Unlike today, where we have 28 States and 7 Union Territories, India in the pre-independence (British) days, the country was actually made up of 12 British India Provinces and more than 565 Indian Princely States.
As per the Indian Independence Bill, the Indian Princely states were given the 3 options, to join India, to join Pakistan or to remain independent. As anticipated, most of the Indian Princely States expressed the desire to remain free.
But the tremendous work done by Vallabhbhai Patel, the then home minster, almsot all of them decided to join India.
The states that refused to join India were Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad.
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