After initial rejection of accession to India or Pakistan, the Maharaja of Travancore, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma climbed down from ambitions of sovereignty and agreed to sign the article of accession that would see the state absored into the Union of India.

Maharaja of Travancore, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, c. 1930s

Source: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jawarhalal Nehru writing to Asaf Ali, Indian Ambassador to the United States, expressed, “we are having a hard time and some of the Princes headed by Bhopal and Travancore are giving a great deal of trouble. But I am not personally worried about these Princes. We can deal with them fairly easily when the time comes.”

Source: ‘To Asif Ali’, (18 June 1947) cited in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second series, vol. III (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund: New Delhi: 1985), p. 331