This fascination with Kate and William befuddles me. Here we are, a nation with history that is much older than the British. We had our golden period when they were still running around with clubs. For over five thousand years we lived with our monarchy, content in the fact that they took care of our basic needs, happy to go to them for legal, moral and ethical guidelines, thankful that we had a head of state that neutralised the fundamentalism of the clergy and made us grounded people, not narrow minded, bigoted, religious zealots wanting to change the religious scriptures to get power equal to that of the monarchy. For hasn’t there always been a global struggle between the clergy and the heads of state
As long as we had our monarchy, we had rulers who were not only well educated in the ways of managing a secular state but were also better travelled with a global vision. When they were asked to opine on judicial, religious or other matters of state, their views remained global and not narrow-minded, non-partisan, unbiased and free from corruption. There was no need to corrupt something that belonged to them.
Then came the Partition that made the monarchy choose between India and Pakistan. As this thousand-year-old tradition had to be amalgamated with democracy, rulers like my great grandfather Nawab Hamid ullah Khan of Bhopal were asked personally by Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru not to move to Pakistan and help India through tumultuous and trying times. He sent his eldest daughter, who abdicated her throne of Bhopal to my grandmother, to lay the foundation of his arrival in Pakistan. But when India gave a privy-purse, through an uncomplicated constitutional assurance, that would enable our rulers to retain their titles along with all their assets, he stayed. He was the head of the princes’ conclave and worked endlessly in getting the confused and frightened monarchs to join India’s democracy.
After the British left and before India became a sovereign democracy, there was a gap of a few months, and it was then that the royalty in India regained their absolute monarchy status. Post 1947 independent India and her royalty slowly but amicably found a way of retaining old traditions and culture within the gambit of a resurging democracy.
And then came Indira Gandhi and her need to rule India with absolute right. Fearing vote bank politics, she abolished the privy-purse and put to death this amazing tradition of ours on the foundation of which stand our grand scriptures, the Mahabharat, Ramayana and Geeta, all related to monarchy of their time. Without the support of the state, the monarchy crumbled. A beautiful belief filled with folklore and custom, built into our democracy with such tender care by Jawaharlal, disappeared into thin air on the whim and fancy of his daughter.
The moment we got rid of our monarchy, we no longer had figureheads to go to for advise, there was no one to set equitable and secular standards for us. This, within a very short time, led to the evolution of politicians taking on the mantle of religious leaders. With the politician now ruling sans mercy, the caste divide worsened and yet again (the British being the first to truly divide and rule us along non-secular lines) India was divided into Hindu and Muslim to meet the politicians’ factional vote bank agendas. We lost our ability to be leaders of the world and soon became an underdeveloped country.
Now, having come to terms with the disappearance of our princely states, we are trying hard to creep out of a forced and degenerate state, but unable to do so without support of our monarchy. And what do we do We fall over ourselves to kiss the hands of royalty from Britain, again. If we really needed royalty to look up to and maintain our traditions, then why in heavens name did we get rid of our own
