Royal Patronage, Power and Aesthetics in Princely India

Angma Dey Jhala

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781851960644
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317316565
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

Investigating the aesthetics of the zenana – the female quarters of the Indic home or palace – this study discusses the history of architecture, fashion, jewellery and cuisine in princely Indian states during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

1 The Dholpur Jewellery Dispute, c. 1913: State Jewels, Stridhana and Zenana Patrons

In 1911, H. H. Captain Ram Singh Lokendra Bahadur, the Maharaj Rana of Dholpur, KCIE (r. 1901-11) died at the early age of twenty-seven without leaving issue. The gaddi (throne) subsequently fell to Ram Singh's younger brother, Udai Bhan Singh, (r. 1911-54) who was then a minor. Two years later in 1913, Udai Bhan Singh was invested with full ruling powers. In most regards, this was an ordinary succession witnessed by the smooth and peaceful transfer of power. For the British, the short-lived reign of Ram Singh was a blessing in disguise, for he had proven to be something of a wastrel, while Udai Bhan Singh's interest in sport, politics, military and administrative duties reflected the more modernizing and liberalizing sensibilities long advocated by the Raj in its policy towards the princes.¹

But as is often the nature of dynastic politics, there was a second, hidden conflict, playing itself out behind the screens and lattices of the Dholpur zenana. At the heart of the matter was an unspecified amount of valuable jewellery, which had been in the keeping of the former ruler. Some believed that the jewellery belonged to the dowager Maharani Ripudaman Kaur, princess of the north Indian Sikh kingdom of Nabha; others, equally persuasive, argued that these were the state jewels and therefore the inalienable property of the Dholpur Darbar. As the months lengthened into years and years into decades, this jewellery dispute continued to dog the Dholpur royals as well as the several British administrators who became involved in what was initially a family feud.

The facts of the case themselves were quite straightforward. On achieving his majority in 1913, the new Maharaj Rana of Dholpur discovered that several state jewels were missing from the state toshakhana (treasury). He soon came to the conclusion that his brother's widow was responsible for their disappearance. Udai Bhan Singh subsequently wrote to his sister-in-law demanding the return of the precious artefacts believed to be in her possession. In addition, he contacted the dowager Maharani's brother, Maharaja Ripudaman Singh of Nabha,² requesting him to assist with making a settlement in March 1914. This attempt at peacefully resolving the dispute, however, failed, in large part, because of a misunderstanding over one pearl necklace, which the dowager Maharani would not surrender.

Pearls had historically been among the Dholpur royal family's most valued treasures. Dholpur, a seventeen gun salute, Jat state in present-day Rajasthan, was a relatively young state, formed in the nineteenth century; although it claimed an earlier connection with older Rajput dynasties. Dholpur rulers had been gifted, had bought, had commissioned and had won through battle various precious objects, including jewels, fine cloths and coins. In 1917, Augustus Foster Rose, Head of the Departments of Jewellery and Silversmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design and Antonio Cirino, an assistant in the same department, wrote that an earlier Maharaj Rana of Dholpur had possessed a fine pearl necklace worth nearly 1 million dollars in the currency of the time and that in total the dynasty's collection was valued at 7 million dollars; an enormous sum for any single collector in the early twentieth century.³ A contemporaneous account from 1913 noted that the necklace in question was composed of eight strings of fine pearls.⁴ Other historical references described it as having nine rows of pearls; each as large as a thrush's egg.⁵ Whatever the exact size, Dholpur had famous pearls, among the most prized jewellery pieces belonging to any Indian princely family. Whether or not this was the necklace under dispute is unclear, but the conflict over state jewellery reveals how important gems and jewelled ornaments were in princely politics.

