Looking at the situation at the time, this was actually a forced expedient.
Although the populace of the Southern Subcontinent, or more accurately, the aristocrats ruling the local states, had a strong desire for independence, turning that into concrete action was highly challenging and likely to fail. Acting against the tide, allowing dozens of local states to leave the colonial system overnight to become independent nations, would inevitably lead to large-scale upheaval, potentially making the hard-won independence worthless.
The subsequent wars and turmoil obliquely proved this inference.
The crux is that, in the past several thousand years, the Southern Subcontinent had never truly been unified, at least never under a central government with internal strength.
What unified the Southern Subcontinent was the Bulan Kingdom!
