Gayatri Devi

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Gayatri Devi
'Rajmata of Jaipur'
Tenure	1939 - 1970
Issue
Prince Jagat Singh
Father	Prince Jitendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur
Mother	Princess Indira Raje Scindia of Baroda
Born	23 May 1919(1919-05-23) London [1]
Died	29 July 2009 (aged 90) Jaipur

Maharani Gayatri Devi (23 May 1919 – 29 July 2009), often styled as Maharani Gayatri Devi, Rajmata of Jaipur, was born as Princess Gayatri Devi of Koch Bihar. She was the third Maharani of Jaipur from 1939 to 1970 through her marriage to HH Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II.

Following India's independence and the subsequent abolition of the princely states, she became an extremely successful politician. Gayatri Devi was also celebrated for her classical beauty and became something of a fashion icon in her adulthood.

She died on 29 July 2009 in Jaipur, at the age of 90. She was suffering from paralytic ileus and lung infection^[2].

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political career 3 Family 4 Family relationships 4.1 Jaipur 4.2 Cooch Behar and Tripura 4.3 Baroda and descendants houses 4.4 Other connections 5 Family relationships by marriage 6 Death 7 Further reading 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Her father, Prince Jitendra Narayan of Cooch Behar,West Bengal, was the younger brother of the Yuvraja (Crown Prince). Her mother was Princess Indira Raje of Baroda, the only daughter of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, an extremely beautiful princess and a legendary socialite. Early in her life, her uncle's death led to her father ascending the throne (gaddi). Gayatri Devi studied at Patha Bhavana of Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan ^[3], and later in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she travelled with her mother and siblings, then studied secretarial skills in London School of Secretaries; Brilliantmont and Monkey Club London ^[1]. She married H.H. Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hindustan Raj Rajendra Sri Maharajadhiraja Sir Sawai Man Singh II Bahadur^[4] on 9 May 1940.^[5]

Maharani Gayatri Devi (as she was styled after marriage) was a particularly avid equestrienne. Gayatri Devi had one child, Prince Jagat Singh of Jaipur, late Raja of Isarda, born on 15 October 1949 ^[5], who was granted his uncles's (father's elder brother) fief as a subsidiary title. Jagat Singh was thus half-brother to Bhawani Singh of Jaipur.

Gayatri Devi was once included in Vogue magazine's Ten Most Beautiful Women list.^[6]

Gayatri Devi started schools for girls' education in Jaipur, most prominent of which is the Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School. She also revived and promoted the dying art of blue pottery.

[edit] Political career

After Partition and Independence Day in India in 1947, Gayatri Devi ran for Parliament in 1962 and won the constituency in the Lok Sabha in the world's largest landslide, winning 192,909 votes out of 246,516 cast ^[7], confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records. She continued to hold this seat on 1967 and 1971, Swatantra Party of C. Rajagopalachari, the second Governor-General of Independent India ^[3], running against the Congress Party.

When the privy purses were abolished in 1971, terminating all royal privileges and titles, Gayatri Devi was accused of violating tax laws, and served 5 months in Tihar Jail. She retired from politics and published her autobiography, A Princess Remembers, written with Santha Rama Rau, in 1976. She was also the focus of the film Memoirs of a Hindu Princess, directed by Francois Levie.

There were rumors that she might re-enter politics as late as 1999, when the Cooch Behar Trinamool Congress nominated her as their candidate for the Lok Sabha elections, but she did not respond to the offer.^[8]

Her father Jitendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur was the second son of Maharaja Nripendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur and Maharani Sunity Devi of Cooch Behar. After the untimely death of his elder brother Maharaja Raj Rajendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur, a bachelor, he ascended the throne of Cooch Behar in November 1913, few month's after his marriage with Princess Indira raje Gaekwad of Baroda. Maharani Sunity Devi was the daughter of illustrious Brahmo social reformer Keshab Chandra Sen.

