Consort or Concubine?
The
difficulty with historical fiction, as I have observed elsewhere (see my review
of Raja of Hirsil), is to distinguish what part is history, and what part
fiction. Matters become much worse when writers of historical fiction introduce
events into their narration involving actual historical personages that never
took place!
This book
is the story of a Spanish dancer Anita Delgado (the name is spelt Anita
Delgrada in Allen & Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes) who the Maharaja
of Kapurthala takes as his fifth wife. In India, she became famous as the “Spanish
Maharani”. It was the fashion of the time for the royalty in India to flaunt a
white wife. The Spanish Maharani was one among many of these sorry women picked
off the streets of Europe, and whisked away in marriages to Indian princes (see
Coralie Younger, Wicked Women of the Raj for more on this). After a few years
of unimaginable affluence, the bored Maharani has an affair with her stepson, a
happy lad of her own age, is discovered, and then banished to Europe for life
with a generous pension. She outlives her husband, the British Raj, and the
Indian royalty, survives the world wars, and takes a lover, before dying in
1962, in the arms of her son by her Kapurthala husband.
Among her
many vicissitudes in adjusting to a life in India, was the attitude of the
colonial administration which never accepted her marriage, and vigorously denied
her the recognition as the Maharaja’s consort. In the aftermath of the 1857
disaster, the Indian princely states were in theory autonomous in matters of internal
administration. Needless to say, the Maharaja’s private life ought to have been,
well entirely private. But the British colonial administration, even in the era
of Edwardian promiscuity, vigorously protested the taking of European wives by
Indian royals. Reams of paper were filled with notes on protocols, and harem
gossip, each file-noting closely scrutinized by none other than the Viceroy himself.
There were sound reasons behind all this interest even in the midst of the
Great War. If such marriages were to be accepted, the Viceroy- representing the
Paramount Power, would have to countenance the offending spouse in parties, and
other social gatherings. In a British setting, the parties in question- the
Viceroy and the street nymphs turned queens, would have been Upstairs and
Downstairs respectively in any establishment, and never met! How the Spanish
Maharani counters all this with humour and charm, makes interesting reading.
However
there are major factual errors in the book, which reflects poor research.
(1) The Royal Garhwal Rifles was not the
571st Regiment in the Indian Army. It was numbered 39 and there were
two of these numbered 1/39, and 2/39 respectively. Although it is not clear
what these regiments have to do with Kapurthala.
(2) M.A. Jinnah’s wife was Ruttie
Jinnah, not Rita as written in the book.
(3) India was represented at the
Versailles Palace during the signing of the armistice by Edwin S Montagu,
Secretary of State for India, and Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner. The latter
held the rank of Honorary General in the British Army. Kapurthala was not a
part of this meeting as suggested by the author.
(4) It is likely that Clemenceau visited
Kapurthala as stated in the book, after he lost the post war election, and
retired from politics, although this Reviewer could not find any account of
this event among his sources. If indeed he did, how did the colonial
administration which kept a vigilant eye on the comings and goings in
Kapurthala permit it? Post war fatigue?
In
conclusion, the book is eminently avoidable.
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