India of the Princes

“Six hundred and thirty five Princes rule two fifths of India and a quarter of its population. Many are absolute monarchs linked only by treaty with the British Crown. Vitally important to modern India and to the Empire, they have played a great part, both in peace and war.
This book, the first of its kind, tells of life in the Royal States, but life in village and factory, among merchants, labourers, money-lenders, artisians and gypsies as well as in the palaces of beneficient autocrats. It tells what the people of an unknown India think and feel in the depths of their forests, deserts or mountains.
Rosita Forbes records the point of view of Princes, peasants and patriots, of revolutionaries and priests, the rigidly conservative, the progressive and the experimental  She tells also of the romantic legends, the centuries of war, the heroism and savagery, equally dramatic, which have transformed into descendants of the Sun, Moon and Fire or heirs of the disintegrated Moghul Empire into Statesmen concerned with the position of their countries under Federation. …”