Bitter Fight For The Udaipur Palace Is A Lesson For Sambhal And Ajmer

By Sushil Kutty

Every human has a funny bone. But people fighting among themselves doesn’t bring smiles. The Royals of Rajasthan used to fight. And who hasn’t forgotten the Battle of Haldighati? Nowadays, there is the Battle for the mosque and the temple. There is Sambhal and Ajmer. There was ‘Ayodhya’, and there’s Kashi and Mathura. In Rajasthan, there is the Battle for the Udaipur Palace!

The fight has gone into the hands of the ‘Receiver’, a government-appointed access-denier. The two royals in the dispute are Vishvaraj Singh, newly crowned ceremonial head of the Mewar royal family, and his uncle Arvind Singh Mewar. Both are claiming Udaipur’s City Palace for their own. And their supporters are at each other’s throats.

The government Receiver sits at the gates of a portion of the palace from which Vishvaraj Singh has been denied access. A disappointed Vishvaraj Singh went back home. Vishvaraj Singh is not like the Sambhal Member of Parliament or the Sambhal MLA, both of whom took things in their hands and now have criminal cases filed against them.

Vishvaraj Singh swallowed his pride. The politicians of Sambhal couldn’t take the “insult” and laugh it away. Politicians should use their funny bone once in a while. Why carry on like nothing happened? Imagine the generations sacrificed at the altar of a temple or a mandir, depending upon your faith?

Compared to the squabbling MP and MLA of Sambhal, Udaipur royals Vishvaraj Singh and Arvind Singh Mewar are gentlemen. Their supporters fought a pitched battle at the gates of the Udaipur Palace, but there was no stone-pelting on the police. There was no alleged police firing on stone-pelters. There were also no killings.

This uncle and nephew are civilised enemies! And the Udaipur Palace is neither a temple nor a mosque. The royal fight for the palace kept policemen busy trying to keep the two royals and their supporters apart. Maharana Pratap would have been disappointed at the “no-war confrontation” but the times have changed and, then again, what are government-appointed Receivers for, if not for quelling riots from breaking out at the palace-gates?

The descendants of Maharana Pratap deserve a pat for being a lesson in fighting without blood-letting. The ‘pratap’ of Maharana Pratap still beats in the breasts of Vishvaraj Singh and Arvind Singh Mewar. The MP and MLA of Sambhal should learn from these two though most Indian historians did their best to erase the memory of Maharana Pratap from and all sundry minds!

Maharana Pratap met his maker long ago. Around the time when the Mughals cornered Hindu temples and razed them to the ground. Today, there is a counter-movement going on and it is a reminder of how things panned out in those long gone times. But Udaipur is an example of how things can be brought under control without rancour and violence.

Appoint a Receiver! If Maharana Pratap’s “vansaj” can be induced to stop fighting in the streets, or at the palace gates, even the squabbling politicians can be brought to bury the hatchet and start respecting the “small, small judges” who decide the fate of temple and mosque while interpreting the Places of Worship Act to the best of their abilities.

Sure, the Places of Worship Act doesn’t apply to palaces and royal claims, nevertheless it is a lesson in grace. A government-appointed ‘Receiver’ is so much a better option than stone-pelting and contesting religious slogans shouted full-throated. The Udaipur Palace did not see violence mar the scene; no bullets were fired, no fires were set off, no stones were hurled, nothing like what happened in Sambhal.

But the local administration of Udaipur can’t get its mind off of what could have happened if the two royals, with bloodlines linked, were allowed to fight it to the death like it used to be during Maharana Pratap’s time? Just for context, how far is Ajmer from Udaipur or Udaipur from Sambhal? There is dispute in all three places. Sambhal and Ajmer are both the same old Masjid-over-Mandir fight to the finish but Ajmer is about relatives.

Nothing galls anybody more than being denied access, the blood boils, whether it’s access to a portion of real-estate or to a broken heart. The question boils down to, is Arvind Singh Mewar a bleeding heart? The situation in and around Udaipur City Palace “remains tense and the markets are closed, security is tight”. Will the Mewar Rajputs drop hate and put a halt to hostilities? Chances are they will and matters will be settled out of court or in court. There won’t be Sambhal or Ajmer in Udaipur.

In times long gone, swords would have clashed and heads would have rolled down the palace steps. And markets closed means there is no trade. Ask Pakistanis what that means. The government-appointed ‘Receiver’ must be having the last laugh, perhaps even having the best “curry-cuts” for dinner in the blocked section of the Udaipur City Palace. It is a pity Vishvaraj Singh cannot just walk in with a query. He deserves better now that he is ceremonial head of the Mewar family.

And Arvind Singh Mewar should show a bigger heart. Barring Vishvaraj Singh is not Rajput! The royals of Mewar shouldn’t descend to the petty politicking of Sambhal and Lucknow politicians who are shamelessly ranking the lower judiciary as “small, small judges”, not worthy of sitting in judgement on matters spawned by those very petty politicians.

Arvind Singh Mewar is the paternal uncle of Vishvaraj Singh. Both have blue blood in them. They shouldn’t be behaving like the Sambhal MP and the Sambhal MLA, who instigated the brick-batting in Sambhal. Watching these fellows on live television defending their unlawful actions with an earnest face is beyond sham, it is the height of shamelessness.

Chances are very slim that the MP and the MLA of Sambhal will start behaving like model citizens, but there is hope that Arvind Singh Mewar and Vishvaraj Singh will stop being crass politicians. Land disputes and masjid-mandir disputes are taking up so much of our time that even the clock has started protesting. The wages of 1947! Not that the Udaipur uncle and nephew aren’t politicians. Vishvaraj Singh is a BJP MLA and his wife Mahima Kumari is the MP from Rajsamand. (IPA Service)