WHITE WOMAN’S SON

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 December 1928, Page 10

WHITE WOMAN’S SON

LOSES -INDIAN THRONE. One of the most vexed questions of Indian succession has been, decided by the appointment announced of a new ruler in the State of Pudukota, Madras Presidency, Southern India. The Government of India has selected Rajah Gopala Tondiman to succeed to the throne. The new rajah, who is not yet 21, is a direct descendant of the original Tondiman, whose family have ruled the State for centuries. The former ruler, Sir Marthanda Bhairava Tondiman Bashadur, who died last May, aged 52, married Miss Esme Mary Fink, the daughter of an Australian doctor, at Melbourne in 1915. A son, who was named Marthanda Sydney, was born in Australia in 1916. A section of the State opposed the succession of this boy to the throne and the Government stated that he would not be eligible owing to not being of pure Indian blood. It was a great blow to both parents when the Government stated in 1922 that their son could not succeed, and from that time they lived chiefly at Cannes, on the Riviera, and in London. The Rajah resolutely refused his subjects’ petilions to live in India. Pudukota, has a, population of nearly 500,000 and an area of 1179 square miles.