MEMORABLE ROMANCE: Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II & Mahrani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur

By Mahlia Lone

A royal love affair, a beautiful Maharani, glittering palaces, lost wills, and legal wrangling over a quarter of a billion pound estate

Jaipur, the magical pink city with the vast fairytale palaces had a Maharaja, who only had eyes for his Maharani. So strong was their love that he allowed his glamorous, intelligent and independent Anglicized wife break with tradition and venture out of the zenana and behave like a thoroughly modern woman, so she would be happy and fulfilled. The Maharaja was Sawai Man Singh II and his Maharani was Gayatri Devi, one of the world’s Ten Most Beautiful Women as listed by none other than Vogue magazine, after Cecil Beaton photographed her in Jaipur in 1943.

Gayatri came from a line of strong women. In her book, Maharanis: The Extraordinary tale of Four Indian Queens and their journey from Purdah to Parliament, Lucy Moore follows the stories of the three generations of game-changing Maharanis (Gayatri, her mother and grandmother). She writes, “These Maharanis and their husbands were cosmopolitan in their tastes and Anglophile in culture. They had an aura of glamour and even celebrity clung to all three women, and their extravagance and adventurism became legendary. There were tales of Rolls Royces won and lost at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo, of millions of pounds spent to maintain dozens of residences and hundreds of servants, of promiscuity and reckless, gilded bohemianism. This was a time when modernity, independence and internationalism were swiftly replacing tradition, colonialism and provincialism. And thus these three Maharanis lived confused, sometimes deeply unhappy lives.”

The story starts with Gayatri’s maternal grandmother Chimnabai of Tinjore, the Maharani of Baroda, whose husband Maratha King Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III transformed Baroda into the most advanced princely state in India and had a fabulous jewel collection. As wilful and capable as the Maharaja himself, Chimnabai  refused to live a quiet and confined life, entering the world of men alongside her husband and sharing in is progressive rule during their 53 year marriage. Gayatri’s mother the Maratha King’s only daughter, the rebellious Maharaj Kumari Indira Raje of Baroda created quite a ruckus in the Maratha ruling families when the time of her marriage drew near.

In 1909, forty year old and extremely wealthy Maharaja Madho Rao Scindia of Gwalior was already married, but his Maharani was unable to bear a child. To produce an heir to the gaddi (throne), he needed to take another wife  when he met the beautiful and well educated eighteen year old Maharaj Kumari Indira during the London season. Upon returning to India, he began negotiations with her family and after the astrologers were consulted and horoscopes were compared, the date of the wedding was finalized. Indira was informed of her engagement but she was unhappy. It wasn’t just the age difference; the Maharaja was known to be very conservative and would keep her restricted in the palace of Gwalior in strict purdah. She would rarely be allowed to see even her brothers.

In 1911, Indira Devi accompanied her parents to the Delhi Durbar held to commemorate the accession of King Emperor George V and Queen Empress Mary to the British throne. All the Princes of India gathered to pay allegiance to the British Crown and this was the first time a sitting monarch visited the Subcontinent. The regal festivities lasted for several weeks with polo matches, garden parties, balls and even a ladies durbar. Indira Devi caught up with the princesses of Cooch Behar (the sisters of Maharaja Shri Sir Raj Rajendra Bhup Bahadur Narayan), her friends from the finishing school in Eastbourne that they had attended together. Soon she met and fell in love with the Maharaj Kumar Jitendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur, the Crown Prince’s younger brother.

Upon returning home where preparations for her wedding were in full swing, without telling her parents she wrote to her fiancé that she couldn’t marry him. The wedding preparations in Baroda were in full swing at the time, so it must have been quite a courageous act. The Maharaja of Gwalior immediately telegrammed her father: “WHAT DOES THE PRINCESS MEAN BY HER LETTER?” Her parents were livid, but her brothers stood by her side. Her fiancé acquiesced and agreed to break off the engagement. It wasn’t because Cooch Behar was a small state and Jitenra was merely a younger brother that Indira’s father disapproved of the match, but because the Cooch Behar royal family was considered unorthodox and too westernized, sociable with the Europeans and living an Edwardian lifestyle. Maharaja Nripendra Nayaran Bhup Bahadur and Maharani Suniti Devi were favourites in the court of Queen Empress Victoria, and both of the Maharaj Kumar’s sisters had married European men.

