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Rajput Ceremonial Interactions as a Mirror of a Dying Indian State System, 1820–1947

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Edward S. Haynes
Edward S. Haynes
Affiliation:
Winthrop College
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Extract

As the British Empire extended its power across the Indian subcontinent, the military and political pressures which it could bring to bear had proved to be its most significant assets. However, both to establish and to maintain an English political paramountcy which could guarantee economic dominance came over time to be revealed as two separate tasks, demanding very distinct skills. To maintain and secure this newfound power in India, the British were forced to come to know more about India. They had to grasp the ‘rules’ of India's preexisting political ‘game’ and, more frequently, to confront their need to rewrite these rules into a form which they could comprehend, in which they could compete, and where their dominance could be virtually assured.This process suggests the ‘gathering in of the threads of legitimacy’ towhich D. A. Low has to eloquently drawn our attention.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 459 - 492
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

A much earlier draft of most of this paper was presented to the 40th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 1988. The research presented in this paper has been supported by grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Shell Companies Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. While none can be expected to share my conclusions, the generous comments, conversations, and (sometimes protracted) arguments of the following colleagues are acknowledged with gratitude: H. H. Maharajdhiraj Shri Mayurdhwajsinhji Saheb Maharaja Raj Saheb Bahadur of Dhrangadhra, Robert Fryckenberg, Brijen Goswamy, John C. Hume, Jr., Thakur Mohan Singhji of Kanota, Thomas Metcalf, Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee, Jeysingh ‘Neeraj’, M. S. A. Rao, Barbara Ramusack, Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, Romesh Shonek, and Dhirendra Vajpeyi.

1 Throughout, I have tried to avoid mixing usages between the more appropriate usage of raj as a reference to a state, its ruler, its ruling ethic, and other levels of meaning and the anachronistic but presently faddish use (‘The Raj’) in reference to the structure of British rule in portions of South Asia, 1858–1947. On this see, Dhrangadhra, H. H. Sriraj, letter to the editor, The Hindustan Times Magazine, 21 December 1980.Google Scholar Similar problems exist in the common terminology of the nineteenth century: ‘Princely States’ or, worse, ‘Native States’. The polities which I shall examine were not, of course, ruled by ‘princes’, but rather by kings. Nevertheless, I shall maintain the familiar terminology of ‘Princely States’, despite the considerable conceptual problems it presents today and, moreover, presented to India's imperial rulers.

2 Low, D. A., Lion Rampant: Essays in the Study of British Imperialism (London, 1973), p. 28.Google Scholar

3 On this important broadening of participatory government beyond the narrow ruling lineage, especially to the merchant communities, see the comments by H. H. Mayurdhwajsinhji of Dhrangadhra in Allen, Charles and Dwivedi, Sharada, Lives of the Indian Princes (London, 1984), p. 63.Google Scholar

4 Platts, John T., A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (Oxford, 1968), p. 511;Google Scholar cf. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1971), 1:724.Google Scholar

5 See Yule, Henry and Burnell, A. C., Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, new edn, ed. Crooke, William (reprint edn, New Delhi, 1968), p. 311;Google Scholar and Wilson, H. H., A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms and of Useful Words Occurring in Official Documents relating to the Administration of the Government of British India… (London, 1855; reprint edn, New Delhi, 1968), p. 125.Google Scholar

6 The issue of bureaucracy is addressed in greater detail in Haynes, Edward S., ‘Pattawallas of Paramountcy: Professional Bureaucratic Subversion of the Indian Princely States,’ Indo-British Historical Review, 15, 2 (12 1988): 123–38.Google Scholar

7 Tupper, Charles Lewis, Our Indian Protectorate: An Introduction to the Study of the Relations between the British Government and its Indian Feudatories (London, 1893), pp. 357–8.Google Scholar

