Gayatri Devi, the last of the maharanis
By Raja Murthy
MUMBAI - The passing away of Gayatri Devi, the last of the notable Indian maharanis,
or queens, has signed off a final postscript to India's colorful royal past.
On July 30, two elephants led her funeral procession in Jaipur, state capital
of Rajasthan (land of kings) in western India. The 90-year-old frail body of
the lady, once ranked among the 10 most beautiful women in the world, was
carried with state honors to the "Maharani Ki Chhatri", a special cremation
ground for the former queens of Rajasthan.
The funeral pyre smoke seems to have carried away a living link to an India
known for maharajahs and palaces, palanquins and
polo matches, fabled jewels and custom-made Rolls Royces, debauched
lifestyles and cowardly animal-hunting parties.
Gayatri Devi was among the more famous, interesting and dignified remnants of
rulers of over 560 petty kingdoms or "princely states" within India and
Pakistan at the time of independence in 1947.
She born in London, studied in Switzerland, was 28 years old and queen of
Jaipur when India officially became a free nation on August 15, 1947.
Within three decades, the queen was turned into a commoner. She was given the
same constitutional status as her cook and car driver after prime minister
Indira Gandhi in 1971 abolished royal titles and their fat "privy purses". This
financial arrangement was the annual income the government of India promised
hundreds of rulers, as part of terms for acceding to the Indian union in 1947.
Like many other fellow royals, Gayatri Devi entered politics and became a
three-time member of parliament until she retired three decades ago.
Her political claim to fame included ticking off prime minister Jawaharlal
Nehru in parliament over India losing the China war in 1962, and holding the
Guinness World Record for winning an election by the highest percentage of
votes polled. She won 192,909 of 246,516 votes cast for the Jaipur
parliamentary seat in 1962. The same year, she was guest of president John F
Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House.
The India in which she died appeared to be the India for which she fought in
her brief political career. Among free India's strongest supporters of a free
economy, she opposed Nehru's socialist policies and was an ardent supporter of
Rajaji, as the country's first Indian governor-general Chakravarti
Rajagopalachari was popularly known.
Rajaji (1878-1972), a colleague of Mahatma Gandhi and one of India's most
respected statesmen, returned the respect. He called Gayatri Devi a modern-day sita
(the chaste queen of Lord Ram), Laxmi (the Hindu goddess of wealth) and Rani of
Jhansi, the courageous queen who in 1857 led India's first war of independence
that is inaccurately dubbed by Western historians as "The Indian Mutiny".
As with many fellow royals forced to surrender titles and trappings, Gayatri
Devi appears to have taken the status change in her stride. But other Indians
had difficulty surrendering their worship of these former rubber-stamp rulers.
Gayatri Devi was still referred to as Maharani Gayatri Devi, or rajmata (queen
mother), in sections of the democratic Indian media reporting her death.
For other historians and history students like me, Gayatri Devi represented the
lineage of a gilded tribe of weak imperial flotsam and jetsam who sold India
out first to the East India Company traders in the 18th century and later to
the rulers of Britain in the 19th century.
The squabbles and decay of hundreds of small kingdoms in the Indian
subcontinent helped the likes of Robert Clive (1725-1774) and Charles
Cornwallis (1738-1805) to lay the foundation of the British Empire in the
Indian subcontinent. They opportunistically played one warring tin-pot kingdom
off against the other, until the whole royal house of rotting cards collapsed
into a little island colony off Europe.
By birth and marriage, Gayatri Devi represented a united India that turned her
into a citizen, not ruler. Her father, Prince Jitendra Narayan, was from Cooch
Behar kingdom in eastern India, her mother, Maharani Indira Devi, came from the
royal family of Baroda in western India and her husband, Maharaja Sawai Man
Singh II, had an earlier wife from a royal family in south India. Family and
close friends called Gayatri Devi by her Muslim nickname, "Ayesha".
Gayatri Devi and her ex-royal tribe also represented another claim to infamy:
nearly wiping out the entire tiger population of the sub-continent,
particularly the majestic royal Bengal tiger, in lunatic, cowardly hunting
expeditions with guns that were frequent sources of "entertainment" for this
gilded tribe and their misguided British masters. Gayatri Devi herself admitted
to killing 27 tigers before she gave up the murderous slaughter, saying, "I
feel sorry for the animals."
This story of the beast and 27 beauties had a more compassionate side, as
Gayatri Devi pioneered liberal education for girls in Rajasthan, funded health
treatment for those who could not afford it and won praise from Jaipur locals
for her generosity. Politics though, she said, was a limited route to serving
the people, particularly when in the politician was in opposition.
She retired from politics after spending five months in New Delhi's Tihar Jail.
She was imprisoned along with other opposition leaders during the infamous
"Emergency" in 1975, when prime minister Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay
Gandhi - younger brother-in-law of the present Congress party leader Sonia
Gandhi - suspended the constitution and temporarily assumed dictatorial powers.
"It wasn't too bad," Gayatri Devi cheerfully told an interviewer in 2006 when
asked about doing time in Asia's largest prison. "In Tihar, I had my own
bedroom with a verandah and my own bathroom. We were well looked after, except
we were not free," she said, chatting to Shekhar Gupta in the NDTV interview
series Walk the Talk.
Like Gayatri Devi, many of India's former now royals lead unpretentious lives.
Thirty-eight-year old Jyotiraditya Scindia, at present India's junior commerce
and industry minister, comes from the Scindia royal family of Gwalior state in
central India. One of India's promising young leaders, he answers to the name
Jyoti.
Former defense minister and elderly opposition leader Jaswant Singh, from a
royal family in Rajasthan, wears no Alexander Amosu designer suits but a
standard bush shirt that makes him look more like a friendly bus driver.
Royal status seems to have passed from Gayatri Devi and her tribe to the royal
egos of the VIP and "Very Very Important Person" breed that is seen
disgustingly often in India, particularly among the political class.
These royal low-nesses demand the elite Black Cat commandos as personal
bodyguards, live in luxurious bungalows, travel in large convoys and stop
peak-hour traffic in metropolitan cities while they whiz by.
They also have their statues installed in such large numbers that the Supreme
Court has had to intervene, as in the case of Mayawati, chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh, one of India's most backward states, who runs the government there as
if she is an uncrowned queen.
In July, opposition leaders alleged that Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj
party that is supposed to serve India's backward classes and the downtrodden,
has spent US$420 million of public money in installing self-glorifying statues
and structures across the state.
A more recent eruption of this royal-ego disease occurred last month when
India's parliamentarians ridiculously demanded an apology from Continental
Airlines in the US for making former president Abdul Kalam go through its
mandatory security check before boarding his flight to Newark.
The humble Kalam himself did not appear to mind, judging by his initial
response to the controversy. But the royal low-nesses would have nothing of
this "sacrilege" to one of their class, and raised a storm in parliament,
quoting breach of protocol. Rules that apply to the taxpayer, who pays the
parliamentarians' salaries and their plane rides in first class, do not apply
to the VVIP class and their petty egos.
Gayatri Devi, the former maharani, lived in an ordinary house when in
New Delhi. But the official residence of the president of India is Rashtrapati
Bhavan, a 340-room palace that was built for the former British rulers of
India. This lavish building and its elaborate gardens should have been turned
into a hospital, school or any other public facility in 1947. But the
president, the constitutional head of the "Socialist Democratic Republic of
India", unabashedly continues living in the former imperial viceroy's palace.
It seems ugly enough proof that while the maharajas and maharanis
of India, like Gayatri Devi, have gone, the royal egos live on in India's
political class to harass and trouble citizens.
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