The Royals, Revealed

 Sujata Massey

It seems all about Harry and Meghan this week. But they've made me think about some less glamorous people, too. 

An Oprah Winfrey interview of Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Sussex aired three nights ago and opened a rare, uncensored view of personal relationships within Buckingham Palace. Among the many disturbing revelations during the interview were the royal couple’s assertion that Meghan was denied the freedom to get psychiatric care, even when suicidal; and that a member of the family made racist comments about their baby, and they were denied security services and many more things senior royals tae for granted. Harry and Meghan also expressed pain about cruel and untrue stories about Meghan that flourished in British tabloids that led to a nationalistic rage against her--a situation they believe could have been curtailed if Buckingham Palace had stood behind her.

 

I had an inkling that things were not right in Kensington Palace, but like most people, I bought the party line that the Sussexes had departed the palace without warning, supposedly blind-siding the Queen. In the interview, the couple made clear there had been months of planning for the departure. The nasty "Megxit" stories were just an extension of the hatchet job done before.

I was surprised and happy when Prince Harry fell in love with Meghan Markle. I'd assumed he'd marry a society or noblewoman--instead, he found happiness with a biracial woman from Los Angeles who already had found success as an actor. Through her blogging and volunteer work, Meghan had proved herself both a feminist and a champion of marginalized people. She was beautiful, inside and out. 

 

Harry and Meghan’s romance also appealed to me because I was once was “Her Majesty’s Subject.” I was born in Sussex to parents from India and Germany. Our family emigrated from England to America England in the mid-sixties for two reasons. In the United States, my father could get a professor job based on merit rather than years served at a university. Secondly, my parents feared if we stayed in Britain we would grow up thinking of ourselves as second class citizens.  For years, I thought my mother was exaggerating. It wasn’t until much later that my parents shared a few stories of discrimination, and I realized that my hair, skin and name would have stamped me as a remnant of colonization. 

 

Our family built a good life in the United States. I suffered hard years in high school, but I went on to have a deeply gratifying college education. I  worked in a dream career in newspaper journalism for five years followed by a lengthy and even more fulfilling career writing mystery and historical fiction. In almost every book I've written, there was a British character. I think this is because I consider my birthplace a part of who I am. 

I married a college classmate, a white man from the Deep South. After seven years of marriage, we adopted two very brown children. This surprised more than a few people.Our diverse family of four drew attention--whether it was 'good for you!' smiles beamed at us from cashiers in the grocery store to flat-out queries if the children were ours or where we adopted them from. Less common, but far more offensive, was un-asked for opinions on the children's skin color. 

I believe what Meghan and Harry are saying about racist experiences in England is true. And in my personal social media feed, comments from British people about this issue are likely to be mocking, cynical, and furious. I'm seeing Harry described as 'venemous' and Meghan as a 'grifter.' When I look at comments from Americans, I see outrage about racism and refusal to help someone in a mental health emergency. We are an ocean apart.

If the palace were to call me for an opinion, this is what I'd advise.

This situation can be saved--just like most family fights.The remedy is apology. That means the family member or the administrator who denied Meghan the freedom to leave the palace to seek medical help must come forward and admit it. Similarly, the family member who commented on Archie's skin color owns up to it, rather than let everybody else suffer the suspicion. Harry's official royal salary should be re-instated, as would the family's security service, when needed. In return for this, Harry and Meghan would continue charitable visiting appearances around the world, while keeping a private home base. There's no point in asking the British tabloids to do anything differently. 

And that's why it makes sense to stay in Montecito.

The Secret Life of Maharanis

Sujata Massey

Searching for maharanis at Jagmandir Palace in Udaipur

One of my favorite parts of a recent India trip was staying at the City Palace in Udaipur. This is the seat of the Mewar kingdom—a dynasty of Rajput kings who were never conquered by the Moghals or British. Mewar joined with other Rajput kingdoms in northern India to become the state of Rajasthan in the Democracy of India after 1947.

Guest room view at Shiv Niwas Palace hotel within the Udaipur palace complex

While the Government of India doesn’t provide funds to support the old maharajas' lifestyles—and their properties—the nobles at least had the pleasure of retaining their titles and homes. The Udaipur City Palace has a maharaja with wife and children still living in their own guarded residence—a proximity that adds glamour to the visit. 

But in the historic section of the palace that serves as a museum, I began revising my ideas about what it was like to be a maharani. The zenana section in which royal women were protected from view was hot and shadowy due to the windows being carved jali screens rather than open to views. I was overcome by a sensation of being closed in. Even the women’s outdoor courtyard was small and dull, compared to other outdoor spaces at the palace.

After that short tour, the life of an Indian maharani seemed like imprisonment. 

The book I found at Ames Library

But there's nothing like hearing the story from a maharani hersel.

Recently, I was at the Ames Library of South Asia in Minneapolis. I came across an old book titled Autobiography of an Indian Princess. I knew I had to read it—and thank goodness I was able to find a reprinted edition on line to add to my own library.