8 In fact, Kshatriya might be misapplied here, for these rulers were (by their own chronicles) only the ‘Sons of Kings’ (Raja ka Putra). A useful (if rather dated and racist) general source is Bingley, A. H. (comp.), Caste Handbooks for the Indian Army: Rajputs (Simla, 1899); this has been reprinted (New Delhi, 1986),Google Scholar and a ‘reproduction’ (without citation) of much of this volume has been offered by Bahadur, K. P. (ed.), Caste, Tribes and Culture of Rajputs (Delhi, 1978).Google Scholar For the most valuable recent surveys of Rajput statecraft in pre-British times, see Norman, Paul Ziegler, ‘Action, Power and Service in Rajasthani Culture: A Social History of the Rajputs of Middle Period Rajasthan’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Chicago, Chicago, 1973);Google Scholar and Sharma, G. D., Rajput Polity: A Study of Politics and Administration of the State of Marwar, 1638–1749 (Delhi, 1977).Google Scholar This latter volume should be used in careful conjunction with the review by Sinh, Raghubir in The Indian Archives 27 (01–06 1978), 96–119.Google Scholar Some of these larger issues are addressed in greater detail in Haynes, Edward S., ‘From Sagara to Sanjay: The Kshatriya Alternative and Feudal Authoritarianism in Indian History,’ in Indian Civilization in its Local, Regional and National Aspects, ed. Vajpeyi, Dhirendra (Delhi, 1990), pp. 63–93.Google Scholar

9 For the Indian case, see Heesterman's, J. C. excellent ‘Was there an Indian Reaction? Western Expansion: An Indian Perspective,’ in Expansion and Reaction, ed. Weseling, H. L. (Leiden, 1978), p. 33.Google Scholar See also Dumont, Louis, ‘The Conception of Kingship in Ancient India,’ Contributions to Indian Sociology 6 (1962) 48–77. As if further evidence for the sacred/secular political bifurcation in Persian statecraft were necessary, recent events in Iran should provide a sufficiently adequate context for analysis.Google Scholar

10 Heesterman, J. C., ‘Power and Authority in Indian Tradition,’ in Tradition and Politics in South Asia, ed. Moore, R. J. (New Delhi, 1979), p. 67, see also p. 66.Google Scholar

11 Greater complexity arose where the masses were in a very different kin network or, worst of all, where they were of a differing religion. While communalism seems a recent (twentieth-century) invention in most of Rajasthan, the further the subordinate (subaltern?) classes were removed from the cultural ideology of the rulers, the greater the challenge that ruling posed.

12 Heesterman, ‘Power and Authority,’ p. 75, see also pp. 67, 73–5. This is very close to what some scholars identified as a ‘jajmani’ relationship; see, for the classic statement, the many publications on the jajmani system by the Wisers.

13 See, for example, Stein's, Burton central historiography (to cite but one example, ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered: Part One,’ Modern Asian Studies: Review of the Cambridge Economic History of India and Beyond 19 (1985), 387–413),CrossRefGoogle Scholar Frank Perlin's ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered: Part Two,’ in Ibid., 415–80; and the valuable essays by Mukhia, Harbans, Sharma, R. S., Habib, Irfan, Stein, Burton, and Perlin, Frank in Feudalism in Non-European Societies, eds Byrnes, T. J. and Mukhia, Harbans (London, 1985).Google Scholar

14 On this, see Tod, James, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India, 3 vols (ed. Crooke, William and reprinted London, 1920);Google ScholarMalcolm, John, A Memoir of Central India, Including Malwa, and Adjoining Provinces, 2 vols (London, 1823)Google Scholar and The Rajpoots of India, 2 vols (reprint ed. New Delhi, 1982);Google Scholar and Haynes, Edward S., ‘A Corinthian Capital on a Column of Ellora: The Transfer of the Concept of Feudalism to the Rajput States of North India,’ Journal of Indian History 57 (1979), 235–71.Google Scholar

15 Agent to the Govenor-General in Rajputana (hereafter AGGR) to Government of India, Camp Alwar, 24 January 1843, Foreign Consultations of the Government of India, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter FC), 5 April 1843, 29. Cf. Tod, Annals and Antiquities, 1:223–4.

