Salute state
The gun-salute system of recognition was first instituted during the time of the East India Company in the late 18th century and was continued under direct Crown rule from 1858.
Following their independence in 1947, the new Indian and Pakistani governments maintained the gun-salute system until 1971 (in India) and 1972 (in Pakistan), when the former ruling families were officially derecognised.
When the ruler of a princely state arrived at the Indian capital (originally at Calcutta (Kolkata), then at Delhi), he was greeted with a number of gun-firings.
The number of guns in a salute assumed particular importance at the time of holding of the Coronation Durbar in Delhi in the month of December 1911.
[citation needed] Some of the rulers not listed above were granted increased gun salutes after the independence, e.g. the Maharana of Mewar (at Udaipur, Maharajpramukh in Rajasthan) was raised to first place in the Order of Precedence, displacing the Nizam of Hyderabad and Berar, and all 9-gun states were permitted the use of the style of Highness.
[citation needed] This system continued till 1971 when privileges and Privy Purses of ex-rulers were abolished by the Government of India.
In 1905, his son and successor, Habibullah Khan, negotiated the Anglo-Afghan Treaty with the British, by which Afghanistan was de jure styled as a sovereign monarchy and the ruler recognised as King of Afghanistan (Shah-e-Afghanistan) with the style of His Majesty, while remaining a protected state of Britain.
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the dissolution of the East India Company in 1858, the protectorate was transferred to the British crown through the British Raj, which recognised the monarch as "King of Nepal" with the style of His Majesty in 1919 and the Rana Maharaja was styled as His Highness, due to the country's contributions to the Allied cause in the First World War.
[3] While the semi-sovereign Rana oligarchy held power as hereditary Shree Teen Maharajas of Nepal until its deposition in 1951, the Nepalese monarchy continued until its abolition in 2008.
In 1963, however, Bhutan promulgated a new constitution which replaced the title of His Highness the Maharaja with His Majesty the Druk Gyalpo, formally promoting the country to the status of an independent, sovereign monarchy.
Though officially considered a princely state under its ruler, the Maharaja Chogyal, Sikkim was given the separate status of a British protectorate in 1861 under the Treaty of Tumlong, by which the British government could intervene in the state's internal affairs and oversee all external matters; despite this, Sikkim maintained a high degree of autonomy in practice.
In 1947, the Maharaja Chogyal and his people decided against accession to India and chose to maintain Sikkim's internal sovereignty.
Following the death of the Maharaja Chogyal in 1963 and his succession by his unpopular son, Palden Thondup Namgyal, popular demands for increased individual rights grew more frequent.
After Sikkim's first free general elections in 1974, the Indian Army placed the Chogyal under house arrest.
Under military supervision, a controversial referendum was held in 1975, which approved the state's merger with India and the abolition of the monarchy.
With the increasing costs of maintaining an overseas presence, Britain announced in January 1968 that it would end its protectorate over the remaining Gulf states in 1971.
