Jaipur’s Last Stand

https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/jaipurs-last-stand

by lermontov • 5 years ago

100 63 5 years ago

nobrains• 5 years ago

The nickname "Ayesha" is not mentioned once in the wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayatri_Devi

From the original article: "Ayesha and Jai, as they were known to their friends, soon became India’s ‘golden couple’, its answer to John and Jackie Kennedy or Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip."

db1234• 5 years ago

The story behind the name Ayesha:

"Gayatri Devi was more commonly known as Ayesha to her friends and family. According to her, her mother was reading a Rider Haggard's novel and decided that she would name her child Ayesha, after the protagonist. Some days after the birth of Gayatri Devi, an Islamic friend of Indira Devi, told her that Ayesha is a Muslim name. The name remained as a nickname since the family was already calling her Ayesha."

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs...

baybal2• 5 years ago

How it all ended for princely families: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_lapse . Ones which lasted until 1971, were de-recognised in years prior to the emergency.

Surprisingly, Jaipur princes managed to largely regain their wealth after being stripped of it, if not actually becoming more wealthier.

This is while even the main family line of Nizam of Hyderabad barely got enough money to live properly, and some of their relatives died in abject poverty.

The last direct descendant of Mughal line famously died as a bum (Mughals had no succession rules as such, but English forced primogeniture on them in their final years.)

https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/indian-royal-families...

tinuviel• 5 years ago

This is while even the main family line of Nizam of Hyderabad barely got enough money to live properly, and some of their relatives died in abject poverty. The last of Mughals famously died as a bum.

They deserved it imho. Surprised the nizam wasn't prosecuted for his crimes against humanity.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/surviv...

hellol-amda• 5 years ago

May be because they were closer to delhi.

vishnugupta3• 5 years ago

Fascinating story. This brings fourth how complex a country India is.

Before (and even during) the British rule India was a ruled tens of of such princely states each in turn had hundreds of low level feudal lords. While British did unify India in terms of governing it, the people always recognised themselves with the king's region. E.g., Mysore region, Hyderabad kingdom etc.,

India truly became a single political entity only after those hundreds or so kings were forced to abdicate their rule. I would say only the millennial generation onward do Indian citizens feel they belong to India and not to some princely state.

jangid• 5 years ago

True. And some states will still take another couple of generations. For example, no sense of Indian-ness was observed when killing Assam policemen by the fellow Indians on the other side fighting over state border.

I remember a discussion a couple of years ago. Why Indian states are not as straight cut as US states? The above incident is an example why it is not possible as yet here. I am not saying it is good or bad.

pranavdotexe• 5 years ago

I think in every case around the world except North America, borders are associated with centuries of history. Since today's North American's aren't native - the borders weren't necessarily meant to follow any historical significance. This might be the reason of straight demarcations.

chakkepolja2• 5 years ago

Indian states are often based on linguistic divisions.

thedravidian2• 5 years ago

I would say only the millennial generation onward do Indian citizens feel they belong to India

Most of the people in my state, and a lot of Southern states do not feel that "we belong to India". India seems to expect us to fall to the ground and worship "India's language is Hindi", "India's religion is the Aryan worshipping flavour of Hinduism" and other nonsense, and we decline. We don't belong to anyone other than ourselves. Thank you.

phekunde5• 5 years ago

Looks like the movie theaters are not yet open in Tamil Nadu!

throwaway636536• 5 years ago

lot of Southern states do not feel that "we belong to India"

Speak for yourself/Tamil Nadu. I'm from Karnataka (a southern state) and majority of kannadigas love India and are patriotic.

worship "India's language is Hindi", "India's religion is the Aryan worshipping flavour of Hinduism" and other nonsense

Why do you believe that north indian language and religion are nonsense? I've lived in New Delhi for more than half of my childhood and I don't think North Indians are backward relative to South Indians. Although they are relatively poor.

throwaway258• 5 years ago

Speak for yourself buddy. I am a ಕನ್ನಡಿಗ and Indian.

eklavya2• 5 years ago

Tall claims by a deranged hater.

There is always some idiot spewing vitriol by bringing up north/west/east/south/up/down. The whole culture of south India IS India. What the fuck are all those Jurassic old temples there for? Built by all South Indian kings. For fucks sake Tamil the language is born of Lord Shiva(North Indian, just kidding) taught to sage Agastya on which this whole hate mongering language movement started by the stupid Aryan/Dravidian theory.

Why I bring up Tamil? Because your username is the stupid movement started to grab power. Is there a South Indian shiva who is different from the North Indian shiva?

What is the Indian culture? What is the South Indian culture? Except the million languages found in India what major difference were there for religious or cultural purposes?

