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The English Honours System in Princely India, 1925–1947*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

John McLeod
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Extract

In 1893, the Government of India revised the handbook for the officials who conducted its relations with the Indian States. The new edition included a chapter on titles and ceremonial because of “the great importance of these matters in Indian Political business”. Modern scholars agree that what we now call “honours” and “civic ritual” are worthy of study; and Stern's monograph on Jaipur State, and Dirks's on Pudukkottai, are only two of the many recent works that have noted the central role that titles and ceremonial played in the relationship between the British Paramount Power and the princes and chiefs of India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 1994 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1994

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Professor T. O. Lloyd and Professor N. K. Wagle, both of the University of Toronto, for reading this paper and offering useful comments and insights on the topic of honours in princely India.

References

1 The term “Indian State” is used in both the Government of India Act, 1935, and the Constitution of India, 1950. The designation “princely State” refers only to 140 major territories whose rulers ranked as princes, although it is often used for all of the more than 700 Indian States.

2 Tupper, C. L., Indian Political Practice, 4 volumes (Calcutta, 1893), i, p. v.Google Scholar

3 Stern, Robert W., The Cat and the Lion (Leiden, 1988), pp. 121–3, 129, 165–6, 194;Google Scholar Dirks, Nicholas B., The Hollow Crown (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 386–9.Google Scholar

4 Cohn, Bernard S., “Representing authority in Victorian India”, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 165–209.Google Scholar

5 Fisher, Michael H., “The Resident in court ritual, 1764–1858”, Modern Asian Studies, XXIV, 3 (07 1990), pp. 419–58;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Haynes, Edward S., “Rajput ceremonial interactions as a mirror of a dying Indian state system”Google Scholar, ibid., PP. 459–92; Nuckolls, Charles W., “The Durbar Incident”Google Scholar, ibid., pp. 529–59; Trevithick, Alan, “Some structural and sequential aspects of British imperial assemblages at Delhi: 1877–1911”Google Scholar, ibid., pp. 561–78.

6 The question of titles in princely India is briefly discussed in numerous works (for example, Cohn, op. cit., and Haynes, op. cit.), but no detailed studies of the topic have been undertaken.

7 Walker, John, The Queen Has Been Pleased (London, 1986).Google Scholar

8 For a survey of the history of titles in India, see Tirmizi, S. A. I.“Introduction”, in Index to Titles (1798–1885) (n.p., n.d. [New Delhi, ca 1979]), pp. i–xxi.Google Scholar

9 Cohn, op. cit.; McLeod, John, The Western India States Agency 1916–1947 (doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, 1993), Chapter Nine.Google Scholar

10 In deference to the largely non-Christian population of India, the usual designation “Knight Grand Cross” was replaced with “Knight Grand Commander” in the Orders of the Star of India and the Indian Empire, though not in the Royal Victorian Order or the Order of the British Empire.

11 See Jocelyn, Arthur, Awards of Honour (London, 1956). Only the top ranks of Knight Grand Commander or Grand Cross and of Knight Commander were knighthoods. The Royal Victorian Order and the Order of the British Empire contained other, still lower categories, which were never awarded to any Indian rulers.Google Scholar

12 Tupper, , op. cit., iii, pp. 235–6.Google Scholar

13 Although rulers and British officials often thought otherwise, a ruler's precedence was not determined by his salute (one prince could outrank another who enjoyed a higher salute). But as precedence and salute were usually based on the same considerations (the size of the state, its history, and so forth), the two generally coincided. Tupper, , op. cit., iii, pp. 235–6.Google Scholar

14 See McLeod, John, “From Indian princes to British knights”, South Asian Studies 1992 (Toronto, 1992).Google Scholar

15 These were the Maharani of Dhar, who was made a DBE (the female equivalent of a KBE) in 1931; and the Rani of Gangpur, who became a CBE in 1945.

16 Tate to Mieville, 26 Aug. 1933; Political Department (hereafter PD) notes, undated [Sept. 1933]; Glancy to Mieville, 14 Sept. 1933, all R/1/4/471. All archival references in this paper are to the Oriental and India Office Collections, the British Library, London.

17 See The India Office and Burma Office List 1947.Google Scholar

18 Until 1937, many states were in the charge of Provincial Governments, which also vetted the nominations.

19 This biannual distribution of honours was instituted after the accession of George V in 1910. George VI was born in December, but during his reign (from 1936) honours continued to be distributed on his father's June birthday.

20 The Agency was established in 1924, but the Resident only submitted his first nomination for honours in February 1925.

