6/28/2023 0 Comments Taste of panoplyMorvi's enterprising rulers opened a free port, which in the 19th century was so bustling and cosmopolitan that savvy merchants there could even quote the local exchange rate for Spanish silver reales, minted in Argentina. Parisian jewellers convinced many a ruler to melt down his ancient treasures of gold, and re-cut their gems to be in vogue with the latest fashions. The maharajas and nawabs mimicked the lifestyles of European aristocrats with an exuberance that soon brought architects and sculptors and sellers of outlandishly expensive knick-knacks hustling out to India. Often, the political agent's job was to persuade the ruler to buy British. In a pile of soaked and muddy documents, he discovered a letter embossed with the viceroy's seal of Lord Willingdon.Īlthough the British allowed autonomy to tame native rulers, a political agent was assigned to each state to keep watch over the maharaja or his Muslim equivalent, the nawab. Abimaniu was trying to salvage some of Morvi's archives after a terrible flood in 1979 washed in and out of the palace's many Art Deco rooms. What piqued my interest in Morvi, a principality near the Arabian Sea coast of Gujarat, was an old letter found by a friend of mine, Abimaniu, an antiquarian who holds firm to his warrior caste's penchant for outlandish facial hair. Some principalities, such as Hyderabad or Kashmir, were larger than France, but many extended no further than 20 miles. On the eve of India's nationhood in 1947, there were more than 565 maharajas, nawabs and rajas, who ruled one-third of the country. Defeat by more powerful invading armies, court schemers and natural calamities may have caused the demise of India's kings and Mogul emperors, but their thousands of palaces remain as testimony to their strength and, often, their wild eccentricities. THROUGHOUT the centuries, India has seen empires expand thousands of miles, across seas and up into the high Himalayan ranges, only to shrink back to little beyond the ruler's battered palace walls.
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