H. H. Maharaja Hanwant
Singh 1923 – 1952
H. H. Raj Rajeshwar Maharajadhiraj Shri Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur
(16 June 1923 – 26 January 1952)
Hanwant Singh was born on 9th June,1923. He first visited England when he
was two years old and then again when he was ten. When he was thirteen
he was sent off to Ajmer to attend the Mayo College, much to the grief of his
mother who could not bear to be parted from her affectionate first-born. In
1936, in spite of the changes then sweeping through India, the Mayo College
remained very much a Princes' College. Rao Raja (then Kanwar) Nahar
Singh, Rao Raja Narpat's younger son, who was then leaving for his school
in England, remembers being asked by his young prince, "And what are you
taking to school?" "Two very large trunks", replied Tiger Nahar Singh proudly,
but felt compelled, when Hanwant expressed disbelief, to ask, "Why what are
you taking?" "Well", said the heir to the Gadi of Marwar, "a couple of cars, a
few horses, some guns and, of course, my servants." (Including a barber and
a tailor.) Fortunately the college with all its stern guardians and proselytizing
tutors, and its Hurray Henry vision of the Empire, was not able to impress
Hanwant Singh who, unaffected by the indoctrination, grew up not only one of
Marwar's most interesting rulers but also a champion of his order.
That he would never quite be the patronizing english colonel's "beau ideal of
a native prince", as had been his great-grand-uncle and, to a lesser extent,
father, was clear from the beginning. "Even in school", recalls a class-mate,
"his anti-British views were well known." And these hardened into something
considerably stronger during his year at the Government College, also in
Ajmer, where the young Rathore encountered the freedom movement for the
first time. Ajmer, a part of British India and home to many popular leaders
seeking refuge from the States, including Marwar's Jai Narain Vyas, was a
hotbed of nationalist activity at the time and that was where, a world away
from the classrooms of Mayo, the nineteen year-old prince learnt his politics.
Such was the man destiny placed on the Gadi of Jodhpur on 21st June, 1947.
Jodhpur's accession to the new Dominion of India two months later was the
most tempestuous of all and remains, understandably, a moment of some
pride for the Rathores. It may have been something of a submission; though
there is no doubt that Hanwant Singh was excited by Jodhpur being part of
a free and united India, but it was not an ordinary one, not humiliating. It
revealed the man too; passionate, emotional and brave.