Maharani Gayatri Devi, in her memoirs A Princess Remembers, recalls: “a mental picture of him (her father) standing in front of the fire in the drawing-room at Hans Place. He was wearing his dressing-gown and held a glass of whisky in his hand. He was very tall – nearly all the men in the Cooch Behar family are over six foot – and extremely handsome.” Maharaja Jitendra was a football and polo player, a keen musician, attending concerts and then playing the music back by ear, and very fond of children. Unfortunately, the Maharaja died after only ten years of marriage and his widow returned home to become the state’s Regent.

Cooch Behar, located in West Bengal, was much smaller than Baroda. The houses there were quaintly built of bamboo and perched on stilts to prevent flood damage, as there was no local stone to be used for building. The roofs were covered with scarlet plumes and hibiscus, and the roads were similarly hued and lined with red gravel. Palm trees swung in the breeze. Small white temples dotted the main town with little oblong ponds in the front in which worshippers bathed before entering the temple. Only official buildings like the state treasury and council house were built with brick. The royal palace with its huge central durbar dome and two long wings was located in the outskirts of the town. Built in 1870 by an English architect, who also built the palaces of Kolhapur, Panna, Mysore, and Baroda, the palace was designed for the hot climate with long cool verandahs on all sides furnished with sofas, chairs, and carpets, beyond which stood a large garden with pavilions and small ponds.

The palace was staffed with four to five hundred people including, Gayatri writes, “For the parks and grounds there were twenty gardeners, twenty in the stables, twelve in the garages, almost a hundred in the pilkhanna (elephant stables), a professional tennis coach and his assistant, twelve ball-boys, two people to look after the guns, ten sweepers to keep the drives and pathways immaculate, and finally, the guards.

Indoors there were three cooks, one for English, one for Bengali, and one for Maratha food. Each had his separate kitchen, with his own scullery and his own assistants. There were besides, six women to prepare the vegetables, and two or three bicycle sawars (riders) whose job it was to fetch provisions from the market every day.

The Maharaj Kumaris each had a maid in addition to their governess Miss Oliphant and tutors, while Indrajit (the younger son) had one personal servant and the new Maharaja had four. The Rajmata Indira Devi’s entourage included a secretary (who, in turn, controlled another secretary and typist), ladies-in-waiting, and a number of personal maids.

Along with this large staff there were five to six ADCs (Aide de Comp) who were from good families and could not be considered servants. These ADCs had the responsibilities of running different parts of the household. They escorted the Rajmata Indira Devi whereever she went and also helped entertain guests at the palace. These ADCs also acted as filters between the Rajmata and whoever came to see her. They sifted out the genuine visitors from the curiosity-seekers and those with manufactured complaints or petitions. Finally, about forty people compiled the state band that played before dinner every day and during ceremonials occasions.

Though the Rajmata levied many of the responsibilities to comptrollers, clerks and ADCs the final decisions were always hers and hers alone.”  

For two years, Indira and Jitendra kept up their love affair in secret and finally got married in a London hotel in 1913 according to Brahmo Samaj rites but without her parents’ participation. Maharani Chimnabai did not speak to her daughter for two years until Indira Devi gave birth to her first child. Three weeks later after the marriage, Jitendra’s older brother died. He had been in love with the English actress Edna May, but he was not allowed to marry her and drank himself to death. Next in line, Jitendra succeeded to the throne.

The new Maharaja and Maharani of Cooch Behar had five kids in quick succession. Because Maharaja Jitandera’s health was deteriorating, they were living in London where their fourth child baby Gayatri was born. Though the name Gayatri was chosen after consultation with Hindu astrologers, Indira had been reading a Rider Haggard novel while pregnant and wanted to name the baby Ayesha after the heroine, even though it’s a Muslim name, so she was nicknamed Ayesha.