16 AGGR to Government of India, Camp Alwar, 24 January 1843, FC, 5 April 1843, 29.

17 This dispute over whether there was or is a ‘proper’ Rajput or Indian ‘feudalism’ has appeared in many incarnations. The best sources for the Rajput case (beyond Tod's classic, cited above) are: L. B. Alev, ‘Sobstvenost’ na zemliu v kniazhostvakh radzhputany v pervoi polovine XXV. (po knige “Annaly i drevnosti Radzhathany”)’ (Russian: ‘Property in the Land in the Rajput Kingdoms in the First Half of the 19th Century [According to “Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan”]’), Kratkie soobscheheniia o dokladakh i polevukh issledovaniiakh, Instiutut arkheologii, Akademia Nauk SSSR 51 (1962), 133–50 (the assistance of Jacob W. Kipp in the location and utilization of this essay is gratefully acknowledged); Coulborn, Rushton, ‘Feudalism, Brahmanism and the Intrusion of Islam Upon Indian History,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 10 (1968), 356–74;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHaynes, , ‘A Corinthian Capital on a Column of Ellora’; [Alfred C. Lyall], ‘The Rajput States of India,’ Edinburgh Review 144 (1876), 169–203Google Scholar (reprinted with minor changes in his Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social, 1st series, London, 1907);Google ScholarRudolph, Lloyd I. and Rudolph, Suzanne Hoeber, ‘The Princely States of Rajputana: Ethic Authority and Structure,’ Indian Journal of Political Science 24 (1963), 14–32,Google Scholarand their ‘The Political Modernization of an Indian Feudal Order: An Analysis of Rajput Adaptation in Rajasthan,’ Journal of Social Issues 24 (1968), 93–128;CrossRefGoogle ScholarStern, Henri, ‘Le Pouvoir dans l'Inde traditionelle: Territoire, Caste et Parenté: Approche théoreique et étude régionale (Rajasthan),’ L'Homme 13 (1973), 50–70 (translated and slightly reworked as ‘Power in Traditional India: Territory, Cast [sic] and Kinship in Rajasthan,’ in Realm and Region, ed. Fox, pp. 52–78);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Thorner, Daniel, ‘Feudalism in India,’ in Feudalism in History (ed. Coulborn, Rushton, Hamden, 1965), pp. 133–50.Google Scholar Basic to any discussion of earlier Indian feudalism is Sharma's, R. S. classic, Indian Feudalism, c. 300–1200 (Calcutta, 1965).Google Scholar

18 For a reasonable survey of indirect rule, see: Tupper, , Our Indian Protectorate;Google ScholarLee-Warner, William, The Protected Princes of India (London, 1894);Google ScholarTupper, C. L. (comp.), Indian Political Practice: A Collection of the Decisions of the Government of India in Political Cases, 4 vols (Calcutta, 1895 reprinted Delhi, 1974);Google Scholar and Coen, Terence Creagh, The Indian Political Service: A Study in Indirect Rule (Bombay, 1971).Google Scholar

19 See [India, Foreign Department], Memorandum on Native States in India, 1912 (Calcutta, India, 1912),Google Scholar and Mehta, Markhana Nandshankar and Mehta, Manu Nandshankar, (comps), The Hind Rajastan, or the Annals of the Native States of India, 3 vols (Bhadarwa, 1896 reprinted Delhi, 1985).Google Scholar

20 For a survey of this process and this period, see Haynes, Edward S., ‘Imperial Impact on Rajputana: The Case of Alwar, 1775–1850,’ Modern Asian Studies 12 (1978), 419–53,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Nagori, S. S., Alwar Rajya ka Itihas (1775–1857) (Hindi: ‘The History of Alwar State (1775–1857)’) (Jaipur, 1982).Google Scholar An specially valuable primary source is Jivan's, JachikPratap-Raso (Braj: ‘The Ballad of Pratap’) (ed. Gupta, Motilal, Rajasthani Puratan Granthmala no. 75, Jodhpur, 1965).Google Scholar A more general survey of changing statecraft and kinship relations in Alwar will be offered in Edward S. Haynes, Jagirdars and Government: Rajput Kingship and Kinship Polity in Alwar State under British Paramountcy, 1775–1947 (forthcoming).

