SARDAR VALLABHBHAI PATEL May 06, 1947:   On this day, he began lobbying and persuading the princes of 565 states of the impossibility of independence from the Indian republic. All but three of the states, after being convinced by Patel, willingly merged into the Indian union; only Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh, and Hyderabad did not agree to merge by that time.