The state jewels once in the possession of Maharaj Rana Ram Singh had not only included the seven string pearl necklace, but several other ornate jewels which would have been worn for official state or ceremonial functions, such as a second string of enormous pearls (thirteen very large and two smaller ones) and another five-string pearl necklace. None of these pieces had been formally evaluated and were according to the Dholpur state register quite 'unique' (being one of a kind and irreplaceable). In addition, Dholpur possessed a white diamond of 51 carats set in a brooch (valued at Rs. 265,000), a second large white diamond, weighing 34 ¼ carats (Rs. 185,000), a pearl and diamond tiara (Rs. 25,000), a ruby and diamond necklace (Rs. 37,000), a pearl-shaped drop (Rs. 20,000), a diamond and pearl necklace with large pearl drops (Rs. 42,000), a diamond head ornament with two sizeable centre stones and a diamond star with a yellow diamond in the centre. The last two objects had been sold earlier and with the monies collected several new state jewels bought in Calcutta, which included a ruby and diamond pearl butterfly brooch (Rs. 2,850), a fancy pearl and diamond bracelet (Rs. 5,000), a sapphire and diamond bracelet (Rs. 22,000), a pearl necklace, looped with three diamond and sapphire clusters, and with a large attached pearl drop (Rs. 38,000), a large sapphire set with diamonds in a cluster bracelet (Rs. 2,500), a diamond pendant (Rs. 2,500) and a pearl, sapphire and diamond bee brooch (Rs. 3,250).⁶ It was these state jewels whose disappearance were in question.

By May 1914, the dowager Maharani Ripudaman Kaur, incensed by allegations of theft and uncomfortable in a household where she was now no longer in a position of prominence or stability, left Dholpur with what was believed to be a sizeable amount of the aforesaid state jewels. At the very moment of her departure from the Dholpur railway station, the Darbar sent its agents to search her boxes and luggage, but found no jewellery. Nonetheless, two months later, Ripudaman Kaur submitted a long memorial accusing the Dholpur Darbar of seizing a large amount of her personal jewellery, which she claimed was her private property. The Darbar refuted the dowager Maharani's accusation and responded with a counter charge that she had appropriated state jewellery for her private use and possibly given them to her brother, the Maharaja of Nabha.

While the two parties held fast to their opposing views, the colonial government sided with the traditional (patriarchal) authority: the Dholpur Darbar. In matters of internal dispute, the government of India often supported the claims of traditional male elites over zenana women, although not always. The then agent for the governor-general of Rajputana, Sir Elliot Colvin, attempted to settle the disagreement between the Maharaj Rana and dowager Maharani by arbitration, but to no avail, for the jewels were never discovered. A year later, in 1915, in a moment of petulance, Udai Bhan Singh threatened to cease his sister-in-law's monthly allowance of 2,000 rupees from the Dholpur state. Eight years later in 1923, when her brother Maharaja Ripudaman of Nabha was forced to abdicate,⁷ Dholpur once again attempted to recover the jewels, but without success. Eventually the colonial government concluded that the dowager Maharani had absconded with them and agreed that the Maharaj Rana was 'justified in his treatment' regarding her allowance.⁸

The Dholpur jewellery dispute illuminates several significant points relating to late colonial attitudes towards law, women's rights to property, princely patronage systems and imperial collecting trends. First, it highlights the conflict between Hindu conceptions of personal and public property by bringing into brilliant relief the tensions inherent in definitions of stridhana (women's wealth) and darbar (state) property. Zenana women, like dowager Maharani Ripudaman Kaur, were often given their own wealth (which might include jewels, household goods, money, investments, automobiles or servants) at the moment of marriage, as gifts from their father's family. Hindu property law sought to protect married women by allowing them to keep their personal stridhana, particularly jewellery, as a form of economic security for use in later periods of life. Traditionally, husbands had no claim over their wives's stridhana.⁹ This wealth was meant to remain in a woman's possession all her life. It was not to be given to her in-laws (although some brides were coerced to do so) and was quite separate from dowry.

