Junagadh State

• 1. Introduction

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  Junagadh State sat on the Kathiawar Peninsula in western India, a Muslim-ruled principality surrounded by a predominantly Hindu population. On the 15th of August 1947, the exact day that India declared independence, the Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khan III announced that Junagadh would not join India. He chose Pakistan instead. That decision set off a crisis that would end with the Nawab living in exile in Sindh and Pakistan still marking Junagadh on its official maps as its own territory, more than seven decades later.

  How did a dynasty founded by a Pashtun soldier in 1654 come to govern one of Kathiawar's larger princely states? What drove a ruler to choose a nation that shared no border with his territory? And what happened in 1948 when the people of Junagadh were finally asked what they wanted? Those are the questions this documentary will answer.

• 2. The Babi Dynasty

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  Muhammad Sher Khan Babai founded the Babi Pashtun dynasty in 1654, and his descendants spent the following decades expanding southward across Saurashtra. The Babi Nawabs were granted a thirteen-gun salute by British authorities, a mark of standing that placed them among the recognized rulers of the region.

  The dynasty's independence was formalized not by Sher Khan himself but by a later ruler. Mohammad Khan Bahadur Khanji I declared independence from the Mughal governor of Gujarat and established the state of Junagarh in 1730. That act allowed the Babis to hold onto Junagarh even as the Mughal Empire crumbled around them.

  Their path was not without conflict. The collapse of Mughal authority dragged the Babis into a long contest with the Gaekwad dynasty of the Maratha Empire for control of Gujarat. During the reign of Mohammad Mahabat Khanji I, the state navigated that rivalry, and for a period Junagarh paid tribute to the Maratha Empire. That arrangement ended when Mohammad Hamid Khanji I brought the state under British suzerainty in 1807, following the Second Anglo-Maratha War.

• 3. The Koli Rebellion

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  During the reign of Nawab Sher Khan, the first ruler of Junagarh, a man named Mansa Khant launched a revolt against Mughal authority in the region. Khant chose Uparkot Fort as his base and used it to conduct raids into the surrounding villages and cities.

  Nawab Sher Khan could not suppress the rebellion on his own. Mansa Khant held Uparkot for thirteen months and continued striking into the countryside throughout that time. The nawab eventually called for outside help, bringing in the ruler of Gondal State, Thakur Sahib Haloji Jadeja, along with an Arab military commander named Sheikh Abdullah Zubeidi.

  The combined forces finally defeated Mansa Khant and retook Uparkot. The rebellion was crushed, but the episode revealed that even the earliest Babi rulers faced serious internal challenges to their authority.

• 4. British Suzerainty

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  By 1807, Junagarh had become a British protectorate and the East India Company took administrative control of the state. The transition was part of a broader reorganization that followed the Second Anglo-Maratha War, which reshaped power across western India.

  By 1818, the Saurashtra region and the other princely states of Kathiawar were placed under a unified structure called the Kathiawar Agency, administered separately by British India. Junagarh continued under Babi rule within this framework, maintaining its identity as a state while operating under British oversight.

  The list of rulers recorded during this period shows how steadily the dynasty held on. Nine nawabs governed Junagarh between 1730 and 1948, and the last of them, Mohammad Mahabat Khan III, came to power in 1911 and ruled until the moment of partition.

• 5. The Accession Crisis

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  In 1947, Shah Nawaz Bhutto joined the council of ministers of Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khan III, and by May of that year he had become the nawab's dewan, or prime minister. Bhutto's influence over the ruler would prove decisive in the weeks that followed.

  Britain left the princely states with a choice: accede to India, accede to Pakistan, or pursue independence. The Nawab's own Constitutional Advisor, Nabi Baksh, indicated to Lord Mountbatten that he was recommending accession to India. That recommendation was overruled. On the advice of Dewan Bhutto, the Nawab announced on the 15th of August 1947 that Junagarh had acceded to Pakistan. Pakistan's government formally accepted the accession on the 16th of September.

  The decision ignored two facts that India considered fundamental. Junagarh's population was predominantly Hindu, and the state shared no geographic border with Pakistan. Both factors made the accession deeply contentious. India sent its military into Junagarh while the Nawab was in Pakistan, and the state was seized. Muhammad Mahabat Khan III spent the rest of his life in exile in Sindh.

• 6. The Plebiscite and After

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  In 1948, the Government of India held a plebiscite in Junagarh. An overwhelming majority of voters chose accession to India. The result formalized what military intervention had already accomplished, and Junagarh was integrated into the Indian Union. It later became part of the state of Gujarat.

  Pakistan has never accepted that outcome. Its government has maintained a territorial claim on Junagadh, along with Manavadar and Sir Creek in Gujarat, and continues to mark all three on its official political maps. On the 10th of December 2020, Sultan Ahmed Ali took oath as the Dewan of Junagadh State in what Pakistan treats as a continuation of the state's legitimate governance structure. The claim remains active, making Junagadh one of several unresolved territorial disputes that still shape the relationship between the two countries.