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INDIA

tion of a native court to the foreign Government of the
English « Sirkar.”
The Nizam of Haidarabad is chief among the native
princes of India. He is the representative of a dynasty
which was founded by a Lieutenant-Governor of the
Moghul court in the time of Turk (or Moghul) supremacy
in India, and he rules a population of 9,000,000 Hindus
and 1,000,000 Muhammadans. ¢ No Government in India
has been more shamefully corrupt than that of the
Nizam,” says Sir John Strachey, and the testimony of
Sir Lepel Griffin, who knew the native states well, is
much to the same effect. The Maratha states (Gwalior,
[ndore, and Baroda) date from last century, and their
chiefs are ‘the representatives of the predatory hordes
which, until crushed by British arms, turned the fertile
plains of Central India into a wilderness. The Maratha
dynasties have nothing in common with the people they
govern. Their race is different and their language is not
understood.” Except the rulers and their followers there
are no Marathas in these states.
In order to find ancient dynasties and time-honoured
political institutions amongst the native states we must
turn to the Rajput principalities (of which there are about
twenty altogether) in Rajputana and Central India.
These are states which have been preserved by the
British Government from destruction by the Marathas,
and the constitution of their governing power is entirely
different from that of the Muhammadan and (so-called)
Maratha principalities. The Rajput chief is ¢ the hereditary
head of a military clan, the members of which have been
for centuries lords of the soil.” He claims the highest
descent in the land, but yet it is hardly higher than that
of his chief officers and nobles. They are bound
together by ancient ties of kinship, as by common
interest, in times of danger ; but the individual power of
the head of the clan is much restricted in times of peace.
In these Rajput states there is often a strong bond of
sympathy between ruler and people. Ruler and ruled
alike refer back to the days of antiquity for their origin,