AHC: 21st century Princely State in the Indian subcontinent

[Booster Gold]

As above, see if you can get the Princely States to survive British decolonization and last until the present

Bonus points if you can keep it a monarchy

Double bonus points if you can do better than a failed Operation Polo

 

[Viking25]

As above, see if you can get the Princely States to survive British decolonization and last until the present

Bonus points if you can keep it a monarchy

Double bonus points if you can do better than a failed Operation Polo

Sikkim is never annexed into India? Don't know if its quite what you are looking for though

 

[Minchandre]

Jammu and Kashmir has a good shot. OTL, the Maharaja invited Indian forces in to help fight Pakistani forces that had invaded on the invitation of local Muslim rebels, and the end result was a ceasefire and de facto partition. A potential easy solution would be to make it so that the leader of the rebellion is captured or killed by the Maharaja's forces instead of making it to Lahore and convincing the Pakistani government to support him. Aside from that, I don't know how strong the support was within Lahore to back him; it might be easy enough to disrupt in any way.

An interesting idea might be to try and get UN involvement. This is before the OTL earliest UN peacekeeping (which was in 1948 following the Partition of Palestine), but it could set an interesting precedent.

 

[Lalli]

Sikkim is never annexed into India? Don't know if its quite what you are looking for though

Sikkim is probably easiest one since it was annexed in 1970's. Jammu and Kashmir is too achvieable.

Mysore, Hyderabad and Travancore are too possible but for them you would need pretty balkanised India.

 

[Darzin]

Aren't Nepal and Bhutan essentially independent princely states?

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Well, Nepal hasn't been since the Maoists took over.

 

[Sarthak]

Aren't Nepal and Bhutan essentially independent princely states?

Nepal and Bhutan were not a part of the British Raj or the British Empire to be considered Princely States.

 

[aaronupright]

Zilch chance. One of the few things there was agreement between Muslim league, INC and the Raj officials (whatever the Independence Act said) was that the Princely states would join with the new countries.

Nepal and Bhutan were not a part of the British Raj or the British Empire to be considered Princely States.

Well technically neither were Bahawalpur, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Kalat and several others.
It was a delicate matter.

 

[Sarthak]

Zilch chance. One of the few things there was agreement between Muslim league, INC and the Raj officials (whatever the Independence Act said) was that the Princely states would join with the new countries.

Well technically neither were Bahawalpur, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Kalat and several others.
It was a delicate matter.

None of them held foreign relations and foreign recognition independently like Bhutan and Nepal.

 

[Lalli]

Zilch chance. One of the few things there was agreement between Muslim league, INC and the Raj officials (whatever the Independence Act said) was that the Princely states would join with the new countries.

Well technically neither were Bahawalpur, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Kalat and several others.
It was a delicate matter.

These were part of British Raj so them had much lesser independence than Nepal or even Bhutan.