Most people who know E.M.Forster’s Passage to India (1924) also know that the background research for the novel was undertaken while the author worked as private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas, senior, who ruled a tiny State in north central India. In 1953, many years after the novel appeared, and sixteen years after the Maharajah had died, Forster published as The Hill of Devi recollections of his time in what he called ‘ the oddest corner of the world outside Alice in Wonderland’.
Forster had first met the young ruler, who bore the rather cumbersome cognomen of Sir Tukoji Rao III, in 1912 , while he was the guest of the high-flying administrator Malcolm Darling, who had himself arrived in India in 1904. ‘His Highness’, or H.H., as the Rajah styled himself, was then just in his early twenties, having succeeded his father in 1900 at the tender age of twelve. In 1906 Darling was appointed his tutor and mentor,
and in October 31st, 1907 the two men, together with the usual retinue, including possibly the Rajah’s beloved brother, embarked on what might today be called a ‘ fact -finding ’ tour of ’ All-India’ and Burma , which is briefly mentioned by Forster in his book. Various members of the party were responsible for taking snaps of the sights along the way. The Rajah himself can be seen in many of the photos, and Darling features in at least one. The camera used seems to have been a Kodak, which had become popular early in the 1890s—and it is this photographic record, mounted in a Kodak album, with brief identifying captions by the Rajah, that has recently come to light in a provincial auction house in the UK. Interestingly, another album, this time recording a brief period in the Indian career of Darling, including a visit from his mother, was sold in the same lot. Both albums shed light on the lives of the young Rajah and his mentor in the years 1906 – 08-- a golden era of the British Raj before the radical teachings of Ghandi and his supporters had made an impact on the socio-political life of the subcontinent.
E.M. Forster (seated, left) |
Let us clap and let us sing
Let us form a merry ring
God has safe our Master brought
Home with precious lessons fraught
Forster, p 44.
The two had returned just in time for the young Rajah to prepare for his wedding, which took place at Kolhapur in March. This event was duly recorded in a letter by Malcolm, extracts from which Forster includes in The Hill of Devi.
In 1908, presumably after the tour, and after he had been with him for a year, Malcolm was obliged to submit a brief report of his young charge, who had now been granted full powers by the government. This pen portrait speaks of the Rajah’s character, so closely observed for those four months.
‘ If he is treated well in the minor matters of life, he will give much in return…he is generous, enthusiastic, touchy; ambitious to do something for his fellow Marathas and in this he should be encouraged, for despite local patriotism he remains loyal to the British, and appreciates what they have done.’
The report ends by putting on record Malcolm’s sense of ‘the high privilege it has been to be so intimately connected with one whose friendship was so worth winning’.
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