Supreme authority or overriding power exercised by one entity over others, especially the British Crown's suzerainty over princely states

Old French paramont (above) from Latin per ad montem (to the hill)

Supremacy Suzerainty Pre-eminence
Subordination Inferiority Subjection
"Critics argued that reviving separate electorates would revive a colonial-era logic of paramountcy that fragmented the Indian electorate along communal lines."

Use in GS1 Modern History and GS2 Polity answers on integration of princely states, lapse of paramountcy in 1947, and Sardar Patel's role in nation-building.

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