The Prince & the Drones

INDIA The Prince & the Drones

At 24, huge, black-bearded Sir Bhupindar Singh, autocrat of the princely State of Patiala, set out for France to mount a blooded stallion and lead his own private army of fighting Sikhs against the Kaiser's Germans in World War I. A princely spender even in the days when spending came easily to India's princes, Patiala's Maharajah was an enthusiastic cricketer and polo player as well, and his enthusiasm for the hunt was such that he was forced to import tigers by the dozen from neighboring states to eke out his own rapidly dwindling stock.

As time went on, however, the young Maharajah's other hobbies gradually gave way to a more consuming interest: collecting an unrivaled harem of eight senior wives (who were called Maharani and were privileged to eat off gold dinnerware) and 150 concubines (who were called Rani and ate off silver). At the time of his death at 46 in 1938, His Exalted Highness' unflagging devotion to these helpmeets had earned him the informal title, "His Exhausted Highness." The memory of that devotion was perpetuated in a nursery of 52 sons and daughters.

Concubines & Catalogues. The eldest of the children, Yadavindra Singh, a youth of 25 as black-bearded as his father and even handsomer, became the new Maharajah. Already married to a woman of his father's choice, Yadavindra began to seem an authentic chip off the old block when he took a second wife, but the resemblance was short-lived. A conscientious family man with a keen interest in a balanced budget, the young Maharajah shipped his first wife into retirement, settled down contentedly with his second, to collect, not concubines, but seed catalogues and brochures on farm machinery. Stripped in 1948 of his autocratic rule by the establishment of independent India, Yadavindra happily assumed the responsibilities of his new role as a salaried civil servant ($105,000 a year plus an allowance of $250,000), devoting his days to the raising of giant squashes and citrus trees, and his evenings to planning the political future of his state.

If it had not been for the 15-odd sons of his father, who lived a life of medieval irresponsibility in a crumbling palace just down the road from his own, life might have been close to perfect. But there the brothers were--"those royal drones," as Yadavindra sometimes called them.

Darkness & Manure. Early in his reign, Yadavindra had pensioned off the young princes' mothers. Except for one or two of the sons who had gone off to take honest jobs (one as a cement salesman), the princes preferred to stay on, puttering uselessly around their palace, complaining about the measly allowance ($85 a month) given them by the state, and explaining that they had lived in idleness too long to be expected to work. Two months ago, when the Indian tax bureau offered to buy the princes' palace as a new headquarters for itself, Yadavindra jumped at the chance to rid the neighborhood of his useless kinfolk. He signed the deeds and served an evacuation notice.

The princes refused to budge. "Is this a way to treat royalty?" one asked.

Undeterred, the Maharajah ordered the palace's electricity shut off. When that failed, he ordered truckloads of manure dumped into the drinking wells. At last he gathered together a crew of farm hands and laborers and carried the princes (together with a few stray concubines) bodily out of their palace. Displaying their first real spirit in years, the evacuated princes pitched tents on the roadside and settled in for a long stay. "All in all," said one of them, "it's not much worse than being in the jungles on a tiger shoot."

Last week, as the monsoon bore in on Patiala with its drenching rains, the evacuated princes pooled their meager resources and sent four of their brothers roaring off in tandem on two motorcycles to seek help from the national government in New Delhi. "This," proclaimed young Prince Bobby Singh, "is a test of democracy! If the Maharajah can treat royalty like this, what hope can there be for the masses?"

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