MAHARAJA IN EXILE

Evening Star, Issue 21505, 1 September 1933, Page 12

MAHARAJA IN EXILE

INDIAN PRINCE IN LONDON BANISHED FOR TWO YEARS. Banished from his State for two years by order of the Government of India, His Highness Shri Sewai Maharaj Ra] Rishi Dey of Alwar, in London recently. Ho took with him a case labelled “ Rules, reference books, and speeches,” and over 200 trunks and packages. All these were hastily packed in the forty-eight hours which the Viceroy of India gave the maharaja to leave his S^ate. The object of tho maharaja’s visit was to state his case to the British Government, and he intended to seek to interview Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for India, and Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary. The exiled ruler was received at Victoria Station on his arrival in London by Colonel S. B. A. Patterson, political A.D.C. to the liidia Office. He wore a plum-coloured suit, n brown velvet beretta, and a soft collar with a blue, amber, and black striped tie.. The maharaja is the Hindu ruler ol a Moslem State, and contends that the recent uprisings of his people are not directed against him personally, but are in accordance with a Mohammedan conspiracy to unite the whole of Northern India against the Hindus. The Government ol India holds that .the treasury of the State of Alwar is empty, and that the revolutionary uprisings of the maharaja’s people are due to the overtaxing of his subjects. “ The Government of India’s policy, to quote its definition of paramountcy, “ is, with rai;o exceptions, one of noninterference in the internal affairs of native States. ■ But in guaranteeing the internal independence of these States and undertaking their protection against external aggression, the Imperial Government has _ assumed a certain degree of responsibility for the general soundness of the chief’s administration, and cannot incur the reproach of being an indirect instrument of misrule.” It is in pursuance of this last clause that the Government of India has stepped in to reorganise the administration of the State of Alwar.