The maharajas of the British princely states, spread across the map of India, from east to west and north to south, were as different as chalk and cheese – different religions, different languages, different customs. Did they have anything in common at all?
Strangely, they did.
Their ancestors came from small beginnings and laid the foundations for great kingdoms to be.
They became British subsidiaries, for their own protection, but remained sovereign.
They were groomed by English nannies and British tutors. i They went to study at the Mayo College in Ajmer or schools and universities in the UK.
They were great sportsmen, expert marksmen and brave soldiers.
They enjoyed immense wealth and loved to flaunt their jewellery.
They were known for their hospitality and their love of hunting.
They were Western in thought and deed but completely Indian or desi at heart.
Most importantly, barring a few eccentric exceptions, the maharajas cared deeply for the welfare of their people.
And the royal house of Bharatpur was no different.
Tracing its ancestry to the 11th-century Jat chieftains, Bharatpur, named after Lord Rama’s younger brother, Bharat, was created out of the hamlets around Delhi, Agra and Mathura. It is said that much later, Gokula, a local chieftain of the Sinsinawar Jat clan, was among the first to rebel against the Mughals. His descendants kept up the momentum, and in the 17th century, under Raja Ram Sinsini’s successor named Churaman, a kingdom independent of the Rajputs and the Mughals of the area was established.
With Emperor Aurangzeb passing away in 1707, Churaman’s successors were on a roll. His nephew, Badan Singh, quickly proclaimed himself king, and the Jat Kingdom of Bharatpur was born in 1722.
Badan Singh was not only a great warrior but also a great poet and a man of letters. As befitted his status, he built himself a few palaces in his capital, Deeg. He also laid out the gardens and fountains we see in Bharatpur and its environs today. He was succeeded by his stepson and nephew, Suraj Mal.
Now, Suraj Mal (r. 1756–1763) was a brilliant warrior too. He built the impenetrable Lohagarh Fort in Deeg, with its ten massive gates and several moats and cannons. Troubled by the Mughals, Suraj Mal took the fight right into their camp, and, in 1761, plundered Delhi and captured the Agra Fort. Thus, the wealth of the Mughals was now in his hands, and Suraj Mal became the wealthiest ruler in the land.
With Agra in its fold, Bharatpur was now at the peak of its power. However, after Suraj Mal’s time, even though the next four maharajas ruled over the Mughal strongholds for about thirteen years, the Mughals under Mirza Najaf Khan recaptured Agra and other Jat territories.
This back and forth between the Jat rulers and the Mughals happened a few times over other territories, and also with the Marathas when they began to make their presence felt. The Marathas wanted help to defeat the British who were as usual hovering around. So, Bharatpur’s then maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1776–1805) joined hands with the Marathas to take on the British.
The British attacked Bharatpur twice but could not capture Ranjit Singh’s fort. They, however, were nothing if not crafty. They blockaded him next. Poor Ranjit Singh! Unable to last out, he had to sue for peace. However, instead of capturing Bharatpur, the British forced the maharaja to sign a treaty acknowledging their supremacy. And thus, Bharatpur retained its independence but became a princely state in 1805.
A few maharajas (four to be precise) later, the Sepoy Mutiny took place in India. Maharaja Jaswant Singh (r. 1853–1893), the then ruler, decided to actively support the British. A delighted East India Company showered him with a great many awards and accolades.
Now, a great friend of the British, Jaswant Singh donated handsomely to Mayo College for boys in Ajmer, which was founded by Viceroy Mayo in 1875 to educate young Indian rulers and nobles.
Then came Maharaja Kishan Singh (r. 1918–1928), the thirteenth maharaja of Bharatpur. He was the last but one ruler before India became independent. Flamboyant and extravagant, Kishan Singh was a great one for pranks. He often pranked his British guests and enjoyed the aftermath.
At any given point in time, the maharaja had a retinue of some 300 domestic helpers in attendance, a fleet of two dozen custom-made Rolls Royces and more in his garages, slept on a twelve-by-fifteen-foot silver bed, and, yes, almost made Bharatpur bankrupt.
A Silver Dowry Rolls Royce, custom-made for his wife, was Kishan Singh’s pride and joy. It had a roof that could be lowered to accommodate as many as seven hunters on a tiger shoot. It even had tiger searchlights for night shoots.
Maharaja Kishan Singh ushered in an era of reforms as well. He brought in several changes, such as:
Reorganising the army
Making Hindi the state language
Making primary education compulsory
Setting up hospitals
Encouraging trade and arts
Introducing society and village panchayat acts
Commissioning banks for credit
Encouraging the public to take part in state affairs.
He was succeeded by his son, Colonel Maharaja Brijendra Singh (r. 1929–1947).
Brijendra Singh was sent to the UK to study and returned an Anglophile. Even so, he cared for his people and actively took part in public events. He loved music and had a fabulous collection of books and Western music. He also had pet tigers and cheetahs, who were encouraged to walk in while he had guests. The animals would allegedly lick food off Brijendra Singh’s fingers and frighten his visitors.
Bharatpur, being small, was not as wealthy as its neighbours. Yet the royals dined off Belgian crystal and exquisite Wedgwood plates, bathed in marble sunken baths and lived in palaces that were architecturally among the best in British India.
With turtles swimming amidst pink water lilies in the lakes, and strutting peacocks and rare birds from faraway lands in their gardens, Bharatpur was renowned for its flora and fauna, and especially for its birds. Birds, including the white Siberian crane, from across the world, would flock to the Bharatpur lakes during the season. So, the maharajas of Bharatpur would host the yearly Bharatpur imperial duck shoot on the Ghana Jheel or lake. A visiting Edward VIII of Britain apparently bagged 2,221 ducks and partridges in a single day. Painted storks, white ibises, darters, spoonbills, black-necked storks and herons were among the 380 species of birds that usually visited. The British Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, too, is said to have downed over 4,200 birds and carted away dozens of exotic plants. Today, Bharatpur has a bird sanctuary that protects its birds. No shooting is allowed unless it’s with a camera.
Brijendra Singh married into the stupendously wealthy royal house of Mysore. And when India became independent, he was among the first to join the Indian Union. Like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Udaipur, Bharatpur today is part of the state of Rajasthan in independent India. At the time of Independence, the kingdom was 13,268 square kilometres in size.
Excerpted with permission from Fascinating Maharajas of India: Twenty-Five Princely States and Their Extraordinary Stories, Sreelata Menon, illustrated by Priyanka Tampi, Puffin India.
