A forgotten slice of Delhi's history

It was December 12, 1911 and an announcement on shifting the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi was about to be made. The king of England, George the fifth and his wife Queen Mary were in India specifically to preside over what later came to be known as the Delhi Durbar.

The Delhi Durbar had been organised by the British to showcase to the rest of the world the hold that Britain or England had over India.

All the Indian Kings and Queens with their most important officials had come to Delhi to attend the Durbar. The then Viceroy of  India, Lord Hardinge, had been authorised by  the British Government to organise the Imperial Durbar.

The reason was two-fold. The British wanted to show the Indians the coronation of George as the King of England. The second was of course to highlight the shifting of the capital.

The Viceroy took personal interest in organising the event and he sent an official communication to each and every Maharaja and Maharani asking them to attend the durbar.

Since George would be the first reigning monarch of the United Kingdom to attend such a Durbar, Lord Hardinge left no stone unturned to make it a grand success.

The durbar was held at what is today’s Coronation Park in Delhi. It was then called Kingsway Camp. Since 1970 it is officially known as Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar (GTB Nagar). The locality commences from GTB, passing through  Chauraha and includes  residential areas like Hudson Lines and Outram Lines. All these were then part of the bigger Kingsway Camp.

It was here and in this park that the George made several landmark proclaimations like the construction f New Delhi, laying the foundation for the Viceregal lodge which later would become Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

The Viceroy set aside 6 lakhs Pounds for the Durbar and an additional sum of 3 lakhs pounds were paid by the Indian Government (British India of course) for the services of  80,000 Army personnel to provide security for the Durbar.

Incidentally, this was the third such durbar held at the park. The first Delhi durbar was held in 1877 when Queen Victoria was proclaimed the Empress of India and in 1903 Lord Curzon organized an event to celebrate the accession of  King Edward the seventh.

The Coronation Memorial, built as an obelisk in the sprawling Coronation Park, is of sandstone. It is set on a square with steps on all sides. The memorial stands at exactly the same place where all the three British Durbars were held.

The inscription on the Memorial says,

“Here on the 12th Day of December 1911, His Imperial Majesty King George V, Emperor of India accompanied by the Queen Empress in solemn Durbar announced in person to the Governors, Princes and Peoples of India his Coronation celebrated in England on the 22nd day of June 1911 and received from them their dutiful homage and allegiance”.

When India attained Independence on August 15, 1947, the park turned into a resting place for several statues and they included Kings, Governors, Viceroys, Commanders and even some high ranking officials of British India.

These statues had been moved from various locations in and around Delhi. including Rajpath and Rashtrapathi Bhavan.The largest and tallest statue, a 15 m (49 ft) high marble statue designed by Lutyens, is opposite to the Obelisk. It is the statue of  King George V.

This statue had earlier stood atop a canopy in front of the India Gate, which is now vacant following the statue’s removal.

The Government constructed 19 pedestals to install the displaced statues but only five were fixed, while the remaining plinths are vacant. Some of the statues are believed to have been stolen or damaged.

King George here is surrounded in a semi-circle by other statues.

They are thought to be those of Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson and Viceroys Willingdon, Irwin and Hardinge. Unfortunately, there are   no name plates.  

By the way, it was at this very place that the King George announced the shifting of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The construction of the Viceregal Palace-now Rashtrapathi Bhavan-too was announced here.

Another little known fact is that just yards away from the park is the place where the British brutally put down the 1857 rebellion.

After partition, it became the venue of the largest refugee camp in Delhi, housing more than 3 lakhs refugees who migrated from Pakistan and Bangladesh (then East Pakistan).

When you visit Delhi, make sure you go to this park. It has been renovated during the Commonwealth Games. Check put a piece of history.

The Indian King who turned his back on the English royal couple

The eyes of the world was on the event. In India itself where the event was being organized on a scale unheard of, it was received with mixed emotions. While the intelligentsia and the nationalists reviled the waste of money and the event as pompous and worthless, the British were determined to go ahead with it.  

All the Kings and Queens of  India (please remember that there were nearly 600 princely states) were in attendance along with their top officials. The entire world media, including newspaper representatives from the United States, England and other places had converged in India to cover the event.

