Udaipur, Princely States and the curious nationalism of India

Not my picture! See here:- http://www.tsperspective.com/2011/02/25/dailypics-22511-udaipur-view/

  Indian cities are not beautiful up close. That is one lesson I have learned over here. Dirty, crowded and haphazard is the order of the day - and if you want to appreciate the aesthetic of something you need to take a step back from it. However Udaipur totally explodes this conclusion through being resolutely and resonantly gorgeous.
  This 17th Century city sits on a tributary to a large artificially expanded lake which glints charming deep blue and turquoise in the changing light of day. Ghats cling to either side of this river as it sweeps beneath several bridges and then into the open water. Two palaces rise elegantly up like islands in the lake, while on the hill above the city yet another palace - the pre-eminent seat of the descendants of the last maharajah (great king) - looks out to its waterborne cousins. In the city itself the well appointed Havalis of historic nobility cluster the roads while scented gardens full of lush green, budding yellows and purples are liberally scattered across the landscape. This is a place that can truly hold a candle to the most beautiful cities of the world. Indeed it is of such glamour that it was decided to film Octopussy here - one of Roger Moore's James Bond movies - back in the eighties. I am not sure there is any greater allocade than that. It was an absolute pleasure to explore.

  Also, the history of this corner of Rajastan is an interesting one which raises questions about how India came to be the nation we know today. If you go back two hundered years, before the British had penetrated this far in land, Udaipur was its own fiercely independent city state which in turn was part of the loose confederation of 'Rajputs' - Hindu warrior kings yet greatly influenced by but at war with the Islamic Mughals. There was no notion of an overarching 'Indian Identity' here or anywhere else. Languages ranged quickly from one territory to the next as did ethnicity and religion, and there were far closer cultural similarities with Persia or what would be Pakistan than with southern or western India at that moment.

  When the East India Company did extend it's influence into Rajasthan in the nineteenth century it did not seek to annex these territories outright. Rather the British formed broad alliances which gave them trading monopolies and a control over foreign affairs. Udaipur remained an absolute monarchy which was able to run its internal affairs as it saw fit, although the Maharaja did decide through his own free will to appoint a British first minister (Colonel Monroe) to help with modernisation.
  In 1857 after the First Indian War of Independence (taught as the Indian Mutiny in British schools, but it's India's history so they can call it what they like in my opinion) the EIC was relieved of its executive role and the Indian territories governance inherited Westminister with their existing arrangements. So Udaipur came to the British State as an autonomous kingdom where the British exercise little influence on internal government.
  This state of play persisted to the dismantlement of the British Raj in 1947 where each territory was treated as a separate unit right to the arrangements for transition to independence. In the Indian Independence Act of 1947 three options were offered to each Princely State- to join Pakistan (a Muslim majority state), India (a Hindu majority state) or maintain individual sovereignty.*
  Virtually all of the Princely States - a third of the territory of India in 1947 - chose to join India or Pakistan rather than independence, including Udaipur and the other Rajasthani princedoms, due to the groundswell of nationalism which had its birthing in the late nineteenth century and was spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi in the 20th Century. Such was the potency of the idea of India's nationhood that the Maharaja (great king) of Udaipur said on the accession to the Union of India that:-

  “Today is a day of which to be greatly proud. India is independent. It brings to fulfilment the 1500 years’ struggle and endeavour of my forefathers. It becomes my holy duty, on behalf of my ancestors, to hand over to the leaders of free India, this cherished and sacred Flame of Freedom to the country as a whole.”

  This was no small offering. For the Maharaja it meant giving up a right to power that had been his family's alone for 1500 years (the Udaipur monarchy was the longest running living dynasty in the world). And his statement makes a manifest destiny argument which contended India was always supposed to come together as a single entity. There is no real historical basis for this view as far as I can see, but such was the fervent  nationalist climate of 1947. It's a curious phenomenon I would like to investigate further, how a vast rainbow of nationalities artificially compressed together by a foreign imperial state can transform into a broadly single coherent identity. I suppose it is something which can be seen in Africa as well, but in India it seems extremely successful as can be seen in the rabid support for the national team at the current Cricket World Cup.

Not my picture! - See here:- http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2KO_Q7KT-s6uqxl4o7CRXw

*Hydrabad, the largest princedom geographically locked into the heart of India, was the sole exception as it decided to try and maintain independence as it's Nazim (prince) was Muslim and had little sympathy for the Hindu dominated India. However the Indian government refused to accept an independent and Pakistani sympathetic state in the centre of it's territory and invaded in 1947 in an action called Operation Polo. This was resolved in a matter of days and Hydrabad was incorporated into India successfully, mainly due to the massive groundswell of support amongst the Hindu majority of working class Hydrabadis for Indian nationalism.