Autobiography of An Indian Princess was penned in 1921 by Sunity Devee, the 57-year-old Dowager Maharani of Cooch Behar, a small northeastern kingdom near Bengal that remained independent of British rule. Actually, the title’s a bit of a misnomer. Sunity was a maharani, which means queen. The English government insisted on calling Indian maharajas and maharanis “princes” and “princesses” so as not to overshadow the Empress of India: Queen Victoria.

Maharani Sunity Devee photographed in London 

Sunity was a commoner born of “good family” in Calcuta. Her father, Keshub Chunder Sen, was a famous minister and social reformer who converted from Hinduism to the Brahmo Samaj, a faith founded by Bengali Hindus who wanted to worship one deity (Brahma) rather than multiple Hindu gods and goddesses. The British in India thought highly of Mr. Sen and worked hard to persuade him to allow a match between 13-year-old Sunity and 16-year-old Nripendra, the crown prince of Cooch Behar. Sunity’s father had worked hard to ensure passage of a law setting the minimum age of marriage for Hindu girls living in British India at 14. The bride's tender age resulted in considerable verbal backlash against Keshub Chunder Sen, although the actual marital cohabitation did not begin until she was sixteen and her husband nineteen and returned from his schooling in England.

Sunity's sons photographed in London during their school days: the two eldest boys became maharajas

Sunity and Nripendra’s arranged marriage turned out to be a very happy one. The royal couple shared interests such as traveling, fashion and jewelry, literature and art, and high society. They had four sons and three daughters, insuring the security of the royal line—which pleased Cooch Behar’s population.  Sunity spoke just Bengali at the time of her marriage, but learned other Indian languages and English fluently. She was constantly in London and became arguably the most popular Indian woman in British society. Sunity was friends with Cornelia Sorabji, the Parsi woman lawyer who represented the interests of many Indian noblewomen in the early 1900s. Cornelia stayed with Sunity in the zenana at Cooch Behar so the two could discuss books. Sunity and Cornelia tried to establish a nursing school for Indian women, but it never came to be.

Sunity's granddaughter Ayesha, on far right of one of her brothers, became a maharani and then was elected member of India's parliament 

Reading Sunity’s autobiography, I learned that in Cooch Behar, purdah and zenana were customs observed at home only. This meant Sunity traveled in a heavily curtained palanquin so the country’s people could not catch sight of her face, and she cooked and prayed and concentrated on childcare and lived in the palace zenana. She obeyed her husband's directive not to ride or play tennis. When Sunity was away from Cooch Behar, though, she posed happily for photographs in French couture gowns.

And while Sunity adored her British royal friends in Britain, she chafed at the way the British in India treated Indians. In exchange for the right to rule over their own lands, maharajas were forced to pay annual taxes to Britain—taxes that could be raised if the British political agent took a dislike to the maharaja. The British government also had the power to investigate a kingdom’s accounts at any time, and to even choose a successor to the throne if the maharaja didn’t have a son.

The controls over royalty were as tight or even tighter than for everyday Indians. A maharaja had no right to travel outside of India without getting permission from his British political agent. This agent might tell him where his sons must go away to school, and they created their own boarding schools for Indian noblemen inside India where they received a biased education (Maharaja Nrirenda himself went to such a place before finishing up in England). The elaborate supervision seemed meant to create a line of obedient princely states.

Sunity’s boys were all educated abroad at the order of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal—despite her wish to have them stay longer at home. As a result, the sons came home from Eton speaking French and Greek, but having forgotten their local language.

The Cooch Behar royal family was regarded throughout India as the most westernized royals—and in most eyes, this was not a compliment. They were envied, but not really able to live lives of their choosing. For instance, when Sunity's eldest son, the crown prince Rajey, finished his Oxford education and wanted to work with his father’s ministers in the Cooch Behar government, the plan was refused. The British government said he had to join Lord Curzon’s Army Cadet Corps instead—a fancy honor guard. This diversion kept him from learning what he needed to know about Cooch Behar to be an effective ruler.

Rajey and his younger brother Jit grew up to serve as maharajas of Cooch Behar. The three daughters (Girlie, Pretty and Baby) were taught to ride, play tennis and dance, and all had sophisticated educations. The parents matched Girlie to a respectable, non-royal Calcutta boy of Brahmo faith and allowed Pretty and Baby to marry Englishmen and live in England. Ironically, the Cooch Behar princesses’ lifestyles in the 1920s were too advanced to make them suitable for marrying Indian maharajas at the turn of the century. And the England that both enthralled and frustrated Sunity was the place where she thought her daughters would do best.

I was fascinated with the idea of princesses when I was a child—and in my adulthood I’ve turned into a serious India royalty buff, thanks to the fascinating backstories of many of India's princely states. In addition to The Autobiography of an Indian Princess by Sunity Devee, I am digging Lucy Moore's Maharanis; The Extraordinary Tale of Four Indian Queens and Their Journey from Purdah to Parliament and Posing for Posterity; Royal Indian Portraits by Pramod Kumar. There’s a great series on the Indian NDTV channel called Royal Reservation  gives the viewer a quirky,  inside tour of various palaces and has candid interviews with the royals who still live there. Watching one of the programs, I was intrigued to learn that a Muslim begum (equivalent of maharani) in Gujarat hopes to open the doors to her palace's zenana as a hotel for women tourists.