A GREAT WOMAN RULER.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 118, 28 January 1926, Page 5

A GREAT WOMAN RULER.

AN OUTSTANDING PERSONALITY Her Highness Nawab Sultan Jehan, Begum of Bhopal, in Central India, who has just made her second visit to England, is one of the outstanding women of the time. Since the beginning of the century she has ruled Bhopal with vigour and efficiency, and has worthily maintained the traditions established by her famous grandmother, Sikandar Begum (writes “ One Who Knows Her ” in the London Daily Mail). For nearly eighty years Bhopal has been the only State in India to be under the rule of a woman, and to-day it has reason to rejoice in the distinction. The Begum Sahiba is a devout Moslem,*, and many years ago made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina; but she is both original and progressive in thought and outlook. Her first visit to England was in the year of the coronation of King George. She is an eager supporter of female education in her State, and, though she has not finally renounced purdah, she does not wear the veil with any strictness. Only a few weeks ago she allowed herself to be photographed with face unveiled for newspaper reproductions, when engaged in the favourite pastime of water-colour painting. The Begum has had a full measure of domestic vicissitude. She was kept under a system of jealous suppression by her mother; she lost her husband six months after her accession in 1901;'and last year her heir, Nawab Nasrullah Khan, and her second jon, Brigadier-General Nawab O'baidulla more than half the road, and forcing Khan, died within a few weeks of ea*2h other, both leaving two boys. Her only surviving child is Sahibzada Mahomei Hamidulla Khan, who has two daughters, and by whom she was accompanied on her recent trip to England.

It is understood that the Begum made representations to the Government of India asking for the Sahibzac*} to be recognised as the heir instead of the elder boy of the late Nawab Nasrullah Khan. It is believed that 9he has based the application partly on Islamic law and partly on local family custom, as against the ordinary rules of primogeniture. The issue i 9 a complicated one, and is under investigation by the Viceroy.