|
|
History of Rajasthan
The north-western region of India, which incorporates Rajasthan,
remained in early history for the most part independent from the great
empires consolidating their hold onthe subcontinent. Buddhism failed
to make substantial inroads here; the Mauryan Empire (321-184 BC),
whose most renowned emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in262 BC, had
minimal impact in Rajasthan. However, there are Buddhist caves and
stupas (Buddhist shrines) at Jhalawar, in southern Rajasthan. Ancient
Hindu scriptural epics make reference to sites in present day
Rajasthan. The holy pilgrimage site of Pushkar is mentioned in both
the Mahabharata and Ramayma.
The fall of the Gupta Empire, which held dominance in northern India
for nearly 300 years, until the early 5th century, was followed by a
period of instability as various local chieftains sought to gain
supremacy. Various powers rose and fell in northern India. Stability
was only restored with the emergence of the Gurjara Pratihar as, the
earliest of the Rajput (from 'Rajputra', or Sons of Princes) dynasties
which were later to hold the balance of power throughout Rajasthan.
The emergence of the Rajput warrior clans in the 6th and 7th centuries
played the greatest role in the subsequent history of Rajasthan. From
these clans emerged the name Rajputana, by which the collection of
princely states came to be known during the Muslim invasion of India.
The Sisodias of the Suryavansa Race, originally from Gujarat, migrated
to Rajas-than in the mid-7th century and reigned over Mewar, which
encompassed Udaipur and Chittorgarh.The Kachhwa has, originally from
Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, travelled west in the12th century. They
built the massive fortress at Amber, the capital later being shifted
to Jaipur. Like the Sisodias, they belonged to the Suryavansa Race.
Also belonging to the Suryavansa Race, the Rathores (earlier known as
Rastrakutas) travelled from Kanauj, in Uttar Pradesh. Initially they
settled in Pali, south of present-day Jodhpur, but later moved to
Mandore in1381 and ruled over Marwar (Jodhpur). Later they commenced
construction on the stunning Meherangarh Fort at Jodhpur. The Bhattis,
who belong to the Induvansa Race, driven from their homeland in the
Punjab by the Turks, installed themselves at Jaisalmer in 1156. They
remained more or less entrenched in their desert kingdom until they
were integrated into the state of Rajasthan following Independence.
The first external threat to the dominance of the Rajputs was that
posed by the Arabs who took over Sind in 713. The Gurjara Pratiharas'
response to the Arab threat was largely defensive. The Arabs were
repulsed by the Gurjara Pratiharas led by their king, Nagabhata I,
founder of the Pratihara Empire. The Arabs also tested their strength
against the Rastrakut as. Unfortunately, when not pitting their wits
against the Arabs, the Pratiharas and Rastrakut as were busy fighting
each other. By the third decade of the 8th century, anew threat was
emerging in the form of the Turks, who had occupied Ghazni in
Afghanistan. Around 1001 AD, Mahmud of Ghazni's army descended upon
India, destroying infidel temples and carrying off everything of value
that could be moved. The Rajputs were not immune from these
incursions; a confederation of Rajput rulers assembled a vast army and
marched northwards to meet the advancing Turks. Unfortunately,
how-ever, it was a case of too little, too late, and they were
decisively and crushingly vanquished. The Pratiharas, then centred at
Kanauj, fled the city before the Turks arrived, and in their absence
the temples of Kanauj, as with so many others in northern India, were
sacked and desecrated, Towards the end of the 12th century, Mohammed
of Ghori invaded India to take up where Mahmud of Ghazni had left off.
Hemet with a collection of princely states which failed to mount a
united front. Although initially repulsed, Ghori later triumphed, and
Delhi and Ajmer were lost to the Muslims. Ajmer remained a Muslim
stronghold over the centuries, apart from a brief period when it was
retaken by the Rathores. Today it is an important Muslim place of
pilgrimage.
Mohammed of Ghori was killed in 1206, and his successor, Qutb-ud-din,
became the first of the Sultans of Delhi. Within 20 years, the Muslims
had brought the whole of the Ganges basin under their control. In
1297, Ala-ud-din Khilji pushed the Muslim borders south into Gujarat.
Ala-ud-din mounted a protracted siege of the massive fort at
Ranthambhore, which was at the time ruled by the Rajput chief Hammir
Deva. Hammir was reported as dead (although it's unknown if he did
actually die in the siege) and upon hearing of their chief's demise,
the womenfolk of the fortress collectively threw themselves on a pyre,
thus performing the first instance of jauhar, or collective sacrifice,
in the history of the Rajputs. Alu-ud-din later went on to sack the
fortress at Chittorgarh in 1303, held by the Sisodia clan. According
to tradition, Alu-ud-din had heard repute of the great beauty of
Padmini, the consort of the Sisodian chief, and resolved to carry her
off with him. Like Ranthambhore before it, Chittorgarh also fell to
the Muslim leader.
