Junagadh,India and the Logic of Occupation and Appropriation,1947–49

Abstract

This article shows the logic of occupation and appropriation that operated in the wake of the integration of the princely state of Junagadh to the dominion of India in November 1947. This re-created the ‘everyday’ state and society in Junagadh and triggered questions of loyalty of Indian Muslims and suspicions about their presence in the country. The old-new Indian state had a heavy-handed response in line with the newly majoritarian, nationalist society. Using unused archival records to furnish fresh evidence of the maltreatment of Muslims— from appropriation of their properties to questioning their citizenship by the Indian ‘official mind’, to the latter’s confiscation of Junagadh state’s assets—the article provides an account of an arduous amalgamation in the post-1947 Indian ‘state-nation’ of the Muslims of Junagadh.