This hate is what leads to the so called Dalit leader take up the name of a rapist Brahmin (Ravan). Haters gonna hate.

satwick1995• 5 years ago

Yet another problem arising due to complete, non-opposed belief in AIT.

tw123• 5 years ago

Those who tell you: - "India's language is Hindi" - "India's religion is the Aryan worshipping flavour of Hinduism" - and other similar things

are a pain in the neck not just for you but for everyone they will be in touch with. They will keep on creating new propaganda(just like the points above) targeted towards different groups of people so that they can annoy you and remain trending. Please keep in mind that they are not "India".

chakkepolja2• 5 years ago

India's religion is the Aryan worshipping flavour of Hinduism

This seems very short sighted.

From an objective historical standpoint, the current Hinduism is no more 'Aryan' than it's 'Dravidian' or 'Indigineous'.

The Rig Vedic dieties which share origins with Nordic, Greek or other Indo European mythology are not the central point of the Hinduism since the middle ages. The present rituals and systems evolved over, 3000+ years, shaped by various political forces, most of which was never documented and we will never know.

The "North Indian == Aryan" was wording used in Tamil Nadu politics that's why people in comments are assuming your from there.

Your point is correct that current Nationalist side of politics is pushing some views in order to unify their voter base. (I don't want to talk about politics on a nerd forum.)

The only thing more "Aryan" about Hindu nationalism is they want to claim this historically baseless OIT theory (as if anything that comes from outside is impure and bad).

[to non indians reading this, the word Aryan refers to slightly different meaning than held in the west, while we are talking about same indo european bronze age peoples, both theories (Nazism or Periyar's Dravidianism), are pseudoscience shit.

_blz2• 5 years ago

This type of baiting belongs on reddit and not on HN. @dang

throw135794• 5 years ago

you're just upset because the LTTE terrorist organization was wiped out.

phekunde5• 5 years ago

Some of what you said is not true. There were attempts made to unify "India" even before the British came to India. Infact the term "Hindu", "Hindi", "India", "Hindustan" is not Indian in the first place. The words "Hindu", "Hindi" and "Hindustan" were given to the people risiding east of the Indu/Sindhu river by the Persian/Arabic visitors and invaders. And the word "India" was derived from the word "Hindustan" by the European invaders and visitors as such: "Hindustan" became "Indostan", and then "Indostan" was further shortened to "India". So people visiting/invading the eastern parts of the Indu/Sindhu river were considering the people there as one civilisation if not one country. But there were attempts made before, as far back as Chanakya, to unify the people under one rule.

vishnugupta3• 5 years ago

I am aware of the origin of the words India and Hindu which I find bemusing.

So people visiting/invading the eastern parts of the Indu/Sindhu river were considering the people there as one civilisation if not one country.

I conjecture it is natural for foreigners at that time to refer to the land (and hence the people residing there) east of Sindhu river as India/Indians. For them it was just an alien/different region. For example, to refer Asoka as Indian ruler as in "king who belongs to India" and not "Ruler of India".

I'm curious to know if the contemporary people living in different parts of Indian land felt as if they belonged to India as a whole. Though possible, it is highly unlikely IMO. I highly doubt if a farmer in a village in Kerala would consider a village in Punjab as belonging to his nation.

But there were attempts made before, as far back as Chanakya, to unify the people under one rule.

I've read/seen this in popular stories (Chanakya serial from 1990s is decent) but I don't know how authentic they are. I'd love to read more on this topic, preferably by historians. My naive search was fruitless. One thing to note is that Indian historical records from that period are extremely rare making it all the more difficult. It's a pity that Indians of that didn't write as much as Romans did.

foolinaround6• 5 years ago

I would say only the millennial generation onward do Indian citizens feel they belong to India

The Indian govt continues to use the old British policy of different people groups in quelling dissidence still.

Our armed forced divisions are still based on people groups, and if they want to put forces in Kashmir, then they deploy non-native forces, who have less affinity to the local population. This might also explain some of the excesses seen.

jhbadger• 5 years ago

A lot of countries (even Western ones) were like that. Both unified Germany and Italy were creations of the 19th century. Before that, both were just a collection of small kingdoms/principalities/republics that shared a similar dialect and culture.

foolinaround6• 5 years ago

shared a similar dialect and culture

Culture is similar, but they are often not dialects but entirely different languages in many cases.

the peoples in the different old German and Italian kingdom were not different peoples, they were just split because of different powers, thats not the case here...

rishav_sharan• 5 years ago

Ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy the Indian thread. Unity in diversity!

amriksohata• 5 years ago

unify india what? india was unified many times in history including Maratha rule, britain if anything divided india before it left into many states, they decided to unify themselves into the union of india despite britain breaking them down.

throw135794• 5 years ago

exactly. HN threads about india tend to take a warped eurocentric view. which makes sense.

truth_• 5 years ago

Indira Gandhi is being painted in a complete negative light here, and the Princes and Kings and Nawabs are being glorified here.

