Hyderabad’s Sovereignty Afterlife

https://youtu.be/qZcNtX3tOTI

This Paper tests whether a city can exhibit a “sovereignty afterlife” in international litigation. It anchors the analysis in the Hyderabad Funds dispute—the 20 September 1948 transfer of £1,007,940 from a Government of Hyderabad account at Westminster Bank to Pakistan’s High Commissioner—and proceedings culminating in High Commissioner for Pakistan v Prince Muffakham Jah. Moving beyond a state-centric baseline and using a “cities as actors” lens, it argues that Hyderabad’s banking interface with London served as legal infrastructure preserving adjudicable rights after sovereignty ended. Methodologically, it triangulates doctrinal analysis (succession, foreign act of state, immunity), primary archives (telegrams, bank correspondence, pleadings), and testimony. Substantively, it shows: (i) urban banking situs in a financial centre created a stable forum and record; (ii) succession ambiguity enabled private-law framing (trust, restitution, property); and (iii) immunity claims were cabined by proof of agency, trust-like custody, and non-beneficial holding, and practical enforcement.