Lessons from history for republic of rajas

The history of monarchies remains pertinent for the modern republic: Where there are political dynasties, evils of disunity and incompetence are never far behind

- Rahul Sagar

From the epics and shastras we revere to the ruins and symbols that surround us, we are daily reminded that India was, for millennia, the land of rajas. So, why, then, did our forefathers decide to break so dramatically with our past and form a republic? A central reason was exasperation with the great vice that afflicted these monarchies, namely, dynasticism.

Dynasticism had two terrible consequences. One was narrow-mindedness. Since every royal family wanted to bequeath its privileges to its successors, it shied away from making common cause with neighboring kingdoms, lest it have to concede pre-eminence to them. The result was subjugation.

The presiding fact of the 19th century was that the British had been able to trounce the Rajputs, the Marathas, and the Sikhs sequentially because of their unwillingness to act in concert. The story that every educated Indian knew by heart was that of Krishna Kumari, the princess of Udaipur, whom they read about in James Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. The story was this: Seeking to cement their pre-eminence, the maharajas of Jaipur and Jodhpur went to war over which of them would marry Krishna Kumari. As hostilities spiralled out of control, the princess was asked by her father, the Maharaja of Udaipur, to commit suicide in order to bring the war to an end. Her death proved to be in vain, however, as the Pindari mercenaries recruited by Jaipur and Jodhpur then turned upon their hapless employers. The ravages of these mercenaries led the Rajputs to seek the protection of the East India Company, bringing their hallowed independence to an end.