By IANS,
New York : Gayatri Devi, the former maharani of Jaipur who died Wednesday, was “one of the last remaining symbols of India’s feudal past” and led “a life of novelistic dimensions, part E.M. Forster, part Jackie Collins”, says the New York Times.
And “yet the maharani was idolised by the lower-caste Indians who elected her to parliament by an overwhelming margin, and she was a special inspiration to Indian women of all castes”, the Times wrote in an obituary published Friday.
Gayatri Devi, it noted, “was born into fairy-tale wealth as an Indian princess and… became known internationally for her beauty and known in India for her opposition to the Congress Party of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi”.
“One of the last remaining symbols of India’s feudal past, Ms. Devi and her husband, the Maharajah of Jaipur, ruled over a fief of some two million peasants” before independence.
“But she also participated in her country’s burgeoning democracy, being elected to parliament three times and serving from 1962 until 1975.”
The Times recalled that in 1975, after then prime minister Gandhi declared a state of emergency, Gayatri Devi was among the many political opponents of the Congress who were arrested and jailed.
“She led a life of novelistic dimensions, part E.M. Forster, part Jackie Collins. Born into royalty and married to royalty, she had almost unimaginable wealth, and she spent her early life, as a girl and a young woman, in palaces in India and estates in England.
“Routinely referred to as one of the world’s most beautiful women – Vogue magazine once described her as ‘a dream in sari and jewels’ – she was a cosmopolite with a scrutinized wardrobe, a frequenter of elegant European resorts,” the Times noted.
The obituary quotes from a New York Times Magazine report of 1966. Referring to a government briefing Gayatri Devi attended, the report noted: “She was dressed in a turquoise-blue chiffon sari with silver sequins sparkling like stars on a moonless night. She looked around with her large almond eyes. Everyone stood up. As Hillaire Belloc once described someone, ‘her face was like the king’s command when all the swords are drawn’.”