The Delhi sultanate weakened at the beginning of the 16th century, and
the Rajputs took advantage of this to restore and expand their
territories. At this time the kingdom of Mewar, ruled by the Sisodias
under the leadership of Rana Sangram Singh, gained preeminence among
the Rajput states. Under this leader, Mewar pushed its boundaries far
beyond its original territory, posing a formidable threat to the new
Mughal Empire which was emerging under the leadership of Babur
(reigned 1527-30). Babur, a descendent of both Timur and Genghis Khan,
marched into Punjab from his capital at Kabul in Afghanistan in
1525and defeated the Sultan of Delhi at Panipat. He then focused his
attention on the Rajput princely states, many of whom, anticipating
his designs, had banded together to form a united front under Rana
Sangram Singh. Unfortunately, when the inevitable confrontation took
place, the Rajputs were defeated by Babur. They sustained great
losses, with many Rajput chiefs falling in the fray, including Rana
Sangram Singh himself, who reputedly had no less than 80 wound son his
body suffered during both this and previous campaigns. The defeat
shook the very foundations of the princely states. Mewar's confidence
was shattered by the death of its illustrious leader, and its
territories contracted following sub-sequent attacks by the Sultan of
Gujarat, At this time Marwar, under its ruler Maldeo, emerged as the
strongest of the Rajput states, and it recorded a victory against the
claimant to the Mughal throne, Sher Shah. However, none of the Rajputs
was able to withstand the formidable threat posed by the most renowned
of the Mughal emperors, Akbar (reigned 1556-1605).Recognising that the
Rajputs could not be conquered by mere force alone, Akbar contracted a
marriage alliance with a princess of the important Kachhwaha clan who
held Amber (and later founded Jaipur). The Kachhwahas, unlike their
other Rajputbrethren at the time, aligned themselves with the powerful
Mughals, and even sent troops to aid them in times of battle. Akbar
also used more conventional methods to assert, his dominance over the
Rajputs, wresting Ajmer from the Rathores of Marwar which had been
briefly restored to the Rajputs under Maldeo. All the import-ant
Rajput states eventually acknowledged Mughal sovereignty and became
vassal states of the Mughal Empire, except Mewar, which fiercely clung
to its independence, refusing to pay homage to the infidels. An uneasy
truce was thus maintained between the Rajputs and the Mughal emperors,
until the reign of Aurangzeb, the last great Mughal emperor, when
relations were characterized by mutual hostility. Aurangzeb devoted
his resources to extending the empire's boundaries. The punitive taxes
which he levied on his subjects to pay for his military exploits and
his religious zealotry eventually secured his downfall. The Rajputs
were united in their opposition to Aurangzeb, and the Rathores and
Sisodias raised arms against him. It didn't take long for revolts by
the enemies of Aurangzeb to break out on all sides and, with his death
in 1707, the Mughal Empire's for-tunes rapidly declined.
Following the death of Aurangzeb and the dissolution of the Mughal
Empire came the Marathas. They first rose to prominence with Shivaji
who, between 1646 and 1680, per-formed feats of arms and heroism
across central India. The Maratha Empire continued under the Peshwas,
hereditary government ministers who became the real rulers. They
gradually took over more and more of the weakening Mughal Empire's
powers, first by supplying troops and then by actually taking control
of Mughal land. The Marathas conducted numerous raids on the Rajputs,
and the latter, too busy fighting among themselves, laid themselves
wide open to these aggressions, resulting in numerous defeats in
battle, the loss of territories and the invitable decline of the
rajput states.
In the early 19th century, the East India Company, a London trading
company which had a monopoly on trade in India, was taken over by the
British Government, and India was effectively under British control.
Meanwhile, the Marathas continued to mount raids on the Rajputs.
Initially the British adopted a policy of neutrality towards the
feuding parties. However, the British eventually stepped into the
fray, negotiating treaties with the leaders of the main Rajput states.
British protection was offered in return for Rajput support. Weakened
by habitual fighting between themselves and in their skirmishes with
the Marathas, one by one the princely states forfeited their
independence in exchange for this protection. British residents were
gradually installed in the princely states. The British ultimately
eliminated the Maratha threat, but by this stage the Rajputs were
effectively reduced to puppet leaders and lackeys of the British.
