Ivory Throne by Manu S. Pillai

Author:Manu S. Pillai
Language: nld
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2015-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Thus, the Viceroy’s response was a far cry from the popularly told, righteous exclamation of wonder that the boy was not mentally unstable, clarifying that his own discretion was the reason for this departure from the general principle enunciated by Lord Irwin some years ago. By the end of July, thus, it was finalized that the Maharajah would be installed in November 1931 with full powers, and the Resident asked Sethu Lakshmi Bayi to ascertain an auspicious date for the event. She, however, chose to defer planning of this durbar wholly to the Maharajah’s staff72 and it was thereafter confirmed for 6 November, two days before his nineteenth birthday. Additionally, the Viceroy decreed that ‘there is no longer any necessity to keep the Maharajah from the society of his mother’ and that ‘His Highness will in future live with her’.73 The Government of India, however, realised that this new arrangement was perhaps embarrassing for Captain Harvey due to his disputes with the Junior Maharani, and that it would be best, to avoid friction, if he be permitted to leave before the end of the Regency.74 Sethu Lakshmi Bayi agreed and accordingly he was relieved from service and departed soon afterwards.

By now news broke out in Travancore of the Viceroy’s decision. Mr Pritchard anticipated that with most of the newspapers in the state being ‘out for sensation’, the Maharani ought to prepare to have her feelings ‘gravely hurt’ by the press.75 He was not let down and these newspapers, he wrote, made ‘little attempt at disguising the editors’ pleasure on account of the early termination of the present administration’.76 The Junior Maharani too was rejoicing. On her way back with her son she arranged all the way in Travancore addresses, receptions and celebrations.77 The capital was abuzz with talk about who the next Dewan would be, with the names of K.M. Panikkar, Sir V.T. Krishnamachari, and Sir CP standing out as most likely. There was general euphoria among the politicians in Trivandrum, their joy as much due to the termination of the Regency as it was about the investiture of their Maharajah. As for Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, she suffered a relapse of tuberculosis, which, doctors informed the Resident, was due to ‘worry owing to the unexpected curtailment of the Regency period’.78 Her thoughts at the time are glimpsed in a letter she wrote Mr Pritchard:

I feel grave misgivings about my future but my consciousness that all through the stressful period of the Regency I have done the exacting duties of my position according to my lights and that I have done nothing forgetting God or my conscience, will, I hope, make me endure with fortitude, the troubles the post-Regency period may hold in store for me.79

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