Chapter 55: Integrating the Princely States – The Economic Embrace

With independence secured and India demonstrating remarkable resilience against the Great Depression, Adav turned his attention to a persistent internal challenge: the numerous princely states. These states, scattered across the subcontinent, still maintained a semblance of nominal independence, governed by their Maharajas and Nizams. Historically, their integration into the Indian Union would be a complex, often fraught process involving coercion and political maneuvering. Adav, however, envisioned a different, more efficient path: economic absorption.

He briefed Prime Minister Bose. "Coercion is inefficient, Prime Minister. It breeds resentment. We will offer them prosperity, a future so compelling that to refuse it would be an act of self-sabotage."

Adav's strategy was simple, yet devastatingly effective. Bharat Corporation, now the undisputed economic engine of India, began to offer incredibly lucrative contracts for infrastructure development within these princely states. Roads, railways, and telegraph lines that previously bypassed their territories were now proposed to run directly through them, connecting them to India's burgeoning national grid. Resource-rich princely states were offered joint ventures for resource extraction – mining operations for coal, iron ore, and even newly discovered minerals that the Codex's [Geographical Mapping] module had identified as valuable.

The initial offers were tailored to appeal directly to the princes' financial interests. Bharat Corporation proposed to invest heavily in modernizing their agricultural practices, establishing small-scale industrial ventures (like textile mills or sugar refineries) within their domains, and creating employment for their subjects. The lure was irresistible: a guaranteed share of the profits, unprecedented development in their backward territories, and a chance to participate in the unstoppable rise of a new India