HC Deb 30 July 1908 vol 193 c1715
MR. E. H. LAMB (Rochester)

To ask the Under-Secretary of State for India, if he will state what amount of compensation has been paid to the sons and grandsons of the late Krachar Shri Ala Chela, Chief of the third-class State of Jasdan in Kathiawar, since they were disinherited by order of His Majesty's Government; and whether States, even smaller than that held by the above chief, have in recent years been divided among the heirs, according to the traditional custom which was overruled in the case of Jasdan.

(Answered by Mr. Buchanan). I have no information as to the allowances allotted to the sons and grandsons of the late Chief of Jasdan, but it was a condition of the succession of the present Chief that he should make suitable grants to them in maintenance and should act on any advice that might be given to him by Government as to these grants of "giras." As regards the smaller States in which since the Jasdan decision succession may have taken place in accordance with the custom of division, I would point out that in cases where the application of the principle of division has resulted in States losing internal sovereignty and coming under British control and the Thana System, the reasons of policy that governed the Jasdan decision, viz., the maintenance of an estate large enough to support internal sovereignty, do not apply.