Royalty on the Hustings

"Privileges are only a paltry make-believe, if not a fool's paradise," wrote Shri Hanwant Singh Bahadur, the titular Leader of Kings, King of Kings and Maharaja of Jodhpur. "Shorn of old feudal and autocratic character, a prince in free India should now rise to the level of Common Man."

Last week, the burly young (28) Maharaja, known to his friends as "Funny Face," was busy as a beaver rising to the level of common man in company with some 30 other bejeweled ex-potentates of India. All of them, stripped of princely power by their nation's republican constitution, are running for office in India's first general election, a month-long affair involving more than 176 million voters, 80% of whom are illiterate.

Sleight of Hand. The princes, sparked by Hanwant Singh, seemed determined to make the election not only history's largest and longest, but its liveliest. Hanwant Singh, a polo player and amateur magician whose childhood dreams were realized a year ago when 600 London magicians asked him over to do some tricks for them, was proving himself a skilled political prestidigitator as well. Standing for both the national Parliament and the local Rajasthan state assembly, Hanwant Singh last week wrapped on his red-and-orange turban, sprayed himself generously with an oriental attar called Queen of the Night and flew his own Beechcraft to a rally of voters in a tiny village 70 miles south of Jodhpur City.

The happy electorate greeted him as the potentate he once was. As he mounted a waiting jeep, men rushed to touch his feet with their fingers. Housewives brought wheatcakes on silver plates to be blessed by him.

Women doused him with red mercuric oxide powder to insure his prosperity, priests recited verses from the Veda and an aged soldier seized a microphone to cry triumphantly: "His Highness is our father and mother. We must do what he orders and vote for him."

The Cow Is Our Mother. Against such popular appeal, the snarling Communist and the colorless Congress Party candidates who opposed the Maharaja stood little chance. But the Maharaja had a few Tammany-style tricks up his sleeve as well. "In Bombay," he told his audience, "Congress is permitting the erection of a factory where hundreds of cows will be killed ... to solve the food problem. The cow is like our mother. Perhaps Congress will next suggest that we should kill our mothers and eat them." The voters howled in disgust at such a wicked thing, not knowing that there are in fact no such plans afoot. "The slavery of the British was a thousand times better than the Freedom of today," the candidate went on. "I swear by the Goddess Chamunda that if elected I will continue to serve the people as my ancestors have done for seven hundred years."

Such strenuous campaigning allows the Maharaja only four hours sleep a night, but enthusiasm and a daily dose of 15 Dexedrine tablets more than make up the loss as he travels from town to town past loudspeakers blaring, "Give your vote to the Defender of the Faith--His Highness the Maharaja!"

The Joke. "The princes are sadly mistaken," said India's Congress Party Premier Nehru last week, "if they think that they can turn back the clock of progress." Nevertheless, in Rajasthan the wise money was ten to one on the Maharaja to win.

"For every dirty leaflet the opposition issues," promised Funny Face as his campaign drew to a close, "I will issue three. For me, everything in life is a joke, and the biggest joke of all is myself."

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