The event, held 101 years ago, witnessed more than a lakh people gathering at what was described as one of the most defining moments of Indian history.  The Emperor of England, George, the fifth and his wife, Queen Mary, had attended the event along with a host of top British India and England officials.

This was the Coronation Durbar of 1911, also known as Delhi Durbar since it was held in Delhi.

The Durbar had been organized by the British in honor of the coronation of King George and also announce the shifting of the capital of British India from Calcutta to Delhi.

The durbar also saw the announcement of the construction of the Viceroy Palace near today’s Guru Tej Bahadur locality. This was found unsuitable and the building later came to be constructed at the Raisana Hill.

Coming back to the Durbar, the British had ensured that everything went according clock-like precision. To ensure that nothing went wrong, a dress rehearsal was held in which all the Kings participated. The Kings were “taught” the manner in which they would have to behave before the ruling English monarch.

The day dawned and King George and Queen Mary were seated on thrones atop a platform. The new tented city that sprang up in Delhi had accommodated more than 2,5 lakhs people. Nearly, 80,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army had been stationed at the venue for providing fool-proof security. 

The Durbar commenced and each of the Indian Prince or King came up to the stage to pay his or her respects to the King and Queen and then withdraw gracefully after bowing.

The Rajput Kings from Rajasthan, the Nawabs, Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharaja of Mysore, Holkars of Indore, Scindias of Gwalior, Bhonsales of Nagpur and Gaekwads of Baroda were all in attendance. 

Each of them had been asked to perform proper obeisance to the English monarch by bowing three times before him and  then backing away without turning. The Indian Kings were told that they should never turn their back on the monarch as it would amount to a great insult.

Each King or Maharaja did as he had been told by the British. King after King headed towards George and Mary and bowed before them like a well-drilled mummy and stepped back, heads down and hands at the sides. As if to add insult to injury, the British had asked the Maharajas to wear all their royal ornaments and decorations. All of them did without fail.

It was then the turn of the Gaekwad of Baroda. The British had considered Baroda to be second in importance after Hyderabad.  

Maharaja Sayajji Rao Gaekwad, the third, rose casually from his seat and walked towards the English monarch with his trademark walking stick.

The then Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge cringed with anger and fury when he saw that the Maharaja had discarded all his jewels and decorations and was walking with a majestic gait towards the monarch.     

Sayajji Rao not only ignored royal etiquette by turning his back on the king and queen after formally introducing himself but also  “laughed ever so lightly” as he walked back from their presence.

He showed his back to the English royals and the Viceroy and walked back “insolently” swinging his walking stick.

Lord Hardinge was bursting with anger at the perceived insult to his King and his fury doubled when he saw the bow by Sayajji was only perfunctory. At no point of his “presentation” did Sayajji show himself to be a subordinate of  the clueless British assembled in the tented amphitheatre.

Sayajji’s conduct sent ripples of shock among the gathering and it made headlines throughout the world. As can be expected, the British Press went hammer and tongs at the Maharaja. “How dare he insult our monarch”, seem to be their refrain.

From then on until his death in 1939, Sayajji Rao was kept at bay by the British. This even though he apologised for his conduct and blamed it on his  “nervousness and confusion in the presence of Their Majesties”.

Though not forgiven, Sayajji Rao was made a Knight Grand Commander by the British in 1919. The action divided the Indian nation then. While many welcomed his open defiance, they criticised Sayajji’s apology saying that it showed him in much worse light. 

Hardinge later had his revenge when he tightened the screws on Baroda state and forced Sayajji not to give shelter to the nationalists (freedom fighters). He also took away some of the administrative powers of the King. Howsoever much the Viceroy would have liked, he could not depose Sayajji Rao because of his popularity among the people and also due to the bad press that the British would have to face.

On his part, Sayajji Rao took a series of measures to develop Baroda. He introduced compulsory and free primary education in  1906.  He encouraged textile and banking industries.

While his defiance seems to have been forgotten today, what India still remembers is that in 1913, he financed three years of postgraduate studies for B.R. Ambedkar at Columbia University.