Gayatri grew up a tomboy. Nina Wolia, who interviewed her for The Times of India, writes, “In her crisp English accent, she talked in a matter-of-fact way about her happy childhood days, ‘When I close my eyes, I recall my happiest days were as a child in Cooch Behar. Those were days of innocence. When I read comics like Tiger Tim and Puck. When I’d go shooting, I would plead with the mahout to let me sit on the neck of the elephant. There I used to lie down, my head between the elephant’s ears. At dusk, I would come home riding on my elephant. When I remember this moment, it takes me back to a time when my life was untouched by change and the loss of people dearest to me. I often dream about my childhood days, we had so much fun with my brothers and sisters.’”

Gayatri had a privileged, well rounded education for the time, attending in turn London’s Glendower Preparatory School, London School of Secretaries, Brillantmont, the most fashionable and  exclusive finishing school for debutantes, the Monkey Club, Knightsbridge, Patha Bhavana of Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and in Lausanne, Switzerland, where her family vacationed.

When she was only twelve, she met the man who was to be the love of her life and whom she would affectionately call Jai.

Mor Mukut Singh was the second son of Thakur Sahib Sawai Singh of Isarda (a dusty, walled town), a nobleman belonging to the Kachwaha clan of Rajputs. His family was connected to the ruling house of Jaipur. The Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Madho Singh II, had been born the son of a former Thakur of Isarda and had been adopted into the ruling family of Jaipur. Madho Singh’s biological father in turn adopted Sawai Singh, son of a relative. Although the Maharaja of Jaipur, Madho Singh II had 65 illegitimate children, he refrained from having any by his five wives because had been warned by a sadhu (Hindu holy man) against having legitimate heirs. Thus, the highly superstitious Maharaja Madho Singh II adopted Mor Mukut to be his son and heir and was renamed Man Singh. When he was only 11, Man Singh succeeded to the throne in 1922 and became H.H. Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hindustan Raj Rajendra Sri Maharajadhiraja Sir Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur.

Man Singh’s first two marriages were arranged to suitable Rajput brides chosen from the royal family of Jodhpur. His first wife was Maharani Marudhar Kunwar, sister of Sumer Singh, Maharaja of Jodhpur, while his second wife was Maharani Kishore Kanwar, niece of his first wife and daughter of the same Sumer Singh.

Man Singh was an avid 10 goal polo player, winning among other trophies the World Cup in 1933. At 21, he came to Woodlands, Calcutta to play during the polo season of ‘31 and that is where he met the 12 year old Gayatri for the first time. Having read a complimentary article on him written by Rosita Forbes, Gayatri was struck by the grown up, exceedingly rich and dashing Maharaja. Gayatri shared with him a love for equestrian sports, polo and riding. A year after meeting the Maharajah, she also shot her first panther.

Maharaja Man Singh conducted a six year secret courtshipfor games of tennis and cycle racing, meeting Gayatri, while she was attending the Monkey Club finishing school in London. In her memoirs, she talks about how gossip about her and the married Jai got around. People warned her mother that life as a third Maharani would be tough. Gayatri said reminiscing, “Looking back, I see that those times were much more ahead than an ordinary approved courtship would have been. There was the challenge of outwitting our elders, of arranging secret meetings….And every now and again, there was a marvellous, unheard of liberty of going for a drive in the country with Jai, of a stolen dinner at Bray, or of an outing on the river in a boat. It was a lovely and intoxicating time.”

“Style comes naturally to me. I guess you’re just born with it. My mother has been my role model and icon. When I was young, I watched her dress. Ma was very fussy about her clothes. Did you know she was the first person to start wearing saris made of chiffon? But her greatest passion was for shoes. She had hundreds of pairs and still went on ordering them from Ferragamo in Florence. She always knew the best place to buy anything and she shopped all over the world. I guess, I learnt about style from her. She taught me all about style. Life was more glamorous in the olden days, a lot has changed now,” Gayatri said in an interview.