Let me disagree.

The Princes, Nawabs, and Kings were all chosen based on birth and birth only and they are flag bearers of a classist society with no chance of upwards mobility. They were proponents of a system which was deeply sexist and castiest.

I am very glad that they were gotten rid of.

About Gandhi, she is among the best and worst Prime Ministers of India. She is the only one who suspended democracy and started emergency rule, and was an autocrat. On the other hand she implemented a lot of policies that pulled many people out of poverty, helped the freedom fighters in Bangladesh to gain freedom from the Genocidal and mass-rapist regime of Pakistan. Sje fully deserves the criticism for being an autocrat.

And on a different note, it is weird seeing an Indian woman being referred as Devi. Devi is not a last name. Even half a century ago, before the age of IDs, Indian women weren't allowed to hold the family name- before or after marriage. Their last name became Devi which means "goddess", literally.

It is still used informally in formal conversations and media. So if an Indian woman is X Y, where X is the given name, and Y is the family name, the woman can be referred to as X Devi.

Just Devi makes no sense. Foreign writers writing about India should know these.

Also, the title Devi is often divisive and casteist, as often only higher caste women were referred to as Devi (goddess), and women from lower castes were referred to as Dasi (slave).

nondravidian2• 5 years ago

1. They were gotten rid off long before Indira Gandhi came anywhere close to power. What she did do, was legislate the abolition of privy purses. These were part of the agreement that the GoI had with the princes at the time of accession. Indira violated that contract, because she was in power.

Her primary sins: 1. Emergency 2. Nationalization of banks, and other leftist causes. 3. Abolition of privy purses.

e3bc54b23• 5 years ago

Hah. When I read about those privy purses I think about the startups dumping venture capital.

The GoI poured money on royals when they were entering 'the market' (governance), and when they had a strong market standing, they pulled a bait and switch, and raised prices (stopped giving out massive discounts, a.la. Uber, WeWork).

Not that I'm complaining, 9/10 royals where horrible people completely disconnected from the general population. Good riddance.

e3bc54b23• 5 years ago

Agree with most of what you said. Indira Gandhi was no saint and there were enough horror stories from her rein growing up that its ebossed on my brain.

But the royals weren't the goody-two-shoes as the article mentions. Most of them were so disconnected from the ground reality that it is hilarious to think they were capable of ruling anybody. The article mentions Jai's yearly visits to europe, in a time when half the country had barely enough to eat (this was before green or white revolution in the country). Gandhi's family was the from the same category, and I am glad none of them are in power anymore.

Devi is not a last name

Agree..

Even half a century ago, before the age of IDs, Indian women weren't allowed to hold the family name- before or after marriage.

We probably grew up in different parts of country, but I can definitely attest my grandmother having last name the same as my grandfather after marriage (her father's before getting married). I am almost certain that was the case with my great grandmothers too, but its a little hard to track it down to be 100% sure.

often only higher caste women were referred to as Devi (goddess), and women from lower castes were referred to as Dasi (slave).

This was also not the case from where I grew up. For at least 100 years this was not the case. There was ridiculous caste segregation, and other casteist nonsense all over, but the naming didn't really reflect like this. Often the ruling class had some fancy titles, that the peasants didn't have, but they also didn't have any marker like 'dasi'.

newyankee• 5 years ago

The article claims that Nehru and Gandhi hated princely dynasties and ironically they themselves are now a political dynasty unwilling to share power with non family members

pritambaral3• 5 years ago

The Gandhi dynasty is not descended from the M.K "Mahatma" Gandhi who fought for independence. It is descended from Nehru though, through Indira Gandhi (née Nehru).

girishso2• 5 years ago

Nehru did fight for independence though.

tsjq2• 5 years ago

nitpick: today's Gandhi dynasty (Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka, Robert) is actually Nehru progeny. Nehru's daughter Indira married one Feroze Gandy and got their surnames "updated" to Gandhi spelling. the Gandy and Gandhi have absolutely no connection .

user-the-name2• 5 years ago

What a ridiculous article. Nothing but fawning over aristocracy.

Borderline misogynistic too with quotes like "Indira could not stomach a woman more good-looking than herself and insulted her in Parliament".

antihero• 5 years ago

It's also odd that there's another comment critiquing the article, but it is marked as dead?!

yunohn• 5 years ago

I don’t have a judgement about the article, but I think you’ve clearly misread it?

The quote is not by the author, rather as written - “As the writer Khushwant Singh eloquently observed”.

user-the-name2• 5 years ago

"Eloquently observed" means the author enthusiastically agrees.

smohnot• 5 years ago

FYI: there is a forthcoming biopic on Gayatri Devi: https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/biopi...

Jaipur’s Last Stand

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