21 Wolf, John B., ‘The Cult of the King,’ in Louis XIV: A Profile, ed. Wolf, John B. (New York, 1972), p. 136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Sharma, Dasharatha, Lectures on Rajput History and Culture (Raghunath Prosad Nopany Lectures, 1966) (Delhi, 1970), pp. 109–17.Google Scholar The larger issue of earlier Rajput statecraft comprises, today, an important absence in our emerging understanding of preindustrial statecraft in South Asia. An important and challenging contribution to this emerging understanding has been offered by Dirk H. A. Kolff, ‘The Rajput of Ancient and Medieval North India: A Warrior-Ascetic,’ unpublished paper presented to the conference ‘Preservation of Culture and The Environment in jaipur, Rajasthan,’ International Conference on Rajasthan,University of Rajasthan,Jaipur, Rajasthan, India,December 1987.Google Scholar

23 The best surveys of Mughal ceremonial are given by Mohd. Ansari, Azher in his ‘Court Ceremonials of the Great Mughals,’ Islamic Culture 35 (07 1961), 183–97,Google Scholarand ‘Some Aspects of Social Life at the Court of the Great Mughals,’ Islamic Culture 36 (07 1962): 182–95 and Bernard S. Cohn, ‘The Mughal, Court Rituals, and the Theory of Authority in the 16th and 17th Centuries,’ privately circulated draft, 1977.Google Scholar

24 Tupper, , Our Indian Protectorate, pp. 361–2.Google Scholar

25 Maharani Pravinba of Rewa, quoted in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 64.

26 A useful introduction to the wide cultural role of the kuldevi is given in Lindsey Harlan's excellent ‘The Zanana as an Importer of Kuldevi Tradition’, unpublished paper presented to the conference ‘Preservation of Culture and the Environment in Rajasthan.’

27 On this, see the valuable—if somewhat forgotten—essay by Mayer, Adrian C., ‘Perceptions of Princely Rule,’ in Way of Life: King, Householder, Renouncer; Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont, ed. Madan, T. N. (New Delhi), 1982, pp. 127–54.Google Scholar

28 Powlett, P. W., Gazetteer of Ulwur (London, 1878), pp. 122–3.Google Scholar Jaoli —for example— was not universally accepted as a jagir by the other Naruka families, although it claimed such status; see: Alwar, (Rajputana), Thikana Jaoli (Allahabad, 1925), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

29 Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:43.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 1:34.

31 For example, the talwar bandhani ceremony performed by the related Jhabua ruler to authorize the accession of a new chief of Kushalgarh, although Kushalgarh was geographically situated within Banswara State and politically subordinate to that state. See: Political A Progs., August 1869, 39; Political A Progs., July 1874, 235; and Internal B Progs., November 1892, 123–8. The case is summarized in Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:34–5.Google Scholar

32 Akhbar, Jaipur, 13 August and 11 September 1831, PC 52, 18 November 1831; and Foreign Department Miscellaneous Records (National Archives of India, New Delhi), No. 279, Delhi and Alwar, pp. 120–7.Google Scholar

33 PA Ajmer to AGGR, Ajmer, 17 September 1831, PC 50, 18 November 1831. See also FSGoI to Resident, Delhi, Simla, 15 October 1831, PC 51, 18 November 1831.

34 Report of news writer in Alwar, enclosed in PA Delhi to FSGoI, Delhi, 18 May 1831, PC 31, 17 June 1831.

35 GoI to PAA, Delhi, Ft William, 30 May 1833, PC 13, 30 May 1833.

36 See Watson to Thompson, 30 April 1927, R/1/29/295, F&P, 1927, Pol., 501, India Office Records (Crown Representative Papers); and The Tribune, 20 May 1927, p. 9. I thank Barbara Ramusack for providing me with these references.Google Scholar

37 Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (London, 1963), pp. 140–3.Google Scholar

