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Sovereign dreams and bureaucratic strategies in princely Jaipur, c. 1750–1950
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2022
Abstract
This article focuses on Jaipur city, capital of the Kachhawa Rajput state of Jaipur in the Rajputana region of north-western India (present-day Rajasthan). It seeks to braid the narrative of modernity in Jaipur with the tripartite networks of capital, knowledge and infrastructure that were contemporaneous to different phases of the city's transformation. Through a genealogical analysis of Jaipur's modernity from the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the article will present three distinct periods of its urbanization.
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- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
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29 Ibid. My italics.
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34 British Library (BL), India Office Records (IOR), Chandradhar Sharma ‘Guleri’ papers, MSS Photo Eur 77.
35 Sachdev and Tillotson, Building Jaipur, 56–7.
36 Roy, Jaipur City.
37 See J. Duncan, The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom (Cambridge, 1990), for an analysis of Buddhist cosmology in the royal city of Kandy.
38 For more on the modernizing prince, see R. Stern, The Cat and the Lion: Jaipur State in the British Raj (Leiden, 1988); Nair, Mysore Modern; Ramusack, Indian Princes; Pati and Ernst (eds.), India's Princely States.
39 Y. Sahai, Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II of Jaipur: The Photographer Prince (Jaipur, 1996).
40 Jaipur Gazetteer, Directorate of District Gazetteers, Government of Rajasthan, 1987.
41 Colonial conceptions of hygiene and sanitation had also impacted the urban form in many ways. See I. Banga (ed.), City in Indian History: Urban Demography, Society and Politics (Delhi, 1994).
42 Sahai, Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II of Jaipur.
43 C. Otter, The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800–1910 (Chicago, 2008), 72.
44 R. Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (London, 1996).
45 Ibid.
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48 Dutta, Bureaucracy of Beauty.
49 S. Jacob, Jeypore Portfolio (London, 1894).
50 He is also believed to be the mind behind the pink colour on Jaipur's walls. For more, see Dhabhai, G., ‘Visible histories, invisible contestations: narratives of “pink” in Jaipur’, Pakistan Journal of Historical Studies, 2 (2017), 24–42Google Scholar.
51 G. Tillotson, Jaipurnama: Tales from the Pink City (Delhi, 2006), 166.
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53 Ibid., 140.
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55 Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 149.
56 T.H. Hendley, Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition, vol. I: Industrial Arts (Jaipur, 1893).
57 Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 158.
58 T. Bennett, ‘The exhibitionary complex’, New Formations, 4 (1988); Mitchell, ‘Exhibition’.
59 L. Rudolph and S. Rudolph, ‘Bureaucratic lineage in princely India: elite formation and conflict in a patrimonial system’, Journal of Asian Studies, 34 (1975), 719.
60 Ibid., 727–30.
61 Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 147.
62 Jaipur: Its History, Rulers and Facts.
63 This term is used by Narayani Gupta in her analysis of Mirza Ismail's developmental programme in different princely states. See N. Gupta, ‘Mirza Ismail the “serial Diwan” who made industrial Bangalore beautiful, painted Jaipur’, The Print, 5 Jan. 2020.
64 The Praja Mandal criticized the constitutional reforms of the early 1940s for falling short of granting political rights to the citizens, especially the right to vote. See Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), Hiralal Shastri papers (HSP), press clippings, ‘Democratic rule for Jaipur’, Statesman, 1 Jan. 1944.
65 C.V. Rao, New Jaipur: A Collection of Tributes and Appreciations (Jaipur: Aug. 1946), 23.
66 The Board of Industries and Commerce looked after the rejuvenation of craftsmen and artisans from the state and had prominent industrialists as members, including Seth Sundar Lal Tholia, a famous jeweller; Seth Sohan Mal Golcha, who owned various businesses and talkies in the city; D.G. Sodhani, cotton merchant; and Lakshmi Narain Fatehpuria and B.G. Mehta of Jaipur Metal Works. See NMML, HSP, no. 365, ‘Correspondences between Mirza Ismail and G.D. Birla’.
67 Private collection of Mr Siyasharan Lashkari, ‘Memorandum submitted to the Capital Enquiry Committee for Capital and High Court of Rajasthan’, Jaipur Rajdhani Samiti (Jaipur, 1949), 4. The Capital Enquiry Committee was set up under the Ministry of States, Government of India in 1949 to compare Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer for suggesting an appropriate capital city for the Greater Rajasthan Union formed in 1949. It was chaired by Sh. B.R. Patel and examined administrative convenience, climate, buildings, water and electricity supply and other factors to determine the choice.
68 K.L. Kamal and R. Stern, ‘Jaipur's freedom struggle and the bourgeois revolution’, Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, 11 (1973), 231–50. Jaipur state also played an important role in the process of integration, thus making its ruler Man Singh II as the first Rajpramukh of the state. For more on this, see V.P. Menon, The Story of the Integration of the Indian States (Delhi, 1956).
69 Praja Mandals were Congress-affiliated organizations in the princely states since the early twentieth century. They worked under the All India States’ People's Conference, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1927.
70 NMML, HSP, press clippings, ‘Responsible government in Jaipur: wanted an Indian prime minister’, Hindustan Times, 31 Aug. 1939. The anti-British sentiment had intensified in the princely states too, in tandem with the Quit India movement in British Indian provinces. One may also speculate on the impact of World War II in catalysing this sentiment.
71 M. Madhup, Jaipur ki Patra Patrikaon ka Swadhinta Andolan mein Yogdan (Jaipur, 1970).
72 Rao, New Jaipur.
73 M. Berman, Modernism in the Streets: A Life and Times in Essays (New York, 2017).
74 For comparative analysis of rise of property in land in a colonial city, see A. Vanaik, Possessing the City: Property and Politics in Delhi, 1911–1947 (Oxford, 2019).
