Whistle-Stopping Maharani

For the turbaned and mustached peasants of northwest India's Rajasthan state, it was a taste of old times. Through their villages, in a 1948 Buick that scattered peacocks, startled bullocks and cloaked the neem trees with dust as it sped along, came the Maharani Gayatri Devi, her bobbed brown hair dipping over one eye and her lithe figure wrapped in a peppermint chiffon sari. With the homage they and their forefathers had always displayed to a maharajah's wife, the villagers touched foreheads to the dust, tossed marigold garlands and waved incense. Cried the crowds: "Come and be our lady again."

At that point the maharani usually brakes her automobile, climbs out of the driver's seat and makes an unregal speech to her onetime subjects. In India's upcoming February election, the Maharani of Jaipur, 41, is running for a parliamentary seat from Rajasthan state, and not in the 14 years of Indian independence has there appeared a candidate with her aura and appeal: she is rich, beautiful, intelligent, and a first-rate politician.

Sorry for the Animals. Daughter of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, she was educated at India's Santiniketan University, in Switzerland and England. As the Maharajah of Jaipur's third wife (the first two are dead), she is a celebrated figure at international spas, loves polo, shot 27 tigers before she retired from the sport because "I feel sorry for the animals." Now, as candidate, she neglects her custom of riding out in a monogrammed white Jaguar at 7 a.m. to exercise her husband's 18 polo ponies, spends the time instead writing campaign speeches and running four secretaries ragged with dictation.

The maharani represents the most striking example so far of the return of India's onetime ruling class to national politics. One of the government's first moves in 1947 after independence was to start removing from power the 562 maharajahs who had ruled their states under benevolent English eyes. Pensioned off with handsome privy purses, some of the maharajahs retired to dream of past glories. But about 20 have entered the diplomatic service; another 40 are in politics. None has created the stir caused by the Maharani of Jaipur, who chose to join the new and growing Swatantra Party, a right-wing group that attacks the "socialism" of Nehru's Congress Party and calls for the kind of individualism sought in the U.S. by Dwight Eisenhower. The party's venerable founder is Chakravatri Rajagopalachari, first native-born Governor General of India, who lyrically describes the maharani as "a combination of Sita, Lakshmi and the Rani of Jhansi."*

Listen, My Sisters. Speeding from village to village, the campaigning maharani grimly undergoes such ritualistic welcomes as having her mouth stuffed with sweetmeats seven times, then explains the Swatantra platform to enthusiastic peasant crowds. Attacking Nehru's ruling Congress Party, she is sometimes fuzzy, particularly on foreign affairs, and when stumped, disarmingly admits: "I don't really know any more about this.'' But on the whole, she knows what she wants. Says she, the Congress Party's economic policy "is like growing a babul tree and expecting to get mangoes. They come to you when they need your vote; when they are returned to power, they become, little monarchs who levy taxes on you as they please, make you quarrel with each other, and swell their bank accounts."

Says she about Nehru's ambitious economic plans: "I think we need these five-year plans, but we are taking on more than we can cope with." The maharani makes a special pitch to the Hindu village women who listen to her, traditionally segregated behind bamboo fences: "I want to tell you, my sisters here, to cast your votes in favor of the Swatantra Party."

Uncomfortably aware of the beautiful maharani's impact, Nehru's Congress Party has decided to match her with a powerful opponent: Rajasthan's Revenue Minister Damodar Vyas. But not even Vyas seems likely to beat her personal appeal. At a rally last week in Malpura, Vyas' home town, a crowd of 5,000 paraded through the town crying "Long Live Our Maharani," paused outside Vyas' house to shout insults; elsewhere, village poets hymned the maharani. She is grimly determined to win, but at the moment her major campaign concern is the garlands and flower petals constantly tossed at her by enthusiastic supporters. Explains she: "I've got terrible hay fever."

* Sita, wife of Rama, was kidnaped by Ravana, but later proved by a trial by fire that she was still virtuous. Lakshmi was the consort of Vishnu and the goddess of wealth and luck. The Rani of Jhansi fought the British in the 1857 Indian mutiny, was killed in battle.

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