To give you an idea of the diversity of India, above are a few of the very many princely states (at least as many as 565 officially recognized at the time of Indian Independence) that composed much of the Indian subcontinent. A princely state was a vassal state (with the British Raj as overlord) with some self-governance - or at least with a nominal indigenous leader. Which helps go to show that Indian Independence was by no means a unilateral sort of thing, and a few of the princely states (like some of the other vestigial colonial territories) did not just up and swear allegiance to the Republic in 1947 (Hyderabad was a holdout) (and of course, a number of the princely states ended up under the sovereignty of Pakistan after Partition) (one of which, Kalat, is still involved in the unrest in Balochistan). It was not until 1971 that the Indian Constitution was amended to withdraw recognition of all symbols of the princely states.
Stamp details:
Issued: 1869-1950
From: Alwar, Bahawalpur, Bamra, Barwani, Bhopal, Bhor, Bijawar, Bundi, Bussahir, Charkari, Cochin, Datia, Dhar, Dungarpur, Holkar, Hyderabad, Idar, Indore, Jaipur, Jasdan, Jhalawar, Junagadh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kishangarh, Las Bela, Morvi, Nandgaon, Nawanagar, Orcha, Poonch, Rajpipla, Saurashtra, Sirmoor, Soruth, Travancore, Travancore-Cochin, Wadhwan
