The Autobiography of an Indian Princess

by Maharani of Cooch Behar Sunity Devee

This Indian prince’s family records show that he was descended from one of the oldest ruling families in the country. According to popular tradition his race had been founded by the love of a god and a maiden, and through successive ages strife and love have been associated with the dynasty of Cooch Behar, whose chiefs are always great rulers, great lovers, and great fighters.

The first wish of the Government was to prevent any palace interference with the baby Maharajah’s upbringing. When his father, the late Maharajah, was a ward of the Government, the Maharanis had been very hostile to the idea of a foreign education, and similar opposition was what the Government now wanted to avoid. Therefore, for this and other private reasons which can easily be understood when it is remembered that the late Maharajah left many wives, the Maharajah was removed, when he was five years old, to the Wards’ institution at Benares, near which the members of the Cooch Behar Raj family lived in several houses known as the Cooch Behar Palace.

When he was eleven, the Government removed him from Benares to Patna, where he became a student at Government College, and Colonel Haughton’s anxious instructions to Babu Kasi Kanto Mukerji, who was in charge of the boy, were “to watch over his conduct and the management of the household: to see that strangers and unauthorised persons have no access to them: and generally to discharge such duties with regard to him as a good parent is bound to do.”

In 1872 Mr. St. John Kneller became his tutor and guardian. The Maharajah remained in Patna for five years, during which time he and Mr. Kneller visited the North-Western Provinces, Oudh, and the Punjab, and in 1877 the Maharajah attended the Durbar at Delhi, when the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India. The Viceroy, the late Lord Lytton, received the young ruler most cordially, and presented him with the Kaisar-i-Hind medal. Now for the first time the Maharajah was saluted with thirteen guns, and had a European guard of honour to attend him.

So far the experiment of training the ideal ruler for the ideal state had succeeded beyond the highest expectations of the Government. The Maharajah had become a clever young man and a keen sportsman and, as Mr. Dalton remarked at the Chaurakaran ceremony at Cooch Behar in 1876, “His Highness is fond of his native soil and the people, and enjoys himself thoroughly, taking an interest in everything.”

But now arose the question of the future. To ensure final success for the Government’s scheme, it was necessary that the young ruler should marry an equally advanced girl, who would second him in his (and incidentally the Government’s) efforts for Cooch Behar.

The difficult problem then arose as to whether an educated wife would agree to the polygamy hitherto customary with Maharajahs, and to adopt the many old-fashioned ideas and ways of a Hindu Court. The Government was keenly alive to the fact that marriage might make or mar their experiment, and they were determined to do all they could to prevent failure.

But as it is a principle of the British not to interfere with the marriage question in India, it was necessary for them to be very discreet in their plans, which required great tact to carry out with success.

Mr. Jadab Chandra Chuckerbutty, the Magistrate of Cooch Behar, was deputed to make confidential investigations and find if possible the enlightened girl whom the Government could approve as the Maharani of Cooch Behar. He carried out his mission with discretion; but none of the girls whom he found came up to the required standard.

It was absolutely necessary for the question of the Maharajah’s marriage to be settled without further delay, as his visit to England was in contemplation. This journey was a very sore point with the Palace ladies, and Sir Richard Temple, then the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, had discussed it rather heatedly.