Princes as men, women, rulers, patrons, and Oriental stereotypes

Barbara N. Ramusack

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521267274.006

5 - Princes as men, women, rulers, patrons, and Oriental stereotypes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Barbara N. Ramusack

Show author details

Barbara N. Ramusack: Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Indian princes played multiple roles on diverse stages. Thus their actions triggered complex and sometimes conflicting perceptions among various audiences. The last chapter documented shifting British official images of the princes from natural Indian leaders to loyal allies to naughty schoolboys. But just as British policies did not create the Indian princes as rulers, they influenced but did not circumscribe princely lives and political functions. This chapter explores what it meant to be a ruling prince in India, with particular emphasis on the period from 1870 to 1947. There are four main themes. First, the life cycle of a prince from birth through education to marriage to succession to rulership will exemplify their interlocking private and public lives. Second, an analysis of the sources of legitimacy for Indian rulers and the inconstancy of British policies will disclose opportunities for princes to manoeuvre in the interstices of indirect rule. Third, princely patronage of religious specialists and institutions, visual and performing arts, luxury crafts, secular scholarship, and sports will reveal how princes fostered cultural nationalism while fulfilling their princely dharma. Fourth, an examination of the construction of the princes as concerned, indulgent or decadent rulers, as benevolent fathers and as cunning, inept or naive politicians will detail the shifting perceptions of their disparate audiences as well as the unequal abilities, ambitions and achievements of Indian princes. These images reflect the ambiguous sources of political authority, the tangled ritual and social status of princes, and a mixture of fact and fantasy in public consciousness.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Indian Princes and their States , pp. 132 - 169

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521267274.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, Charles and Dwivedi, Sharada, Lives of the Indian Princes (London, 1984)Google Scholar

Alter, Joseph S.The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India (Berkeley CA, 1992).CrossRef Google Scholar

Anderson, BenedictImagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (London, 1991).Google Scholar

Appadurai, Arjun ‘Playing with Modernity: The Decolonization of Indian Cricket’, in Breckenridge, Carol A. (ed.), Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian World (Minneapolis, 1995).Google Scholar

Archer, William G.Indian Painting in Bundi and Kotah (London, 1959).Google Scholar

Asher, Catherine B.The New Cambridge History of India, I: 4 Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge, 1992).CrossRef Google Scholar

Basu, Amrita ‘Feminism Inverted: The Real Women and Gendered Imagery of Hindu Nationalism,’ Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 25, 4 (1993).Google Scholar

Bayly, C. A. (ed.), The Raj: India and the British 1600–1947 (London, 1990).Google Scholar

Benichou, Lucien D.From Autocracy to Integration: Political Developments in Hyderabad State (1938–1948) (Chennai, 2000).Google Scholar

Brinda, , Maharani, KapurthalaMaharani: The Story of an Indian Princess, As Told to Elaine Williams (New York, 1953).Google Scholar

Buruma, IanPlaying the Game (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

Cary, Welch Stuart (ed.), Gods, Kings, and Tigers (Munich, 1997).Google Scholar

Cashman, Richard I.The Myth of the Lokamanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (Berkeley CA, 1975).Google Scholar

Cashman, RichardPatrons, Players and the Crowd: The Phenomenon of Indian Cricket (New Delhi, 1980).Google Scholar

Chatterjee, ParthaNationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London, 1986).Google Scholar

Chowdhry, PremColonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema: Image, Ideology and Identity (Manchester, 2000).Google Scholar

Copland, Ian ‘Congress Paternalism: The “High Command” and the Struggle for Freedom in Princely India, c. 1920–1940’, South Asia, n.s. 8, 1 & 2 (1985).CrossRef Google Scholar

Corfield, ConradThe Princely India I Knew: From Reading to Mountbatten (Madras, 1975).Google Scholar

,Countess of Dufferin Fund, Twenty-eighth Report of the Madras Branch (Madras, 1914).

Dehejia, VidyaIndia Through the Lens: Photography 1840–1911 (Washington DC, 2000).Google Scholar

Desmond, RayVictorian India In Focus: A Selection of Early Photographs from the Collection in the India Office Library and Records (London, 1982).Google Scholar

Dutt, RomeshThe Economic History of India in the Victorian Age: From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century, 4th edn (London, 1916).Google Scholar

Ellison, Bernard C.H. R. H. The Prince of Wales's Sport in India, edited by Robinson, H. Perry (London, 1925).Google Scholar

Gayati Devi, Jaipur and Rao, Santha Rama, A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur (Philadelphia, 1976), chs 8–10.Google Scholar

Gonda, J.Ancient Indian Kingship from the Religious Point of View (Leiden, 1969).Google Scholar

Goswamy, B. N. ‘Of Devotées and Elephants Fights: Some Notes on the Subject Matter of Mughal and Rajput Painting’, in Desai, Vishakha N., Life at Court: Art for India's Rulers, 16th–19th Centuries (Boston, 1985).Google Scholar

