Former king of Tigiria died a pauper
BRAJRAJ CAME TO POWER IN 1943 AND WAS KNOWN FOR HIS HEDONISTIC LIFESTYLE
Brajraj Khyatriya Birabara Champati Singh Mahapatra, the former Raja of Tigiria, who died aged 94, was the last surviving Indian king from the days of British rule.
His heavily forested kingdom, Tigiria, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, was, at just 45 square miles (116 square kilometres), the smallest princely state in India.
But according to LEB Cobden-Ramsay, in his book Feudatory States of Orissa (1910), “thanks to the good governance of its kings [it] had a high population density”.
As well as building and maintaining a network of schools, the rulers of Tigiria were remarkably lenient in matters of law and order.
Tigiria’s “jail” consisted of a small roof with four pillars with no walls, and the severest punishment was being ostracism by the king, who would not speak to a convicted felon.
Brajraj was born on October 15, 1921. He married Rani Rasmanjari Devi, a princess of Sonepur, with whom he had six children. He came to the throne in 1943 and became known for his hedonistic lifestyle.
In 1947, however, along with other heads of princely states of Odisha, Brajraj signed the instrument of accession to an independent India.
Deprived of his state’s tax revenues, his fortunes began to decline and in 1960 he sold his palace to the state government for Rs75,000 (Dh4,166) on condition that it be turned into a school. Later he separated from his wife. Brajraj continued to receive a small stipend from the Indian government until Indira Gandhi abolished the payments in 1975.
While many of his fellow ex-royals recouped some of their losses by becoming involved in politics, he refused, saying that he did not know how to “bow to people”.
After living for some years with his elder brother, the one-time king of the state of Mandasa in Andhra Pradesh, he returned to Tigiria.
When a journalist visited in 2013, he described finding the 92-year-old living in “a mud hut with some plastic chairs. The asbestos roof is leaking, so a torn tarpaulin sheet covers his wooden cot. There are a few books, a plastic saline bottle, a torch, some raw tomatoes and lots of cobwebs”.
Asked if he was happy, Brajraj replied: “Then I was the king. Now I’m a pauper. But I have no regrets whatsoever.”
Although he relied on the help of local villagers, when he did have money himself (as a life member of the governing council of Rajkumar College, he received a small stipend), he gave much of it away. He is survived by three sons and two daughters.