Descended from the Kakatiya and Vijayanagar kingdoms, a discreet group of Hindu kings flourished in what is now modern-day Telangana. Surviving into the colonial era, these samasthan kingdoms found new and creative ways to survive in the Nizam¿s Dominions, while simultaneously negotiating with the British powers situated at Hyderabad, Madras, and beyond. Rejecting simplified notions of ¿civilizational clashes¿, this book argues for a new perspective on power relations in nineteenth and twentieth-century Hyderabad State.