Gutman, Judith MaraThrough Indian Eyes (New York, 1982).Google Scholar

Heesterman, J. C.The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society (Chicago, 1985).Google Scholar

Hurtig, ChristianeLes Maharajahs et la politique dans l'Inde contemporaine (Paris, 1988).Google Scholar

Johnson, Donald Clay ‘German Influences on the Development of Research Libraries in Nineteenth Century Bombay,’ South Asia Library Notes & Queries 19–20 (Fall 1985/Spring 1986).Google Scholar

Kawashima, KojiMissionaries and a Hindu State, Travancore 1858–1936 (Delhi, 1998).Google Scholar

Lal, Maneesha ‘The Politics of Gender and Medicine in Colonial India: The Countess of Dufferin Fund, 1885–1888’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68 (1994).Google Scholar PubMed

Lawrence, Walter RoperThe India We Served (London, 1928).Google Scholar

Lelyveld, DavidAligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India (Princeton NJ, 1978).Google Scholar

Lutgendorf, Philip ‘Ram's Story in Shiva's City: Public Arenas and Private Patronage’, in Freitag, Sandria B. (ed.), Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1899–1980 (Berkeley CA, 1989).Google Scholar

MacKenzie, John M.The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism (Manchester, 1988).Google Scholar

Maharaja, Baroda [Gaekwad, Fateh Singh Rao], Palaces of India (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

Malgonkar, ManoharPrincess: The Autobiography of the Dowager Maharani of Gwalior (London, 1985).Google Scholar

Marchioness, Dufferin and Ava, , Our Viceregal Life in India: Selections from my Journal 1884–1888, vol. I (London, 1890).Google Scholar

Marshall, John and Foucher, Alfred, The Monuments of Sanchi, 3 vols (Calcutta, 1940–41).Google Scholar

Matthews, Roy T. and Mellini, Peter, In ‘Vanity Fair’ (London, 1982).Google Scholar

Mayer, Adrian C. ‘Perceptions of Princely Rule: Perspectives from a Biography’, in Madan, T. N. (ed.), Way of Life: King, Householder, Renouncer: Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont (New Delhi, 1982).Google Scholar

Mayer, Adrian C. ‘Rulership and Divinity: The Case of the Modern Hindu Prince and Beyond’, Modern Asian Studies 25 (1991).CrossRef Google Scholar

Mayer, Adrian C. ‘The King's Two Thrones’, Man (n.s.) 20 (1985).CrossRef Google Scholar

Menon, V. P.The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (London, 1956).Google Scholar

Metcalf, Barbara DalyIslamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton NJ, 1982).CrossRef Google Scholar

Mirashi, Vasudev Vishnu (ed.), Vakataka Inscription in Cave XVI at Ajanta, Hyderabad Archaeological Series, no. 14 (Calcutta, 1941).Google Scholar

Mitra, N.Indian Annual Register, vol. I, January–June 1934 (Calcutta, 1934).Google Scholar

Mitra, N. N. (ed.) Indian Annual Register, vol. 2, July–December 1935 (Calcutta, 1936).Google Scholar

Montagu, Edwin S.An Indian Diary, edited by Montagu, Venetia (London, 1930) hunted in Bikaner.Google Scholar

Neuman, Daniel M. ‘Patronage and Performance of Indian Music’, in Miller, Barbara Stoler (ed.), The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture (Delhi, 1992).Google Scholar

Neuman, Daniel M.The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of an Artistic Tradition (Detroit, 1980).Google Scholar

Pandey, GyanendraThe Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi, 1990).Google Scholar

Panikkar, K. M.His Highness The Maharaja of Bikaner: A bBiography (London, 1937), note by Egerton.Google Scholar

Patnaik, NaveenA Desert Kingdom: The Rajputs of Bikaner (New York, 1990).Google Scholar

Ramusack, Barbara N. ‘Tourism and Icons: The Packaging of the Princely States of Rajasthan’, in Asher, Catherine B. and Metcalf, Thomas R. (eds), Perceptions of South Asia's Visual Past (New Delhi, 1994).Google Scholar

Sen, Satadru ‘Chameleon Games: Ranjitsinhji's Politics of Race and Gender,’ Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 2, 3 (2001).CrossRef Google Scholar

,SNDT Indian Women's University, Silver Jubilee Souvenir (1942).

Storey, William K. ‘Big Cats and Imperialism: Lion and Tiger Hunting in Kenya and Northern India, 1898–1930’, Journal of World History 2, 2 (Fall 1991).Google Scholar

Tillotson, G. H. R.The Rajput Palaces: The Development of an Architectural Style, 1450–1750 (New Haven CN, 1987).Google Scholar

Topsfield, AndrewThe City Palace Museum Udaipur: Paintings of Mewar Court Life (Ahmedabad, 1990).Google Scholar

Visram, RozinaAyahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700–1947 (London, 1986).Google Scholar

Worswick, Clark (ed.), Princely India: Photographs by Raja Deen Dayal 1884–1911 (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

Yazdani, GhulamAjanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography, 4 vols (London, 1930–55).Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.