Before India’s independence in 1947, approximately 562 princes occupied half of the landmass and ruled more than a third of it’s population. Loyal allies to the British, these figures were historically untouchable until 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru – India's first Prime Minister – set about abolishing the princely order of the Maharajas, calling them; "sinks of reaction and incompetence and unrestrained autocratic power, sometimes exercised by vicious and degraded individuals".
Their privileges increasingly invoked over the next few decades, by 1971, his daughter Indira Gandhi was set for a majority in the elections that year. Her disdain for the princes and the strategic advantage of dethroning them, would further instruct legislative efforts to break the Maharajas by abolishing the privy purses (stipends) which had maintained their lifestyles somewhat since independence. During this time, former princes set themselves up as political candidates against Gandhi and the Congress Party. Simultaneously, political violence was on the rise seeing up to 5 political assignations a day, many affiliated with the Communist Party of India (victims and perpetrators).
Across two weeks in February and March 1971, ITN’s Richard Lindley would deliver three reports on the state of Indian politics, set against the backdrop of regional tensions leading toward the third Indo-Pakistani war in December of that year.
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