Nationalism, Modernity, And The Maharajahs: Indian Identity In The Late Nineteenth Century

Though the princely states covered forty per cent of the Indian subcontinent and governed twenty-five per cent of its population, they have traditionally been portrayed as petty despots, consumed by lust and luxury – bejewelled parasites, who cared more for elephants and palaces than for schools and public works. The British propagated the myth that brown royalty needed to be ‘enlightened’. Many Indians, too, bought into the stereotype, viewing the princes as imperial stooges. Even today, the princes are either remembered with frothy nostalgia or dismissed as greedy fools.

Did the princely states play any role in the making of contemporary India? Were they puppets in the hands of the British? Did the princely states work towards a constitutional mode of governance based on laws and not just royal whimsy? What was their role in the emergence of nationalism in late-Victorian India?

Our speaker, author of False Allies and other books on this topic, will explore the vanished world of princely India. He will explore how India’s princely states and their rulers negotiated their political identities and ideas of kingship, both while facing pressures from the British Raj, as well as while resisting it.