↑ Copland, Ian (16 May 2002), The princes of India in the endgame of empire, 1917–1947, Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, Cambridge University Press, p. 1, ISBN9780521894364, Between 1947 and 1949 all 600-odd ruling princes in India were pensioned off and their ancestral domains—the so-called 'princely states'—were submerged in the bodypolitic of the Indian union. Nowadays the few former rulers still alive are just ordinary citizens, while the ex-states survive—if at all—only in attenuated shape as components of larger administrative units. As a practical system of governance monarchy in India has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
↑ Schmidt, Karl J. (1995). An atlas and survey of South Asian history. M.E. Sharpe. p. 78. ISBN978-1-56324-334-9. Although the Indian states were alternately requested or forced into union with either India or Pakistan, the real death of princely India came when the Twenty-sixth Amendment Act (1971) abolished the princes' titles, privileges, and privy purses.
