India, Oct. 31 -- "Today we think of the integration of the states only in terms of the consolidation of the country, but few pause to consider the toils and anxieties that had to be undergone till, step by step, the edifice of a consolidated India was enshrined in the Constitution," VP Menon wrote in his classic The Story of Integration of Indian States in 1955. It was a book Menon had promised Vallabhbhai Patel he would write and dedicated it to him. "It was a co-operative effort in which everyone from Sardar-our inspiration and light-down to the rank and file played his part.There was a unity of purpose animating everyone". It is difficult to imagine what India looked like before the integration of states, an effort in which Patel played...