Picturesque Indian Rulers

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 466, 22 September 1928, Page 26

Picturesque Indian Rulers

VERY summer a considerable number of Indian princes and nobles go over to England, and this year, owing to the Conference of Rulthat number is greater

To the British public unacquainted with the East, their titles and distinctions are always a matter difficult to follow (writes Lt.-Gen. Sir George MacMunn), while those titles are even puzzling to pronounce. When we remember that India has 320,000,000 people, and close on 700 ruling princes, who together govern twofifths of India, and who have come from many origins and many races, it will not be hard to understand that these titles are also many and varied. Those with which the public is most familiar are Maharajah, Rajah, Nawab, and Jam, the latter since the days of Ranjitsinhji, the Jam of Nawanagar, and his happy cricketing fame.

Now Rajah and Maharajah are Hindu titles, meaning Ruler and Great Ruler, and the holders of these titles are either actually ruling princes or have had these titles bestowed on them as a personal distinction conferred for great services. Rajah is pronounced with the first “a” deep and broad, and nearly rhymes with “larger,” and is not pronounced, as people love to do, to rhyme w’ith “badger.”

The first “a” of “Maha” is like the “a” in father. Their princesses are Rani and Maharani respectively, and the “a” of Rani is also deep and broad. Nawab is the title of a Mahommedan chief, whether a ruling prince or a title of honour, equivalent to both Rajah and Maharajah. The first “a” is short and the second syllable is broad and deep and rhymes with “daub.” A Nawab’s lady or Nawabin is usually referred to by the Turkish title of Regum, the feminine of Beg. Jam is the title of a ruler from certain western States in the vicinity of Sind, on the coast, and is used by both Hindu and Mahommedan. It is pronounced as the English word “jam.” An alternative to Rajah and Maharajah is the term Rao and Maharao, Rao being pronounced as our “row” (a disturbance). They are in use in some of the older Rajput States.

The ancient Mogul term Nizam is applied to the premier prince of India, the ruler of Hyderabad in the Deccan. It is a Persian title, and is more properly pronounced with a

short “i” and a broad “a”, but the English are in the habit of saying Naizam, the last syllable like “jam.” But in addition to these bare titles each noble has a string of Persian attributes as part of his full-dress name, which on formal occasions are read out. They have been conferred by the British or earlier rule. Kipling has a fitting rendering of them in his song of the Rajah’s funeral pyre and valedictory oration: Friend-of-the-English, Free-From-Fear, Lord of the desert of Jeysulmere. Read out in the sonorous Persian the words sing themselves as they go. Dost-i-Inglishia, Bahadur-i-Bahaduran, and the like. The Maharajahs of Gwalior and

Indore, whose names are so familiar, are usually styled by their family title or cognomen of Sindiah or Holkar, just as the head of one of the branches of the Camerons would be “Lochiel,” and Holkar is so called because the first moss-trooping chief who attained the principality came from the village of Hoi. In addition to the more usual titles there are many of interest to be heard and met when the Viceroy holds some great gathering, and among the most interesting is that of Zamorin, held by a southern coastal chief, derived from a Persian phrase meaning “Lord of the Sea.’’ ' _