From an outsider to being one of them

Rajendra Bora

Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, hailed as one of the most beautiful women in the world, added glamour to the Pink City when she arrived in the town in 1940 at the age of 21 as a third wife of Maharaja Man Singh, a veritable prince charming.

Unlike his two earlier marriages, arranged by elders, the Maharaja himself chose his third bride. It was a love marriage between Man Singh and Gayatri Devi. And like any love marriage in traditional Indian society this high profile wedding also faced several hurdles.

The first hurdle came from Gayatri Devi’s family in Cooch Behar. Even her mother, herself a great friend of the Jaipur Maharaja, was hesitant to give her daughter’s hand to a man already having two wives. However, Man Singh’s love for the beautiful princes triumphed and Cooch Behar family agreed for the wedding.

The biggest challenge to the proposed marriage came from Jaipur nobles and also from the then British Government of India.

Oppositon to the third marriage of the Maharaja with Cooch Behar princes was unanimous. Rajput chieftains objected to the marriage as they considered Cooch Behar as inferior in status to that of Jaipur. There was, however, nobody who could tell Man Singh this to his face. There were only two exceptions, his father, the Thakur of Isarda and Nobel Amar Singh, who could talk to the Maharaja. But their opposition too failed to change the Maharaja’s mind.

An entry into Aamar Singh’s diary states that in January 1940 Maharaja Sahib asked him whether he would be coming to his marriage and he replied “certainly not; if you marry in a good Rajput family I will with pleasure, but not when you marry into that family (of Cooch Behar)”.

Maharajas of Bikaner, Udaipur, Dungarpur and Jamnagar, who were all related to one or other of Man Singh’s earlier two wives even made representation to the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow against the Jaipur Maharaja’s adventurous step.

Interestingly Viceroy of India too issued an edict : “no officer of my government should attend, whether from Cooch Behar or from Jaipur, or anywhere else, and no congratulations or good wishes should be offered unless with the preface that the offerer stands in his private capacity only.”

Sir B.J. Glancy, political advisor, held that ‘though they (Cooch Behar) described themselves as Kshtriya, they would have great difficulty in establishing their claim to this distinction.”

But the adamant Maharaja sticked to his love. He himself went to Udaipur to bring its Maharana to his side and later wrote a letter asking him to attend his marriage. Udaipur Maharana, excusing himself on health ground, ultimately sent his two representatives to the wedding ceremony held in Cooch Behar. Maharaja Man Singh went there with a retinue of 40 nobles.

Maharani Gayatri Devi in her autobiography ‘A Princes remembers’ commented “I knew that my marriage was not popular with Jai’s (for her Man Singh was Jai and for Maharaja she was Ayesha) relatives and the Jaipur Nobilities. The other two Maharanis were related to most of the Rajput princely families, but I was a total stranger.”

However, when Gayatri Devi departed to heavenly abode at the age of 90 yesterday she was no ‘outsider” but Jaipur’s own ‘Maharani’, ‘Raj Mata’ and ‘Raj Dadi’ who was sent to the Lok Sabha by the people thrice with astounding margin of votes.

(The piece appeared in Hindustan Times supplement HT LIve on July 31, 2009)