INDIAN CASTES.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 416, 24 April 1937, Page 5

INDIAN CASTES.

Maharani’s Life-long Purdah.

Press Association—Copyright. London, April 22. The Maharani of Jodhpur arrived from Karachi by air to-day to witness the Coronation. She was enabled by reniarkiable precautions to maintain a life-long purdah, necessitating neither man nor woman who is not of the Maharaja’s or the Maharani’s caste getting a glimpse of the Maharani’s heavily veiled face or touching h<r food. The Maharaja, despite an income of £BOOO a year, was unable to hire a special plane. Accordingly he reserved a cabin in a K.L.M. plane in which the crew were locked in the cockpit at each end of the stage until the Maharani left the plane and reached a private room. Finally at Croydon the Maharani left the plane by a canvas-covered tunnel and entered a motor-car, the windows of which were painted over, and drove to London, where she remained similarly secluded.