Maharaja Gaj Singh II | |
---|---|
Maharaja of Jodhpur | |
Head of the House of Rathore | |
Tenure | 26 January 1952 – present |
Predecessor | Hanwant Singh I |
Heir apparent | Shivraj Singh |
Maharaja of Jodhpur | |
Tenure | 26 January 1952 – today |
Predecessor | Hanwant Singh I |
Successor | Position abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Jodhpur, Jodhpur State, India | 13 January 1948
Spouse | Hemalata Rajye (m. 1973) |
Issue | Shivranjani Rajye Shivraj Singh |
House | Rathore-Jodhpur |
Father | Maharaja Hanwant Singh I of Jodhpur |
Mother | Princess Krishna Kumari of Dhrangadhra |
Religion | Hinduism |
Gaj Singh PMSP (born 13 January 1948), referred to as Bapji,[1] is an Indian politician who served as a member of the Indian parliament and as Indian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago. He became the Maharaja of Jodhpur in 1952.
Singh was born into a royal Rajput family. He is the son of Maharaja Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur and his first wife, Maharani Krishna Kumari of Dhrangadhra. He succeeded to the titles and dignities of his father at only four years of age, in 1952, when his father died suddenly in a plane crash. He was enthroned shortly afterwards.
The infant and his siblings were raised by their mother, Rajmata Krishna Kumari. At the age of eight, Gaj Singh was sent first to Cothill House, a prep school in Oxfordshire, England, and then to Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Singh's full title as Maharaja was His Highness Raj Rajeshwar Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hind Maharajadhiraja Maharaja Shri Gaj Singhji II Sahib Bahadur, Maharaja of Marwar.
In 1970, Gaj Singh returned to Jodhpur to take up his duties as Maharaja of Jodhpur. In 1973, he married Hemalata Rajye, daughter of the Raja of Poonch, a major feudatory state of Kashmir State and his wife Nalini Rajya Lakshmi Devi, a daughter of King Tribhuvan of Nepal and Queen Ishwari Rajya Lakshmi Devi. They are the parents of two children, being:
In 1971, the constitution of India was amended. On 5 November 1971, the Maharaja and other princes were deprived of their privy purses, the government annuities that had been guaranteed to them both in the constitution and in the covenants of accession whereby their states were merged with the Dominion of India in the 1940s, with the enactment of the amendment. The same amendment also deprived them of other privileges, such as diplomatic immunity.[2] In the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration (privy purses).[3]
Later, Gaj Singh served as Indian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago.[4] He also served a term in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Indian Parliament.[citation needed]
On 20 July 1992, he founded a day-cum-residential girls' school named Rajmata Krishna Kumari Girls' Public School, named after his mother.[citation needed]