One day, Jai invited Gayatri to a park. He asked her if she would marry him and also that he had already spoken to his mother about doing so. He had told her that he played polo, rode horses and flew planes, so could die any moment and asked if she still wanted to marry him despite this. She agreed instantly. and

On his second visit to Calcutta on her return from London, Man Singh invited Gayatri for dinner to Firpo’s, the city’s most fashionable restaurant. She recalled that the glow of the attention she received that evening was to remain one of the enduring memories of her life. They subsequently announced their engagement in 1939. But her mother Indira Devi was not pleased for her daughter to become a third wife.

“’The Maharaja likes girls,’ her brother warned her just before the wedding, ‘and just because he is marrying you, one must not expect him to give up all his girls.’”

“’The Maharani-to-be had an answer: Because the maharajah was marrying her and not the other way around, ‘there would be no need for him to have other girls.’”

Their marriage took place on the 9th of May in 1940 after intense diplomatic maneuvering. Because his first two wives belonged to the royal family of Jodhpur, few royal households attended. Confident Gayatri Devi, however, was not perturbed, “I am in the Guinness Book of Records twice, first for having had the most expensive wedding in history and second after the royal privileges were removed and democracy took over, I won by the largest majority ever recorded in a democratic election.”

Arriving as a newlywed bride by train to Jaipur, Gayatri said, “The nearer we drew to Jaipur, the more terrified and unsure I became. I tried desperately not to show it, but Jai I think understood how I felt. As we entered the station, the servants pulled down the blinds around our carriage and very gently Jai told me to cover my face.”

“The third Maharani of Jaipur accepted her role as the Maharaja’s favorite but junior wife with good grace,” the London Daily Telegraph noted. “She adjusted to the formality and restrictions of royal life, but at the same time used her authority to bring the palace women forward into the 20th century.”

Together the Maharaja and Maharani set about on a program of modernization, creating infrastructure and founding numerous public institutions that would later result in Jaipur being selected as the capital of Rajasthan. At the time of India’s Independence in 1947, the Maharaja acceded Jaipur to the Dominion of India. In 1949, Jaipur was merged with 18 other princely city states to form the new state of Rajasthan with it as the capital city. The Maharaja had surrendered his sovereignty and accepting the appointment of Rajpramukh of that state until even that office was abolished when the Indian states were further re-organised in 1956. Although Maharaja Man Singh was appointed State Governor, it soon became apparent that all power lay with the ruling Congress Party. Although the 560 Indian Princes had relinquished their ruling powers, they remained entitled to their titles, limited privy purses and some privileges until the adoption of the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India on 28th December 1971. Accordingly, Man Singh II remained Maharaja of Jaipur until his death; he was the last one.

Gayatri contributed by promoting education in Jaipur, and established the prestigious Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School in 1943 with 40 students and one English teacher, amongst other schools. She also revived the dying art of blue pottery.  In the early 1960s, when the heritage walls of Jaipur city were being torn down, she wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru. He immediately responded in a letter to her, “I have told them to stop the sacrilege.”

Princess Diya Kumari of Jaipur, only child of Bhawani Singh and who herself married the Palace accountant, said in tribute, “Maharani Gayatri Devi will be an eternal legend. She was a great influence to the women of Jaipur. She was the first woman of substance and style of her generation. The world bowed to her beauty. Indeed, she was a people’s Princess.”

Gayatri also went on shikars (hunts) with her husband. Years later, she told Time magazine that she killed 26 tigers before she retired her gun, because “I feel sorry for the animals.”

Gayatri also shared with Jai a love for cars and flying. The first Mercedes-Benz W126, a 500 SEL was imported to India for her expressly. The couple also owned several Rolls Royces and an aircraft. During the 1950s, Man Singh owned the 100 acre Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, West Sussex, which was sold to L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology in 1959, and where Tom Cruise now lives.

Her beloved Jaipur was close to her heart till the end. Even at the age of 89, the Rajmata sat in a 2008 dharna to protest against encroachments. The desecration of Jaipur hurt her terribly. She lamented that in London, like in many historic European cities, no one can build a house that does not conform to the overall architectural layout and strict guidelines. “Who cares for Jaipur anymore?” she asked. “I try but it is a fruitless battle.”