At the same time, royal wives were invariably gifted or lent darbar jewels from the state treasury. These jewels were worn for ceremonial occasions, such as royal weddings, religious festivals, the ruler's birthdays or viceregal visits, and were distinct from personal jewellery bought by princes out of their privy purses for their wives, daughters, mistresses and friends or by royal women from their allowances or stridhana assets. These were distinct family heirlooms and regalia, in some cases, collected over centuries and multiple generations. Most princely states had toshakhanas which were overlooked by a khazanchi or state treasurer, whose position was often hereditary in nature. In the Hindu Maratha state of Baroda, for instance, the state treasurer had a book 10 feet in length that included the description of each minute jewel in the state coffers.¹⁰

Invariably, state jewels would be lent to women of the household, including courtly and aristocratic members, their ladies-in-attendance, distant relations and maids, from the darbar toshakhana and then recovered and returned at the conclusion of the official functions. In Baroda, courtly women were lent jewels from the state treasury for everyday wear as well. As one Baroda princess recalls: 'You had to wear all these things from the Jamdar Khana [treasury] according to turn; one group of earrings, necklace and bangles one evening, the next evening another set. Then after dinner you removed your jewellery and next morning the maid took it back to the Jamdar.'¹¹

Darbar jewels were passed down hereditarily from ruler to ruler over successive generations. A kingdom's jewellery collection housed pieces from a wide spectrum of historic periods and aesthetic styles. States jewels included gems acquired through conquest, gifts from imperial powers, such as Muslim sultans, Mughal emperors, or later British officials and members of the British royal family, and honours from fellow princes. In some cases, darbar collections also included the jewels of earlier wives of past rulers who gifted their stridhana to the ruling house (these jewels were often given by wives who were mothers of sons who became rulers). These jewels would add to the darbar's holdings over time. Thus, an early twentieth-century darbar would have included an eclectic range of jewelled ornaments, covering several periods (and modes) of jewellery. Such objects included silver and gold coins of medieval Indian rulers from the seventh century onwards, Mughal imperial mohurs (coins), eighteenth-century regional jewellery from various production centres in South Asia (such as Kashmir and Rajasthan), nineteenth-century objects designed by British firms based in Calcutta, Victorian and Edwardian jewels by British, French and American designers, and British imperial honours made in England that were presented by the colonial government for meritorious service.

State jewels, as will be discussed in the second section of this chapter, were an integral part of the material culture and public spectacle of Indian kingship. They reflected the grandeur of a given ruler, his court or his dynasty, legitimizing his right to rule, signifying his status in relation to fellow princes and his ascendency (or demotion) in the larger imperial order. Jewels symbolized the majesty of the sovereign and his kingdom in economic, political and sacred terms. The disappearance or destruction of state jewels therefore was a metaphorical assault on the royal house itself and the person of the prince.

Secondly, the Dholpur dispute reveals the cosmopolitan and hybrid collecting ambitions of a mid-sized Indian kingdom in late colonial India. When inventorying the 'valuable goods' of the dowager Maharani Ripudaman Kaur, the Dholpur Darbar produced a detailed, multi-page catalogue of the precious objects in her possession or at one time in her keep. These constituted a diverse range of items for bodily adornment – such as jewels, watches and garments – as well as valuable ornaments for the home, including textiles, cloths, objets d'art and bed linen. The artefacts were of both European and Indic origin, and included jewels of European and Indian design, European watches and monogrammed tablecloths, sheets and napkins, American penknives, Mughal coins and ornate Indian fabrics...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Cosmopolitan Collectors
• 1 The Dholpur Jewellery Dispute, c. 1913: State Jewels, Stridhana and Zenana Patrons
• 2 Trans-Regional Chefs, Kitchens and Cookbooks: Food in the Colonial and Postcolonial Zenana
• 3 The Tawa'if and the Maharani: The Influence of Royal Aesthetics on Indian Cinema, Tourism and Popular Culture
• 4 The Pardah Princess: Orientalist Portraits of the Zenana in Merchant Ivory's Films
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index