Explain the problem of integration of …

While British were leaving India after almost 200 years of ruling, Indian leadership had a large task in their hands: Uniting and Integrating a large of India into a single political unit. This problem was tremendous while dealing with Princely States. Though major part of British India was ruled by British directly still there were many princely states who were ruled by the British indirectly. With partition of India and Pakistan, India still had more than 500 smaller princely states which were not part of the two nations.

The problem in front of Indian leaders was twofold.

Of transforming the states into viable administrative units;
Of absorbing them into the constitutional units.
Challenges with Princely States were:

During the time of proclamation of India’s independence, Britain took a stand that princely states can either join with India or Pakistan or they can remain independent.
This clause created much confusion.
For the rulers of princely states they cannot even imagine of ceding their power under Indian constituent Assembly.
These states followed different administrative methods; some were aristocratic, strong differences between the states themselves, people with different opinions, mindsets and culture to name a few reasons.
Princely states started demanding independence after lapse of British paramountcy.
It was argued that after British withdrawal the situation in the Princely states would turn into lawlessness and anarchy and it is important to be associated with a centre of power to handle the situation.
Emergence of hundreds of independent states would made the struggle of Indian independence futile.
Therefore integration of princely states became a major agenda for Indian leaders.
Eventually, rulers of all the 652 states with exception of Junagarh, Kashmir and Hyderabad had signed the instrument of Accession by 15 August, 1947.
Junagadh Nawab wanted to join Pakistan but his people wanted to join Indian dominion.
Hyderabad wanted a sovereign status.
Kashmir had a Hindu prince and a Muslim majority population. The prince envisaged a sovereign status for the state and was reluctant to accede to either India or Pakistan.
The 3 major issues that impeded the integration process were, firstly their demand for independence, secondly the demand to integrate with Pakistan and finally the problems of administrative integration after political integration.
Also Pakistan was influencing the decisions of these states by offering financial as well political tools to these states if they acceded in Pakistan. This was a headache for Indian leadership.