[edit] Family

She had one son, Prince Jagat Singh, late Raja of Isarda(15 October 1949 - 5 February 1997) ^[5], who was granted his paternal uncle's (father's elder brother) fief of Isarda as a subsidiary title. Jagat Singh was married 10 May 1978 (and divorced 1987 from) M.R. Priyanandana Rangsita (b. 1952) who is the daughter of HSH Prince Piyarangsit Rangsita and HRH Princess Vibhavadhi Rangsita (née Rajani) of Thailand. This was a notably adventurous marriage for Jaipur royalty, which had previously confined itself to marriages into other Indian reigning and formerly royal houses. The marriage produced two grandchildren:^[9]

• Princess Lalitya Kumari (b. 1979)
• Prince Devraj Singh, now Raja of Isarda (b. 1981)

Aparently, both grandchildren use the royal surname "Rangsita" of their mother which descend from HM King Rama V of Thailand)^{[citation needed]}. Today, they are her only surviving descendants, and as such, have claimed to be heirs of their paternal grandmother. Maharaj Jagat Singh was thus half-brother to Bhawani Singh of Jaipur, the eldest son of the late Maharaja by his first wife, a Jodhpur princess.

[edit] Family relationships

[edit] Jaipur

The Maharani had three stepsons through her husband's first and second marriages, of whom the eldest is the present Maharaja of Jaipur, who has an only daughter (whose son Kumar Padmanabh Singh has been adopted the next heir, somewhat contrary to the tradition and customs of Jaipur, where a sonless Maharaja almost always adopted a son from the next line patrilineally junior to him, or next in succession).^[10] His younger half-brothers were given family fiefs, and have one son each. One of the stepsons, Prithviraj Singh (b. 1935), married the Maharani's niece (see below) in 1961 (later divorced) and had a son Vijit Singh (married in 1991 to a princess of Lunawada) with her.

[edit] Cooch Behar and Tripura

Maharani Gayatri Devi was related to several other erstwhile royal families in India. She was herself not from Rajput royalty, but from a dynasty native to Koch Bihar in Bengal, and maternally of Maratha stock.

A younger sister of the Maharani, and two nieces married into the main line of princely houses.

• Kota a princely state in Rajasthan (princely family genealogy) married to Uttara, a princess of Cooch Behar, as his second wife in 1963). The Maharani of Kota (b. 1942), a niece of the late Maharani Gayatri Devi, has one son (married, with one son), and one daughter (Bhawani Kumari) married 1991 to the son and heir of the Maharaja of Burdwan, a notable zemindar, with issue two daughters. They are great-nephew and great-niece of the late Maharani.
• Dewas Jr. (princely family genealogy), whose ruler married Menaka Devi (b. 1920), youngest sister of the Maharani, and had issue 2 daughters. The elder daughter (b. 1950) married the late Raja of Payagpur (d. 2005), and had issue, one son the present Raja, who married in 2006. The Raja of Payagpur is thus a great-nephew, and the Rajmata a niece of the late Maharani.

Her eldest sister Ila Devi (1914-1945) married into the Tripura royal family; her widower later married his cousin, a daughter and sister of Maharajas of Tripura. Their father is Bharat Dev Varma (a distant kinsman of a noted composer Rahul Dev Burman) and their mother a Tollywood starlet Moonmoon Sen, herself the daughter of a famous actress; his daughters are the Bollywood starlets - Riya Sen (b. 1981) and Raima Sen (b. 1979) - who are her great-nieces. Their paternal aunt, the late Devyani Devi (1938-2009, a few months before her aunt^[11]), a niece of Gayatri Devi, was the former wife of Prithviraj Singh (b. 1935), one of Gayatri Devi's stepsons. (That marriage produced one son).

[edit] Baroda and descendants houses

The most significant royal connections are through Baroda. Her maternal grandparents were the remarkable Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III (1863-1939) and his second wife Maharani Chimnabai II of Baroda. Thus, the next Maharaja Pratap Singh Gaekwad of Baroda was her first cousin, and his heirs Fatehsinghrao, Gaekwad of Baroda (1930-1988) and the current Gaekward Ranjitsinh, Gaekwad of Baroda (b. 1938) were her first cousins once removed. (A Baroda princess, Priyadarshini, niece of these men, is currently married to Jyotiraditya Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, a great-grandson of the man rejected by Gayatri Devi's mother. Her brother, born 1970, is the eventual heir if the present Yuvaraj fails to produce a son).