While the Rajput leaders enjoyed the status and prestige of their
positions, discontent was manifesting itself among numbers of their
subjects, which broke out in rebellion in 1857. This rebellion proved
to be a precursor to widespread opposition to British rule throughout
India. It was Mohandas Gandhi, later to be known as Mahatma Gandhi,
who galvanised the peasants and villagers into then on-violent
resistance which was to spear-head the nationalist movement. By the
time WWII was concluded, Indian independence was inevitable. The war
dealt a deathblow to colonialism and the myth of European superiority,
and Britain no longer had the power nor the desire to maintain a vast
empire. Within India, however, a major problem had developed : the
large Muslim minority had realized that an independent India would
also be a Hindu-dominated India. The country was divided along purely
religious lines, with the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
speaking for the Muslims, and the Congress Party led by Jawaharlal
Nehru, representing the Hindu population. Gandhi was absolutely
opposed to the severing of the Muslim dominated regions from the
prospective new nation. However, Jinnah was intransigent : I` will have
India divided, or India destroyed,` was his uncompromising demand. The
new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, made a last-ditch attempt to convince
the rival factions that a united India was a more sensible
proposition, but the reluctant decision was made to divide the
country. Independence was finally instituted on 15 August 1947, with
the concomitant partitioning of the nascent country. The result was a
Hindu-dominated India and a Muslim-dominated West and East Pakistan.
Emergence of the State of Rajasthan "It took some time for the
boundaries of the proposed new state of Rajasthan to be defined. In
1948, Rajasthan comprised the south and south-eastern states of
Rajputana. With the merger of Mewar, Udaipur became the capital of the
United State of Rajasthan. The Maharana of Udaipur was invested with
the title of rajpramukh (head of state). Manikya Lal Varma was
appointed as prime minister of the new state, which was inaugurated on
18 April 1948.Almost from the outset the prime minister came into
opposition with the rajpramukh over the constitution of the state
government ministry. Varma wanted to form a ministry of all Congress
members. The rajpramukh was keen to have his own candidates installed
from among the jagirdars, or feudal lords. Jagirdars traditionally
acted as intermediaries between the tillers of the soil (the peasants)
and the state, taking rent or produce from the tenants and paying
tribute to the princely ruler. They were symbols of the old feudal
order, for whom millions of inhabitants of Rajputana were held in
serfdom. Varma was keen to abolish the age-old system of jagirdari
and, with Nehru's support, was able to install his own Congress
ministry and do away with this feudal relic. Still retaining their
independence from India were Jaipur and the desert kingdoms of Bikaner,
Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. From a security point of view, it was vital to
the new Indian Union to ensure that the desert kingdoms, which were
contiguous with Pakistan, were integrated into the new nation. The
princes finally agreed to sign the Instrument of Accession, and the
kingdoms of Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur were merged in
1949. The Maharaja of Jaipur, Man SinghII, was invested with the title
of rajpramukh. Jaipur became the capital of the new state of
Rajasthan. Heera Lal Shastri was installed as the first premier of
Rajasthan. Later in 1949, the United State of Matsya,comprising the
former kingdoms of Bharatpur, Alwar, Karauli and Dholpur, was
incorporated into Rajasthan. As a consequence, Rajasthan became the
second largest state m India, exceeded in geographical area only by
the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan attained its
current dimensions in November 1956 with the additions of
Ajmer-Merwara, Abu Rd and a part of Dilwara, originally part of the
princely kingdom of Sirohi which had been divided between Gujarat and
Rajasthan. The princes of the former kingdoms were constitutionally
granted handsome remuneration in the form of privy purses to assist
them in the discharge of their financial obligations (and to keep them
in the style to which they had become accustomed). In1970, Indira
Gandhi (daughter of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru),
who had come to power in 1966, commenced under-takings to discontinue
the privy purses, which were abolished in 1971.
Many of the former rulers of Rajasthan continue to use the title of
maharaja for social purposes. The only power this title holds today is
as a status symbol. Since the privy purse abolition, the princes have
had to financially support themselves. Some hastily sold valuable
heirlooms and properties for literally nothing, in a desperate attempt
to pay bills. While a handful of princes squandered their family
fortunes, others refused to surrender their heritage, and turned their
hands to business, politics or other vocations. Many decided to
convert their palaces into hotels as a means of earning income. Some
of these palace-hotels have become prime tourist destinations in
India, such as the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur, the Rambagh Palace in
Jaipur and the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur. The revenue earned from
such hotels has enabled the maharajas to maintain their properties,
sustain time-honored family traditions and continue to lead a
comfortable lifestyle. However, not all palaces are on the tourist
circuit and cannot rely purely on tourism as a source of steady
income. Many palaces and forts are tucked away in remote parts of
Rajasthan, and have been reluctantly handed over to the government,
because the owners were simply unable to maintain them. Unfortunately,
many of these rich vestiges of India's royal past are poorly
maintained. |