21 See R/1/4/427–499. The file on the 1938 Birthday Honours List is missing.

22 One exception was a Maharana of Udaipur, who felt that the great GCIE was an award for lowly bureaucrats rather than princes; Allen, Charles and Dwivedi, Sharada, Lives of the Indian Princes (London, 1984), pp. 96–7.Google Scholar

23 Stern, , op. cit., pp. 121–2.Google Scholar The more popular view is found in Rich, P.J., “Indo-British influence on the Arabian Gulf”, Indo-British Review, XVIII, 1 (1990), pp. 143–53, especially p. 147.Google Scholar

24 Such people seem to predominate in Walker, op. cit.

25 The concept of personal honour is especially strong among the Rajputs, the principal ruling community of northern India. See Hitchcock, John T., “The idea of the martial Rajput”, in Traditional India, ed. Singer, Milton (Philadelphia, 1959), pp. 10–17.Google Scholar For the general context, see Pitt-Rivers, Julian, “Honor”, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (19 volumes, New York, 1968-1991), vi, pp. 503–11.Google Scholar

26 See the study of the Raj Saheb of Wankaner in McLeod, Western India, Chapter Nine.

27 Stern, , op. cit., p. 122.Google Scholar

28 These forty-one were important enough to be represented in the Chamber of Princes; the total excludes Jafarabad, which was ruled by die Nawab of Janjira near Bombay. The Agency contained almost four hundred other tiny and insignificant territories.

29 See R/1/1/3663(1) and R/2/599/30.

30 See Glancy's instructions for recommending honours for rulers, 13 July 1927, R/1/4/459.

31 Note by Hancock, , 13 Sept. 1930, R/1/1/1910(2).Google Scholar

32 Watson to Montmorency, 9 Feb. 1926, R/1/4/455; see also R/1/4/453, 454, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, and 473.

33 Watson to Cunningham, 13 Mar. 1928, R/1/4/460, and 20 Mar. 1929, R/1/4/462.

34 Wylie's recommendation for 1944 Birthday Honours, undated [Mar. 1944], and telegram Hancock to PD, 19 Mar. 1944, both R/1/4/493; Griffin to Hancock, 17 Feb. 1947, R/1/4/428.

35 Hancock to Herbert, 1 Dec. 1945, and Keen to Hancock, 22 Dec. 1945, both R/1/4/498.

36 Stern, , The Cat and the Lion, pp. 129–30.Google Scholar For an example, see Gibson, to Laithwaite, , 21 Feb. 1939, R/1/4/483 (on the Maharaja of Morvi's gift to the Anti-Tuberculosis Fund).Google Scholar

37 Watson, to Cunningham, , 4 Oct. 1929, R/1/4/463. For the dispute, which concerned pilgrimages, see R/1/1/1648 and R/2/623/115.Google Scholar

38 Latimer, to Mieville, , 2 Feb. 1935, R/1/4/474.Google Scholar

39 Telegrams Latimer to PD, 20 Oct. 1935, R/1/4/476, and 25 May 1936, R/1/4/478.

40 Kealy, to Cunningham, , 27 Aug. 1930, R/1/4/465,Google Scholar and Mosse, to Mieville, , 26 Aug. 1931, R/1/4/467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Watson, to Thompson, , 26 Aug. 1925, R/1/4/454.Google Scholar

42 I can find no records on the knighthoods given to the Princes of Palanpur in 1931, Nawanagar in 1935, and Bhavnagar in 1938. I believe that all three were granted to recognise the importance of the states, and that the first two originated in the Political Department.

43 See McLeod, John, “Towards the analysis of Hindu princely genealogy in the British period, 1850–1950”, South Asia Research, VI, 2 (11. 1986), pp. 181–93, at PP. 186–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Junagadh was given a second knighthood in 1931, Nawanagar received knighthoods in 1935 and 1939, and Bhavnagar was knighted in 1938.

45 The Nawab of Palanpur received a third knighthood in 1932; the Maharaja of Morvi, a second in 1939; ind the Maharaja Raj Saheb of Dhrangadhara was knighted in 1947.

46 For salutes, see Tupper, , op. cit., iii, pp. 233–9.Google Scholar

47 The honours went to the rulers of Wankaner in 1936, Palitana in 1939, and jasdan in 1947; for their requests for salutes and other distinctions, see McLeod, Western India, Ch. 9 (on Wankaner and Palitana), and R/2/598/24 (on Jasdan).

48 The final nominations are Strong to Cunningham, 7 Feb. 1929, R/l/4/462 (Porbandar); and Latimer to Mieville, 8 Feb. 1933, R/1/4/470 (Sayla), 28 Aug. 1934, R/1/4/473 (Radhanpur), and 11 Feb. 1936, R/1/4/478 (Sudasna).

49 Occasionally, other members of rulers' families (most often their heirs) received honours; but these have been omitted from the table, as they were usually awarded on the same basis as the honours given to ordinary Indians. An exception has been made in the case of the Prince of Berar, the heir of the premier ruler, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was knighted in recognition of his father's importance.

50 For the political history of India under British rule, see Moon, Sir Penderel, The British Conquest and Dominion of India (London, 1989).Google Scholar