In 1949, she gave birth to her only child, Jagat Singh of Jaipur, later Raja of Isarda when his father granted him his uncle’s fief as a subsidiary title. His eldest half-brother from Maharaja Sawai Man Singh’s first wife, Bhawani Singh was of course the Crown Prince.

Land reform, such as the Jaipur Tenancy Act, was also first introduced in his state under Man Singh’s wise rule. In 1956, the Jagidari (feudal) form of political administration was abolished during the government of the Congress party in India. Several of the royal households became destitute overnight but the former Jaipur royal family, among India’s richest, remained wealthy. In 1958, Man Singh hit upon an excellent scheme, turning Rambagh Palace into a luxury hotel, as was being done by other far-thinking Rajas. In 1965, the Indian government appointed Sawai Man Singh as the Indian Ambassador to Spain and, utilising his European social contacts, he set about attaining new military technology and arms-deal for the Indian Army.

Before and after independence, Man Singh and Gayatri Devi summered in London, partied in Europe and entertained famous visitors, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at a tiger hunt and the American First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (with whom Ms. Devi was often compared).  Life magazine called Gayatri one of the most beautiful women in the world. Her mellifluous throaty English accent The Washington Post once noted, “makes her sound like an Indian Tallulah Bankhead (film star).”

With Man Singh’s role in state affairs and the royal family’s prestige on the decline, in 1960, Gayatri Devi joined the conservative Swatantra party founded by C. Rajagopalachari a few years earlier in opposition to the socialism of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ruling Congress Party. In the ’62 elections, Gayatri Devi ran for Parliament, even thought her campaigning meant she could no longer spend time with Jai, driving out at 7 in the morning in her monogrammed white Jaguar and exercise their 18 polo ponies with him. However, she won the constituency in the Lok Sabha in the world’s largest landslide, winning 192,909 votes out of 246,516 cast, as confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records. President John F Kennedy of the U.S. called her, “the woman with the most staggering majority that anyone has ever got in an election.”

In 1965, during a meeting with Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Gayatri Devi was again asked to join Congress. This was the time when, despite the fact that her husband was being made ambassador to Spain, she struck to her principles and decided not to join the party. She got re-elected in 1967 and 1971, on the Swatantra ticket, running against the dominant Indian National Congress party.

Then tragedy struck; Man Singh died aged 58, in 1970, while umpiring a polo match in Cirencester, England, due to a riding accident. Then, next year the privy purses were abolished in 1971, terminating all royal privileges and titles. Indira Gandhi imposed a 21 month long state of emergency imposed in response to escalating riots around the country, during which time the PM suspended all laws and ordered mass arrests. Popular leader Gayatri Devi was also arrested alongside 12 MPs and her step son Bhawani Singh on a trumped up charge of violating tax laws, but she was never tried. It was often said the socialist PM was jealous of the royal politician, and once referred to her  in Parliament as a “bitch and a glass doll”.

During the five months the Maharani spent in prison, she continued to wear chiffon saris, jewellery and perfume and is said to have borne herself with grace. “It wasn’t too bad,” she once cheerfully told an interviewer. “In Tihar, I had my own bedroom with a veranda and my own bathroom. We were well looked after, except we were not free.” She spent five months in Tihar Jail where she developed gastric problems that were to remain with her for the rest of her days. After that, she retired from politics and published her autobiography written with Santha Rama Rau in 1976, which became a French film Memoirs of a Hindu Princess, directed by Francois Levie.

Rajmata Gayatri Devi’s two decades of widowhood were not spent in seclusion, as widows of Rajput rulers were expected to do, but to the indignation of the traditionalists, she continued to live life to the fullest. She travelled extensively, summered in a flat in Cadogan Square, Knightsbridge and spent the winter in her Jaipur dower house Lilypool that her husband had built after their first home, Rambagh Palace, had been transformed into a hotel. A list of VIPs, including Mick Jagger and Sir Michael Caine, were sent over from the hotel daily to Lilypool where she would entertain them over for a glass of champagne in the evening, or held garden parties for them. Funnily enough, those who displeased her were billed for the champagne. When her autobiography came out in a paperback edition in England in the ‘80s, she asked her publishers if she might have a chauffeur-driven car for a morning’s shopping. The chauffeur later reported back that the shopping morning had constituted of a drive out to Surrey for the purchase of a large house.

