it, there's a description of various Indian princes and rajahs sitting in the House of Lords.

So how might we get it so there's an Indian House of Lords incorporating the leaders of the princely states and other VIPs in OTL?

I put this in post-1900 because I'm imagining it as a response to growing demands for Indian independence--this would be both a concession to the Indians and a check on the democratic independence movement.

I would imagine if there was a House of Lords, there'd have to be a House of Commons too.

There was. The Council of Princes.
 
The Indian prince and Kings had very less influence over the people, that is one of the reason why Indian National Congress became as popular as it did. Because the people thought, atleast the INC would represent them.

There were some popular Kings, but they were few and far in between. They could not have changed the overall scheme of things.
 
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