Maharaja Disciplined

Exacting Puritans who frowned upon the coronation of "Mr. A." as Maharaja over 80,000 acres in the North Indian frontier wilds of Jammu and Kashmir (see above), relapsed into a state of pious admiration for British justice as they learned of the punishment which was meted out last week to the Maharaja of Indore, a state of some 8,000 acres* in extent, conveniently situated in Central India, within the immediate sphere of British influence.

It was the Maharaja of Indore who, as everyone knows, was deserted by one of his dancing girls (Mumtaz Begum) last year and considered his princely honor so tarnished thereby that he reputedly despatched his Adjutant General and other trusted officials to abduct her from Abdul Kadir Bawla, rich merchant of Bombay, with whom she had taken refuge (TlME, Apr. 20).

A group of Englishmen returning from a game of golf, and armed only with golf sticks, were unable to prevent the Maharaja's emissaries from murdering the merchant Bawla in cold blood on the open highway while he was riding with Mumtaz Begum; but the golfers did succeed in driving off the natives (armed with revolvers, knives and swords) before they could do more to the girl than slash her face, permanently disfiguring her.

From then on the Earl of Reading, Viceroy of India, formerly Lord Chief Justice of England (1913-1921), was admittedly in a most awkward position with respect to the Maharaja of Indore. The British forced the execution of three of the Indians who were implicated and the banishment of four more. But what of the alleged instigator of these assassins?

A majority of the native Indian Princes, "the subordinate allies of the King-Emperor George V," rallied to the Maharaja of Indore and apparently so alarmed the Earl of Birkenhead, His Majesty's Secretary of State for India, that he is universally believed to have advised the Viceroy not to press for the trial of the Maharaja, who could be tried, in any case, only by a court of his Indian peers.

Rufus Daniel Isaacs, first Earl of Reading, is however about to retire as Viceroy (TIME, Nov. 9). He had every reason to desire that this most dangerous of recent Indian scandals should be cleared up in a manner creditable to himself. There were those, moreover, who hinted that the Viceroy bears the Maharaja a grudge because he would not yield a point of precedence at official functions to the former Alice Edith Cohen, now Lady Reading. Last week all the ramifications of this affair suddenly quieted.

Under pressure brought to bear by Lord Reading, H. H. Mahrajat Dhirraja Tukoji Rao Holkar, Bahadur, G. C. I. E. (the Maharaja of Indore), quietly abdicated in favor his son, the heir apparent, Prince Yeshwant. The Indian Government at once accepted his resignation, dismissed the scheduled investigation into his conduct with respect to Mumtaz Begum.

*Population about one million. Revenue to the Crown about $1,500,000 per year.