38 Jahangir, (Muhammad Nur-al-Din), Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, 2 vols, tr. Rogers, A. (reprint edn Delhi 1968), 1:7–8;Google ScholarAsher, Catherine B., ‘Sub-Imperial Patronage: The Architecture of Raja Man Singh,’ unpublished paper presented to the conference on ‘Patronage in Indian Culture,’ National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC, October 1985.Google Scholar

39 Kangle, R. P., tr., The Kautilya Arthasastra, 3 vols (Bombay, 1960);Google Scholar see also Basham, A. L., The Wonder that was India (New York, 1954), p. 90.Google Scholar

40 But cf.Lodrick, Deryck O., Sacred Cows, Sacred Places: Origins and Survivals of Animal Homes in India (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 23, 68–70.Google Scholar

41 Bahura, Gopal Narayan, Literary Heritage of the Rulers of Amber and Jaipur (Jaipur, 1976), pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

42 Again, Kolff's ‘The Rajput of Ancient and Medieval North India’ is of great value. See also, for example, Bhargava, V. S., Rise of Kachhawas in Dundhar (Jaipur): From the Earliest Times to the Death of Sawai Jai Singh (1743 A.D.) (Ajmer and New Delhi, 1979), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

43 Stewart Gordon has characterized this stage of politico-architectural expression in his classic ‘Forts and Social Control in the Maratha State,’ Modern Asian Studies 13 (02 1979): 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 For a wide range of examples of this transition, see Tillotson, G. H. R., The Rajput Palaces: The Development of an Architectural Style, 1450–1750 (Delhi, 1987).Google Scholar

45 See Ibid.; Thomas R. Metcalf, ‘The British and Princely Architecture: The Rajput Stylistic Approach in Bikaner and Jaipur, 1860–1920,’ unpublished paper presented to the conference ‘Preservation of Culture and the Environment in Rajasthan’; and Metcalf, Thomas R., ‘Architecture and the Representation of Empire: India, 1860–1910,’ Representations 6 (Spring 1984): 37–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Metcalf, however, implicitly confuses what are essentially internal motivations—dealing with the ruler's own kinsmen—and reverses the process, seeing instead a princely fawning desire to please the paramount power by slavishly accepting its architectural and symbolic norms Metcalf misses the point that, even at this point in time and on this level, the Rajput norms of expression had changed, as they had frequently done in the adaptive odyssey of the Rajput state. On this last point, see Gutman, Judith Mara, Through Indian Eyes (New York, 1982).Google Scholar

46 Powlett, P. W., Gazetteer of Ulwur (London, 1878), p. 16;Google ScholarJeysingh, ‘Neeraj’ (ed.) Vinay: Alwar Ank (Alwar, 1969), p. 150;Google Scholar India (Republic), Rajasthan, Department of Archaeology and Museums, As Stones Speak in Alwar (Jodhpur, c. 1965), p. 12Google Scholar; and personal observations 1985.

47 Jeysingh, ‘Neeraj,’ ‘Alwar ke bhitti-chitra,’ The Researcher 12–13 (1972): 39–42Google Scholar; and ‘Neeraj’, Vinay, pp. 150–1.Google Scholar

48 Personal observations 1985.

49 Rousselet, Louis, India and Its Native Princes: Travels in Central India and the Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal (rev. and ed. by Lt-Col [?] Buckle, London, 1876), pp. 250–1.Google Scholar

50 Similarly, such messages are expressed in the Jaipur State region of Shekhavati where, had it not been for the presence of British imperialism, similar decentralizing centrifugal forces may have prevailed, particularly in subordinate jagirs such as Sikar. See Wacziargh, Francis and Nath, Amar, Rajasthan: The Painted Walls of Shekhavati (New Delhi, 1982);Google Scholar and Stern, Robert W., The Cat and the Lion: Jaipur State in the British Raj (Leiden, 1988), esp. p. 265.Google Scholar

51 Rajasthan, As Stones Speak in Alwar, p. 5; and Powlett, Gazetteer, p. 156.

52 See Powlett, Gazetteer, p. 156.

53 H. H. Mayurdhwajsinhji of Dhrangadhra, quoted in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 87.

54 A valuable source in this whole area of enquiry has been Deyell, John S. and Fryckenberg, R. E., ‘Sovereignty and the “SIKKA” under Company Raj: Minting Prerogative and Imperial Legitimacy in India,’ The Indian Economic and Social History Review 19 (01 1982): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Given the severe editing of this paper, it has also been useful to consult the earlier version, presented to the Fifth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands, July 1976.

