PANNA: A ROYAL FRACAS
Alingering dispute between the members of the erstwhile royal family of Panna, Madhya Pradesh, took an ugly turn when the local police arrested the titular maharani Jeeteshwari Devi on July 22 on the basis of a complaint her mother-in-law, Dilhar Kumari, had filed on June 19. The Panna police booked Jeeteshwari, her husband and the titular maharaja Raghavendra, their children and another accused, Salim Khan, on charges of criminal trespass and under sections of the Arms Act.
In the latest episode of the royal family saga, as per Dilhar Kumari’s complaint, Jeeteshwari, Raghvendra, their children and Khan tried to forcibly occupy a wing of the Raj Mandir Palace—a 19th century building and home of the erstwhile Panna royals. All this happened while Dilhar Kumari and her daughter Krishna Kumari were in Mumbai. Guards deployed to protect this wing of the palace stopped Jeeteshwari who allegedly whipped out a country-made pistol. While a guard did manage to dispossess her, Raghvendra was injured in the ensuing fracas. He is said to be recuperating in a Delhi hospital. The next morning, Dilhar Kumari filed a complaint with the police, and the guard handed over the country-made pistol too.
While the various members of the erstwhile royal family have been fighting for some years now, what lies at the core of the dispute is property worth several crores. Panna, an 11-gun salute princely state in pre-Independence India, is home to the only diamond mines in the country. Later, the region also came to be known for its tiger reserve, which was set up in the early 1980s. The reserve has been in the news because it had lost all its tigers but then made a remarkable recovery when it was repopulated with the big cats.
The erstwhile royals are descendants of the Bundela Rajput clan. They trace their ancestry to Raja Chhatrasal, who established the Panna princely state in the 17th century. Mastani, the wife of Peshwa Baji Rao I—and later the subject of a Bollywood film—was said to be his daughter.
There are three prominent claimants to the Panna legacy and property. Raghvendra and his wife Jeeteshwari are one party; Dilhar Kumari and Krishna Kumari the second; and Indira Kumari, wife of the late Lokendra Singh, Raghvendra’s uncle and a former member of Parliament, and their daughter Kamaksha the third. Sources say Raghvendra and Jeeteshwari also lay claim to what Lokendra Singh’s family hold, a division of property in the previous generation.
The various factions are in litigation over properties across Panna district. These include the sprawling Raj Mandir Palace in Panna town, the Balgaha farm in Gunnaur tehsil, the Laxmipur farm, land at Purshottampur and Baharganj and plots within Panna town and the Baggikhana. Though none of the erstwhile royals confirm it, the lands run into several hundred acres and are worth a fortune. Besides Panna, properties are said to exist in