On the last day of the campaign in Madhya Pradesh, the sudden burst of harsh words between Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiradtiya Scindia has brought back memories of a bitter feud between Indira Gandhi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, grandmothers of Priyanka and Jyotiraditya Scindia respectively.
Priyanka made an uncharacteristic personal jibe at Jyotiraditya Scindia in Datia mocking his height, accusing him of being arrogant and highlighting Scindias’ alleged track record of treachery and betrayal. Scindia tried to get even with her, terming Priyanka as a part-time politician and sought to remind her about Indira Gandhi’s emergency and Jawaharlal Nehru’s failure to protect the country from the Chinese aggression. Without mentioning Rahul Gandhi by name, Scindia asked Priyanka about the identity of the person, who, he claims, is defaming the country at the various forums abroad.
Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, a two term Congress MP in 1957 and 1962 had annoyed prime minister Indira Gandhi by supporting newspaper baron Ramnath Goenka and ensuring his electoral victory from Vidisha, which was part of the erstwhile Gwalior state. A rank outsider and contesting as independent, Goenka’s victory was all the more spectacular as it came in the middle of an Indira wave in 1971. The Rajmata, firmly with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh then, was a key campaigner for Goenka, whose newspaper (The Indian Express) had an anti-establishment reputation.
Indira, by then, had stepped up a campaign against former royals. At a public meeting in Jaipur, she hit out at former royals and took on Maharani Gayatri Devi, a glamorous queen, had also fancied herself as Indira’s rival and worked hard to bring the Swatantra Party, which believed in free enterprise and closer ties with the West, close to the Right-wing Jana Sangh. Indira asked the voters “to go ask the maharajas and maharanis how much they had done for the people in their states when they ruled them and what they did to fight the British while they lived in luxury at the cost of the people,” adding, “If you look at the account of their achievements before Independence, it is a big zero.”
Taroon Coomar Bhaduri, the author-journalist, was, in the 1970s, posted in Bhopal as the state correspondent of The Statesman. The father-in-law of mega star Amitabh Bachchan wrote in his book, Off the Records, that when Indira came to know about the Rajmata’s comfortable incarceration during the Emergency, [ Indira had declared a state of Emergency for a period of 21-month from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977 severely curtailing civil rights and political activities] she was furious and ordered her to be shifted to Delhi’s Tihar Jail.
Around the same time income-tax officers and several other agencies raided the Jai Vilas Palace, the seat of the Scindias in Gwalior. A report published in India Today on September 30, 1991, claimed that during the 1975 Emergency raid, taxmen had unearthed silver articles weighing 53 quintals and trunkfuls of jewellery from Jai Vilas Palace. The Scindias were charged with economic offences, including gold smuggling, an allegation vehemently contested by the Rajmata and her daughters.
The tax officials did not merely find silver and jewellery during the raid. They also took away with them notations for a new raga that Ustad Allauddin Khan had composed and named after Vijayaraje, thinking it was some secret code. The grateful maestro had composed the raga — perhaps within the first five years of Vijayaraje’s marriage to Jiwajirao maharaj Scindia— for sponsoring a surgery in Gwalior.
Housed in ward No. 3 at Tihar, the Rajmata, however, found a way to interact with Nanaji Deshmukh, a Jana Sangh veteran who was in prison along with Arun Jaitley, George Fernandes, Parkash Singh Badal, Choudhury Charan Singh, Lala Hansraj and others charged under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA)
The house of Scindias’ legacy dates back 300 years, having negotiated many rough passages of history such as the revolt of 1857 when the British deeply acknowledged their assistance in quelling what many consider as India’s first war of independence, the events following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the the trial of Nathuram Godse (these allegations remain unsubstantiated) and the 1975 Emergency where allegations were of tax evasion and hiding famed Scindia riches and fortune.
In independent India, the Scindias were quick to become democratically elected representatives. From 1957 till date, there has not been a single day when a Scindia was not an MLA or MP. Then came 1977 when Madhavrao Scindia fell out with mother Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia and won the Lok Sabha polls with Congress support when the Indira Gandhi-led party was badly mauled.
However, in every subsequent assembly and parliamentary polls, when Scindia family members were contesting as Congress and BJP nominees, the royal legacy enforced a sense of self-discipline. They made a habit of asking the “Gwalior ki praja”, in areas that were part of the Gwalior empire, to vote for them regardless of which side of the political spectrum they were representing. Whenever a Scindia was asked to campaign against another, He or she would simply tell the crowds, “meri izzat rakh lena (keep my dignity)”, leaving them confused as to what exactly they meant.
The issue of the Scindias’ past, particularly their role during 1857, was raked up extensively throughout the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls. Jyotiraditya’s former party, the Congress, went ballistic, even reproducing some text of RSS ideologue VD Savarkar’s views on the Scindias. Writing in 1909, Savarkar, a revered figure among BJP leaders, had criticised Scindia dynasty ruler Jayajirao for joining hands with the British. Savarkar had quoted unnamed persons and described Jayajirao as a “traitor” and “coward” who betrayed Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. “If Scindia is not for the country, drag him down from his throne,” Savakar had written.
The Congress also leaned on noted Hindi poetess Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s work, who had made a scathing attack on the Scindia legacy for being in cahoots with the British.
“Angrezon ke mitra Scindia ne chhodi rajdhani thi
Bundele harbolon ke muhn humne suni kahani thi
Khub ladi mardani wah to Jhansiwali rani thi”
Friends of the British, the Scindias, had abandoned their capital, we have heard the story from Bundelon Harbolon (religious singers from Bundelkhand), she fought with valour, she was the queen of Jhansi.