55 Tupper, Our Indian Protectorate, p. 358.

56 Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:124.Google Scholar

57 FC, 12 September 1823, 9. The case is summarized in ibid., 1:124–5. Under the East India Company there was also concern over coinage in Ratlam, Kutch, and the Bundelkhand States; see Ibid., 1:125, 126–7.

58 See Webb, William Wilfred, The Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana (Westminster, 1893; reprinted Varanasi, 1972), p. 111;Google Scholar and Bruce, Colin R. II, Deyell, John S., Rhodes, Nicholas, and Spengler, William F., The Standard Guide to South Asian Coins and Paper Money since 1556 AD (1st edn, Iola, 1982), p. 123, although only the issue of 1763, 1777, and 1782 are listed here.Google Scholar

59 Alwar had been a mint before, but Rajgarh was only a mint for Pratap Singh's emerging state.

60 Wright, H. Nelson, The Coinage and Metrology of the Sultans of Delhi (Delhi, 1936; reprinted New Delhi, 1974), pp. 59, 80, 291–2, 342, and 386–7.Google Scholar

61 See Webb, Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana, pp. 111–12, 114; and Bruce et al., Guide to South Asian Coins, pp. 123–4. Bakhtawar Singh's unpublished gold coinage was examined in the collection of a private (anonymous) collector in New Delhi.

62 Bruce, et al. , Guide to South Asian Coins, pp. 123–4.Google Scholar Banni Singh's unpublished gold coinage was examined in the collection of a private (anonymous) collector in New Delhi.

63 On this, see the very detailed essay by Randhawa, Sarjit Singh, ‘Change of Superscription on Coins of Native States, 1858–1872,’ Journal of Indian History 45 (1967), 541–51.Google Scholar

64 See FC, 18 February 1858, 124–7; FC, 26 February 1858, 170; and FC, 15 September 1859, 39. Kutch had, in fact, suggested this change as early as 1846. These cases are summarized in Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:125–6.Google Scholar

65 Bruce, et al. Guide to South Asian Coins, pp. 271–304;Google Scholar and Tupper, (comp.)., Indian Political Practice, 1:126, n. 4.Google Scholar

66 See Webb, , Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana, p. 112 and 115Google Scholar; and Bruce, et al. , Guide to South Asian Coins, p. 124.Google Scholar

67 See Webb, , Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana, pp. 113 and 115Google Scholar; and Bruce et al., Guide to South Asian Coins, p. 124.

68 Finance A Progs., June 1872, 21, quoted in Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:131.Google Scholar

69 Quoted in Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:127.Google Scholar

70 Quoted ibid., 1:130.

71 Finance A Progs., June 1872, 23; see also Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:131.Google Scholar

72 See Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:132–3.Google Scholar The working of this act was made possible by mint policy of accepting silver from the general public for coinage into rupees. When this openness was terminated in June 1893, the Native Coinage Act came to an end, for it was under this provision that the minting had been carried out.

73 Finance A Progs., July 1868, 11–13; the general case is surveyed in Tupper, , comp., Indian Political Practice, 1:127–8.Google Scholar

74 Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:128.Google Scholar

75 Taprell Dorling, H., with Guille, L. F., Ribbons and Medals: Naval, Military, Air Force and Civil (London, 1963), pp. 25–7, 28–9.Google Scholar

76 Ibid., pp. 42–43; and Abbott, P. E. and Tampling, J. M. A., British Gallantry Awards (Enfield, 1971), pp. 181–202.Google Scholar

77 Dorling, , Ribbons and Medals, pp. 30, 32, and 27.Google Scholar

78 Tupper, , Our Indian Protectorate, p. 360.Google Scholar

79 This strange gender-mixing—‘Queen-Emperor’—is an artifact of the period and of Victoria's title of 1877. Her official title—at least as rendered on the ‘Empress of India Medal 1877’—was Kaisar-i-Hind’, or ‘Emperor of India’.

