This chapter outlines the constitutional debates about India’s political future during the 1940s and the debates between New Delhi and the India Office in London over how to handle the princely states amid broader political reforms in India, leading up to the Cabinet Mission in 1946 that outlined the basis of the British government’s policy for India. The Cabinet Mission essentially sidestepped the issue of the princely states, as the members of the Cabinet Mission hoped to avoid in any way committing the princes in advance to specific conditions under which they would join India’s constitution-making body, the Constituent Assembly. The chapter goes on to discuss developments with the princes as the British prepared their plans for withdrawing from the Subcontinent in 1947. Partition placed the princely states in an even more difficult position, especially those states with Muslim rulers and majority Hindu populations and vice versa, such as Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Bhopal. Their path remained uncertain, with opinions divided among both the British and the Indians. Some British officials even argued for a third path—the right to claim full independence following the lapse of paramountcy. Thus, this chapter provides an overview of British engagement on the issue of the princely states in the years leading up to the transfer of power.