arif

thank you for this pure samadhi upon the indian reservations

it clarifies a great deal that was formerly strange about this whole area
of the world
in a few deft strokes

like now i can imagine i even understand the different numbers of guns used
in saluting the various levels of rajas like 21 19 17 15 or 13

also you seem to shed some light here on the utterly scrambled system that
may survive to this day among & within the sultanates & emirates of the
persian gulf

the subdivisional map of the uae in particular always cracks me up

m

>
>Because the talk went to Indian reservations, I wanted
>to mention something.
>Before the English came into the Indian subcontinent,
>the area had many fiefdoms, principalities, sultanates
>etc. There were very, very many enclaves within them
>(and that's an understatement). During the British
>time, they became 5 or 6 different orders of
>territories generally depending on size, some
>sovereign in everything except foreign policy to some
>which survived totally on British control. When the
>British left, the territories had a choice of joining
>India, Pakistan or be independent. However it was
>suggested, by Britain and the two countries to be
>formed, that the territories within a certain country
>should join it. And this suggestion almost bordered
>on a threat. If India and Pakistan didn't feel
>threatened by small territories within them, we would
>have seen a very messy situation, enclavewise, indeed.
> Only three of the kingdoms, Hyderabad, Junagadh and
>Kashmir, caused problems at the time of independence
>by causing arguments on ownership and Kashmir among
>them still does.
>By the way, the India-Bangladesh enclave formed
>because one of the territories, Cooch-Behar, chose to
>join India, and it had enclaves within British
>territory which became part of Bangladesh and vice
>versa.
>Arif