80 Lee-Warner, , The Protected Princes of India, p. 305.Google Scholar

81 Kipling, Rudyard, ‘A Legend of the Foreign Office,’ in Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (Garden City, 1940), p. 8.Google Scholar Originally published in Departmental Ditties, 1885.Google Scholar

82 Bhagwat Singh, H. H. of Mewar, quoted in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar

83 For example, the Nawab of Rampur was offered the Order of the Medijdi by the Sultan of Turkey in 1879 and the Maharaja of Travancore was offered the Order of Officier de l'Instruction Publique by the French Republic in 1884. Both were disapproved of by official policy. See Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 1:39–40.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., 3:214.

85 Letters to an Indian Raja from a Political Recluse, pp. 114, 115,Google Scholar quoted in Pancholi, Kesari Singh (comp.), Selections for Young Rulers on Efficiency as a Ruler (Allahabad, c. 1924), pp. 197–9.Google Scholar

86 See Intl. B Progs., May 1885, 246–8; Sec. I Progs., July 1885, 1–11; Sec. I Progs., October 1891, 4–7; Dep. Intl. Progs. 27–34, August 1920; Intl. A Progs., June 1901, 198–202; demi-official letter, Political Agent at Alwar to Resident at Jaipur, Alwar, 9 May 1938, Jaipur Residency Files, 1032, confidential-1930; and, for a summary, Tupper, (comp.), Indian Political Practice, 3:215–16.Google Scholar

87 See, for example, SC 11, 24 April 1837. These were the Order of the Auspicious Star of the Punjab, Order of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and Order of Maharaja Dalip Singh.

88 Demi-official, Agent to the Govenor General in Rajputana to the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, 12 September 1907, Sec I Progs., 27, July 1908. For the useful comparative Japanese case, cited specifically by many of the princes, see Peterson, James W., Orders and Medals of Japan and Associated States (Chicago, 1967), where the difficult correspondence between the Japanese ideal of ‘Ranks of Merit’ (kuni) and European orders of knighthood is addressed.Google Scholar

89 See demi-official letter, Political Agent at Alwar to Resident at Jaipur, Jaipur, 9 May 1938, Jaipur Residency Files, 1032, Confidential-1930.

90 H. H. Mayurdhwajsinhji of Dhrangadhra, quoted in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, p. 249. The Shaktimat Order of Dhrangadhra is otherwise unreported.

91 Other states which, according to GoI policy might have issued medals: Ajaigarh, Alwar, Banswara, Baoni, Baroda, Barwani, Benares, Bijawar, Bundi, Cambay, Charkhari, Chattarpur, Cochin, Cooch Behar, Cutch, Datia, Dewas (Senior), Dewas (Junior), Dhar, Dholpur, Dhrangadhra, Dungarpur, Faridkot, Gondal, Idar, Indore, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jind, Junagarh, Kalat, Karauli, Khairpur, Kishangarh, Janjira, Jaora, Jhabua, Jhalawar, Kolhapur, Kotah, Manipur, Maskat, Mewar (Udaipur), Morvi, Nabha, Narsinghgarh, Navanagar, Orchha, Rampur, Palanpur, Panna, Porbandar, Pratabgarh, Pudukkottai, Rajpipla, Ratlam, Rajgarh, Rewa, Sailana, Samthar, Sirmur (Nahan), Sirohi, Sitamau, Suket, Tehri (Garhwal), Tonk, and Travancore. For the clearest statement of this policy, see demi-official Foreign and Political office to Agent to the Govenor-General in Rajputana (and others?), 16 April 1930, Jaipur Residency Files, 1032, Confidential-1930.

92 H. H. Mayurdhwajsinhji of Dhrangadhra, quoted in Allen and Dwivedi, Lives of the Indian Princes, pp. 86–7.