75 Jaipur: Its History, Rulers and Facts, 93.
76 V.C. Pathak, Rajasthan ki Vibhuti: Devishankar Tiwari (Jaipur, 1993).
77 Rao, New Jaipur.
78 Ibid., 7.
79 Personal interview, A.F. Usmani (a scholar of Urdu and Persian and ex-resident of the walled city), 22 Dec. 2016.
80 Pathak, Devishankar Tiwari.
81 Kamal and Stern, ‘Freedom struggle’; Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 241.
82 Madhup, Patra Patrikaon.
83 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, file no. C/6-13, letter from H.M. Poulton to Gillian, 30 Jan. 1943. See also Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 240.
84 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, letter to Kenneth Fitze, secretary to the crown representative, from the political agent, 26 Feb. 1943.
85 Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner (RSAB), Mahkama Khas Records (MKR), pamphlet by Shri Hindu Sabha, 18 Jun. 1947. The contention was between the Hindu Sindhi refugees from Pakistan and local Hindu and Jain merchants, in addition to the Hindu–Muslim tensions in the city during the 1940s. For more on this, see Dhabhai, G., ‘The Purusharthi refugee: Sindhi migrants in Jaipur's walled city’, Economic and Political Weekly, 53 (2018), 66–72Google Scholar.
86 See Pictorial Jaipur Directory: Silver Jubilee Book (Jaipur: Silver Jubilee Publications, 1948–49).
87 Dhabhai, ‘Purusharthi refugee’.
88 Madhup, Patra Patrikaon.
89 RSAB, MKR, municipality records 1928–42, file nos. 2 and 169 I.
90 For more on their disenfranchisement, see Kamal and Stern, ‘Freedom struggle’.
91 Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 225–6.
92 Its early expression was in the form of a pamphlet. See G.N. Somany, ‘Mein Jaipuri Kya Chahta Hun: needs and demands of a Jaipuri’ (Jaipur, 1922).
93 Jaipur: Its History, Rulers and Facts, 123–5.
94 Tillotson, Jaipurnama, 221.
95 Pathak, Devishankar Tiwari. For more on the debate on the middle class in mid-twentieth-century India, see Haynes and Rao, ‘Colonial city’, 325–6.
96 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, file no. C/6-13, resolution of the Sardar Sabha, 17 Jan. 1943.
97 M. Ismail, My Public Life: Recollections and Reflections (London, 1954).
98 See Kamal and Stern, ‘Freedom struggle’.
99 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, letter from Political Agent H.M. Poulton to Resident Gillian, Jaipur, 8/12 Jan. 1943.
100 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, letter from Mirza Ismail to H.M. Poulton, 17 Feb. 1943.
101 Kamal and Stern, ‘Freedom struggle’, 235.
102 BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, letter from Political Agent H.M. Poulton to Resident Gillian, Jaipur, 8/12 Jan. 1943.
103 Perhaps the war-induced need to relocate economic activity in hitherto untapped terrain was also a reason for the industrialists’ support for Ismail and his appointment.
104 A confidential report of 1942 mentioned the return of Seths from Calcutta and Burma to Shekhawati with large amounts of gold and silver. They also attended a Praja Mandal meeting. BL, IOR, Jaipur Affairs, fortnightly report ending on 15 Jan. 1942.
105 S. Lahiri, Kapor Chai, 1st edn, July 1945 (Kolkata, 2009), 31. I thank Himadri Chatterjee for this reference.
106 Ibid., 40. Translated from the original Bengali by the author.
107 Kudaysia, M., ‘“The promise of partnership”: Indian business, the state and the Bombay Plan of 1944’, Business History Review, 88 (2014), 97–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 98–9.
108 Beverley, Hyderabad.
109 Jaipur: Its History, Rulers and Facts, 123.
110 Chandavarkar, Working Class.
111 M.V. Mathur, D.L. Gupta et al., Economic Survey of Jaipur City (Jaipur, 1965), 36–9; this volume was published for the Planning Commission.
112 Jaipur: Its History, Rulers and Facts, 126.
113 Dhabhai, ‘Purusharthi refugee’.
114 In Bengal, this was accompanied by the ‘de-peasantization’ of East Bengali refugees. See Chatterjee, H., ‘Partitioned urbanity: a refugee village bordering Kolkata’, Economic and Political Weekly, 53 (2018), 93–100Google Scholar. In Punjab, the narrative of refugee labour is linked to the postcolonial ethic of work. See Loveridge, J., ‘Between hunger and growth: pursuing rural development in partition's aftermath’, Contemporary South Asia, 25 (2017), 56–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
115 R. Stern and K.L. Kamal, ‘Class, status and party in Rajasthan’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 12 (1974), 276–96.
116 For discussion on forms of capital in other non-metropolitan contexts, see D. Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India: Artisans, Merchants and the Making of the Informal Economy 1870–1960 (Cambridge, 2012); and S. Chari, Fraternal Capital: Peasant-Workers, Self Made Men and Globalization in Provincial India (Stanford, 2004).
117 Girijashankar, Marwari Vyapari (Bikaner, 2017), 137.
118 A term used by Kamal and Stern, ‘Freedom struggle’.
119 Ibid.
120 Mathur, Gupta et al., Economic Survey.
121 Pathak, Devishankar Tiwari.
122 Ibid., 149–51.
123 See Dhabhai, ‘Purusharthi refugee’.
124 S.B. Upadhyay, Urban Planning (Jaipur, 1992), 14–15.
125 For more on this, see Roy, A., ‘Why India cannot plan its cities: informality, insurgence and the idiom of urbanization’, Geography, Urban Studies and Planning, 8 (2009), 76–87Google Scholar.