In her memoirs, the Rajmata talks about her son’s Jagat’s marriage in 1978 to Priya, the daughter of Prince Piya and Princess Vibhavati of Thailand: “We had a reception in London and the Queen of England, the Lord Mountbatton and many friends attended it. A year later, Jagat and Priya had a daughter named Lalitya and two years later they had a son called Devraj. My time was spent not only in India and England but also in Thailand where I went often to visit Priya’s family. Bangkok is a fascinating city. And I love my grandchildren.”

Priya divorced the playboy Jagat in 1987 on grounds of adultery, and their two kids grew up in Bangkok. Jagat died in 1998 and the two royal families became embroiled in a feud over his estate worth approximately Indian Rs. 25 billion or £250 million, which includes fabulous palaces, jewels, paintings and the Knightsbridge flat, and which was finally settled in September 2015.

The case goes something like this. After Jagat’s death the Rajmata produced a letter from him, allegedly a forgery, stating that his children should not inherit any part of his estate after his death. She also argued that her grandchildren could not own property in India because they held Thai and British passports. Their dispute was apparently settled and the Rajmata and her grandchildren struck a deal to split the estate equally between the three of them. Her share was expected to pass to them upon her death and in the meanwhile her step son Prithviraj (step brother of Jagat Singh) would manage the income from the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel until they were no longer minors and were old enough to take over. Originally built for the kingdom’s Prime Minister, this mid-18th century palace that appears to float on a lake was bequeathed by Man Singh to Jagat Singh and is now one of the world’s most luxurious spa hotels, leased out to the Taj group of hotels since 1972. To give you an idea of its value, one night in the hotel’s one bedroom Presidential costs an exorbitant $12,282.

In 2009, the 90 year old Rajmata was being treated for her chronic gastric disorder at the King Edward’s Hospital in London, when suddenly she asked to be returned home to Jaipur, ostensibly to die at home. Immediately, she was was flown there in an air ambulance. She died due to lung failure in a local Jaipur hospital.

In an exclusive interview just before her death, the Rajmata said, “I’ve had a very happy life. I have no regrets. I’m not a nostalgic person. I live in the present. I just try to do what I can, when I see unhappiness around me. Why grumble about things that don’t go your way. Make the most of life. Don’t make me sound arrogant or extraordinary.” (But, asked the interviewer, she’s been a woman of immense strength, role model to millions of Indian woman? )”I’m flattered that you say so. I don’t agree though. But I’d like to tell women of India that they must lead a full life. They must give their everything to life and be faithful to their families.”

But her family was feuding over her estate, which the Rajmata had left to her stepson Prithviraj, a move challenged in court by her grandchildren. They sued him accusing him of watering down their shareholding in the hotel from 99 per cent to just 7 per cent. The late Jagat Singh held 99 per cent of the company’s shares and the property was gifted to him by his father late Man Singh. Later, Jagat Singh’s estate had been diluted to seven per cent while Maharaj Prithviraj and his family now owned 93 per cent stake in the company.

Devraj said in an interview that the ill-feeling of his step-uncle Prithviraj, who had once acted as his grandmother’s executor, even extended to two vintage vehicles once owned by his father and grandmother that were currently sitting gathering dust in a shed under covers, a baby-blue Bentley from the ’20s, and a 1949 Jaguar sports car. He said ruefully, “My uncle has the keys to these.”

After a nine year legal battle, the courts granted Maharaj Devraj Singh his share of his father and grandmother’s estate upon the discovery of the Rajmata’s will naming her grandchildren as her legal heirs. On Sept 23rd 2015, the Supreme Court of India upheld the Delhi High Court’s verdict in favour Devraj and his sister, allowing them to claim their shares in the Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, Rambagh Palace Hotel, Sawai Madhopur Lodge and SMS Investment Corporation, the first three businesses being luxurious heritage hotels, while SMS Investment organises weddings and seminars.

Devraj and Lalitya celebrated their hard won victory in style with Cristal champagne and caviar.