font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Accession to India
During the period spanning the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the 562 princely states that had existed outside British India under British suzerainty were given a choice of acceding to either India or Pakistan or remaining outside them. Although the states were theoretically free to choose, Earl Mountbatten stated that "geographic compulsions" meant that most of them would choose India. Mountbatten took the position that only states that shared a common border with Pakistan should choose to accede to it, but he had no power to impose this point of view on the states.
15 Aug 1947 Accedes to Pakistan.
15 Sep 1947 Accession to Pakistan accepted.
9 Nov 1947 Occupied by India.
10 Nov 1947 Rescinds accession to Pakistan, accedes to India
24 Feb 1948 Referendum approves accession to India.
25 Feb 1948 Accession to India in effect.
On September 15, 1947, Nawab Mohammad Mahabat Khanji III of Junagadh, a princely state located on the south-western end of Gujarat and having no common border with Pakistan, chose to accede to Pakistan ignoring Mountbatten's views, arguing that Junagadh could access Pakistan by sea. The rulers of two states that were subject to the suzerainty of Junagadh — Mangrol and Babariawad — reacted by declaring their independence from Junagadh and acceding to India. In response, the nawab of Junagadh militarily occupied the two states. Rulers of the other neighbouring states reacted angrily, sending troops to the Junagadh frontier, and appealed to the Government of India for assistance. A group of Junagadhi people, led by Samaldas Gandhi, formed a government-in-exile, the Aarzi Hukumat ("temporary government").
India asserted that Junagadh was not contiguous to Pakistan and believed that if Junagadh was permitted to accede to Pakistan, communal tension already simmering in Gujarat would
