Title :  The Maharajahs

Author  :  John Lord

Year :  1971

Pages :  244+XI

Price :  Rs. 500

Publisher :  Random House, New York, USA

While the first book on the Indian rulers I read in the US was titled ‘The Maharaja & the Princely States of India,’ the second one that I concluded reading also relates to the Maharajas.

‘The Maharajahs’ is authored by John Lord. Born in Lancashire, England, in 1924, he was a producer for NBC in New York. He worked in India and London during the preparation for this work. It was published in 1971 in the USA.

The 241-page book covers over a dozen rulers, including Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV of Mysore. It draws ‘intimate pictures of the most famous of these fabulous Princes in their golden age when they gave to India its aura of magnificence.’

When the author says this, it is obvious that their glorious days are painted with comments that many may not endorse or look at with disdain. Take the example of the Mysore Maharaja. The author while describing the way Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV celebrated Dasara, says ‘for nine days he stayed unshaven and unwashed and his clothes  were unattended.’

Such observations need to be taken with a pinch of salt. In fact, during these nine sacred Navarathri days, the Maharajas strictly remained religious and bathed twice a day, although he remained unshaven. During the period, he wore rich ceremonial clothes and offered prayers to the family deity.

The native States enjoyed semi-autonomy, which gave each Prince the freedom to develop his individuality as he pleased. Consequently, “there were monsters and near-saints among the Maharajahs, martyrs and eccentrics, heroes and shams.”

The British generally did not meddle in the internal affairs of the Native States. However, they did not tolerate a rule that was by their standards ‘depraved, incompetent or inflammatory.’ They were always reluctant to act unless matters became flagrantly public. When a Maharaja’s misdemeanours created a scandal, he was doomed. Here, John Lord makes mention of a ruler who bathed with about 40 naked ladies, who welcomed him standing on the pool steps, entered the water along with him with lamps in their hands and danced.

The author reveals the eccentricities of some of them, like the Prince of the Rampur line, Sir Syed Mohammed Hamed Ali Khan Bahadur (1875-1930). His fastidiousness extended even to the bathroom, where he spent much of the day dispensing justice and advice from a toilet seat specially designed by his chief engineer not only for comfort but to give the impression that he was formally enthroned.

The Junagadh ruler was a leading dog breeder of the Orient. He was a noteworthy sadist too. His pack numbered 800 or so at one time. But by the time of Independence, perhaps foreseeing the hard times ahead, he reduced it to a mere 300. The accommodation for his favourites among them was luxurious, consisting of a room for each one with a servant, electric light, telephone, a tiled hospital of three wards supervised by an English veterinarian with canine spectacles. He conducted the marriage of one of his dogs lavishly, inviting 50,000 guests! The upkeep of dogs cost him 13,000 dollars a month, or 11 percent of his State’s revenue.

The magnificence of the Maharajas achieved its Augustan age in the period between the visit of the Prince of Wales, who was later Edward VII in 1875-76 and his grandson, later Edward VIII in 1911-12, including the third Prince of Wales in the interim 1905-06 and again as King-Emperor in 1911. His Delhi Durbar was an assembly of the leading men in India. In all, 40,000 tents were put up in a vast area, ‘sheltering three hundred thousand people in a concentration of wealth and power not even the Tsar of Russia could equal.’ All three Princes of Wales were entertained privately and in splendour by the leading Maharajas.

Their minor eccentricities became a source of gossip and entertainment. “One conducted all his business sitting in the lavatory. Another brought two hundred and seventy automobiles. One would use only bank notes fresh from the presses of the mint and paid 10 percent extra to get them. Another filled one vast room of his Palace with packages containing the entire stock of a hardware store he had bought outright in England. The Princes pursued their professions with simple enthusiasm. One refused to have a railroad run through his territory because it offended his religion to think of passengers wolfing down beef in the dining cars. Another, enamoured by the tartan, bought Highland uniforms for his household troops perfect in detail.

One, desiring a dish of quail at the Savoy Hotel in London, caused cables to be sent to the four corners of the earth and so discovered six in Egypt, too late for dinner. Another occupied an entire floor of the same hotel, satisfying his aesthetic sense with three thousand fresh roses a day. Opening his morning paper, one heir apparent fell full shock in love with the leggy photograph of a beauty queen, located her and married her, though she was merely the 16-year-old daughter of a railroad porter from Crewe.” Such was their eccentricities and lavishness.

“The man who was a Goddess” is the title given to the chapter written about Krishnaraja Waidyar IV. It is mainly dedicated to the way the Maharaja celebrated the annual Dasara and its grandeur. His administration finds very little or no space in the narrative. To the house of Wadiyars, he writes, the story of their patroness Chamundi, though more complex, was spiritually meaningful. “To HH Sir Krishnaraja Wadyar Bahadur IV (1884-1940), devout and beloved ornament of his line, the Goddess was not only the source of all good things but the guardian of his throne, his destiny and princely soul.”

“Dasara was by no means the sole religious duty of Sri Krishnaraja, who was known as the most devout of Princes. He never ate with Europeans and it was said that he bathed after meeting them. He was a man of medium size with an expression invariably calm and a department of quiet and dignified grace. The orthodoxy and depth of Sir Krishnaraja’s beliefs and the piety of his daily life made him of all Indian Princes the ideal of a Hindu king,” he says. He is the only ruler to receive such a commendation by the British author.

Similarly, he also pays tribute to his successor, Maharaja  Jayachamaraja Wadiyar, so named because of the First World War victory, and says, “The Maharaja Jaya Chamaraja Wadiyar followed his uncle’s precept by living without excess, though the fittings of his automobiles were still of ivory and gold. A man of intellectual distinction, the Maharajah was welcomed by Universities in England and America for his lectures on art and philosophy. He lived in much the same fashion as his uncle had, cultivating the arts, enjoying sport and honouring his God.”

The book is vividly descriptive. With wry wit and humour, it narrates the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the Native Princes, their fabulous wealth and their lavish and scandalous life.

By Gouri Satya, Sr. Journalist