Other relatives, also descended from her maternal grandfather Sayajirao, included the rulers of Kota, Sawantwadi, Akkalkot, Jath, Dewas Jr., Jasdan, and Sandur. Of these, the most significant connections are:

• Sawantwadi, a 9-gun-salute princely state in Bombay, now part of Maharashtra (princely family genealogy) linked by three marriages to Baroda princesses: firstly, Tarabai, the daughter of the Maharaja prior to her maternal grandmother married the ruler in 1899. Secondly, Laxmibai (1907-1961) a cousin of Gayatri Devi also married another Maharaja in 1922, with issue one daughter. The present Maharaja is the son of the third marriage, of the late Maharaja to the second daughter (b. circa 1935) of Pratap Singh Gaekwad of Baroda.
• Jasdan, a tiny princely state in Saurashtra (princely family genealogy); the present ruler, 11th Chief of Jasdan, and his father the 10th Chief (d. 1989) married two Baroda princesses. The 11th Chief married his cousin, a daughter of the present head of the Baroda house). His sister (b. 1955) is named for the late Maharani.

[edit] Other connections

More tenuous connections exist to Dhar and Kolhapur:

• Tehri-Garhwal, an 11-gun-salute princely state in Uttarakhand (princely family genealogy), where a cadet married a Baroda princess, and has issue.
• Dhar, a 15-gun salute Maratha princely state in Madhya Pradesh (princely family genealogy): the late Maharaja (1920-1989) was married to in 1951 and divorced (date unknown) from a living Baroda princess, without issue.
• Kolhapur, one of the two Maratha princely states descended from Shivaji (princely family genealogy): a previous Maharaja (d. 1940) married as his first wife a cousin of the late Maharani in April 1918, but apparently had no issue with her. (He had a daughter by his second wife). His wife Indumati Devi (1904-1954) apparently had no issue.

Maharani Gayatri Devi was also indirectly related to the former royal families of Lunawada (a daughter of the house married her great-nephew Vijit Singh) and Baria.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Family relationships by marriage

The late Maharani had an indirect relationship with the Maharajas of Pithapuram in Andhra Pradesh. The daughter of a previous Maharaja, the glamourous divorceeeSita Devi) (1917-1989), was the controversial second wife of her first cousin Pratap Singh Gaekwad) from 1943 to 1956. Another daughter Kamala Devi (1920-1980s) married Gayatri Devi's maternal uncle Indrajitendra, the second son of Maharaja Jitendra of Cooch Behar and Indira Devi, and had issue one son and one daughter. (The daughter Uttara Devi is now Maharani of Kota).

Through her marriage to Man Singh II, she was related to Maharaja Hanuwant Singh of Jodhpur (1923-1952). His aunt Marudhar Kanwar and cousin Krishna Kumari (daughters of previous Maharajas) were married to Sawai Man Singh II as his first and second wives. The Maharaja's elder son Gaj Singh (b. 1948) is the present Maharaja of Jodhpur, and as such, a first cousin once removed of Maharaj Bhawani Singh of Jaipur; his only son Shivraj Singh is the heir apparent.

Other relatives by marriage include the Maharaja of Dewas, and the Maharaja of Tripura (whose kinsman married her eldest sister Ila Devi)

[edit] Death

The Maharani developed gastric problems in London and was admitted to a hospital there. She was being treated for gastric disorder at the King Edward’s Hospital in London and had expressed her desire to return to Jaipur. Gayatri Devi was flown in an air ambulance to Jaipur. She was admitted at Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital (SDMH) on July 17. She died on July, 29th reportedly due to lung failure.

Her death came a day after the passing away of actress Leela Naidu, both of whom were named by Vogue as amongst the 10 most beautiful women in the world. Maharani Gayatri Devi died on 29 July 2009 at the age of 90.^[12][13]

[edit] Further reading

• A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur, by Gayatri Devi. South Asia Books, 1996. ISBN 8171673074.
• Rajmata Gayatri Devi, by Dharmendar Kanwar. Roli Books, 2004. ISBN 8174362940.
• Gourmet's Gateway: A Royal Collection, by Gayatri Devi, Dharmendar Kanwar. Published by Dharmendar Kanwar, 1999. ISBN 819012210X.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The Maharani's Family - Images and Family history
• Henry Soszynski. Cooch Behar ruling family apparently extinct in 1992.
• Website of the MGD Girls School
• The Maharani's Death
• Rajmata Gayatri Devi - Daily Telegraph obituary
• Rediff article - Memoir by her ghost-writer