In the traditional but affluent beachfront district of Jumeirah, the aesthetic matches the geographyof being halfway between Europe and India: patisseries next to sari shops.
Nehru agreed, and so did the outgoing British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten. (A pragmatist, Mountbatten noted that Kashmir was more closely linked, through religion and geography, to Pakistan than India.) As a result, the maharajah was asked to sign only a treaty of temporary accession to India.