A Maharaja at four
In January 1952, in the middle of India's first general election, a small plane came down outside Jodhpur. The young Maharaja on board had just won his seat. His son was four years old.
His father: Maharaja Hanwant Singh came to the throne in 1947 and saw Jodhpur join India and, in 1949, the new state of Rajasthan.
Into politics: Hanwant Singh stood for election in 1952 and died in an air crash during the campaign.
Facts to know
- Father
- Maharaja Hanwant Singh
- Grandfather
- Maharaja Umaid Singh, builder of Umaid Bhawan
- The year
- 1952
- Age at succession
- Four
- The state
- Already part of Rajasthan since 1949
- A child with a title: the title passed to his son, Gaj Singh II, born in 1948. He was four.
- What the title meant then: Jodhpur was no longer a kingdom, but the family kept its palaces, its title and a privy purse, an annual payment agreed at the merger.
- A city's affection: Jodhpur watched the boy grow up, and the bond that formed then is the root of the name Bapji.
- The house behind him: five centuries of Rathore rule, from Rao Jodha's fort of 1459. Our piece on the Jodhpur royal family tells that longer story.
Schooling in India and England
He grew up between two worlds: a palace on a desert hill and the schools of England. Both shaped the work he later chose.
In India first: like many princes of his generation, he began his schooling in India.
- To England: he was educated at Eton and at Oxford, a path his family hoped would prepare him for a changing India.
- What he brought home: a wide view of museums, heritage and public institutions, which later showed in how he cared for Mehrangarh.
- A return to Jodhpur: he came home in the early 1970s, at exactly the moment the old order ended.
The fort and the palace he inherited
Few heirs anywhere have been handed two buildings like these: a fifteenth-century fort on a cliff and one of the largest private homes in the world, finished only five years before he was born.
Mehrangarh: Rao Jodha's fort of 1459, enlarged by every ruler after him, with seven gates and palaces stacked along the ridge.
Umaid Bhawan: built for his grandfather, Maharaja Umaid Singh, between 1929 and 1943, partly as famine relief work that employed thousands.
Facts to know
- Mehrangarh founded
- 1459, by Rao Jodha
- Umaid Bhawan built
- 1929 to 1943
- Architect
- Henry Vaughan Lanchester
- Stone
- Sandstone from Chittar Hill
- The style: art deco and Indian at once, with a great central dome, designed by the British architect Henry Vaughan Lanchester.
- The scale: both buildings needed large staffs and constant repair. Without the old state revenues, keeping them was a real challenge.
- The cenotaphs and gardens: with the fort came Jaswant Thada and the memorials of the Rathore rulers, and at Mandore the older royal cenotaphs.
- A city's memory: these buildings hold the history of Marwar. How they were cared for would shape how Jodhpur saw itself.
The line he inherited
Every Rathore ruler is measured against those who came before. These are the names Jodhpur says alongside his.
Rao Jodha: founder of the fort and the city in 1459, and the ancestor every Jodhpuri can name.
Durgadas Rathore: not a ruler but the noble who saved the infant heir Ajit Singh from Aurangzeb after 1678. Marwar's model of loyalty.
- Sir Pratap Singh: soldier, regent and polo player, whose name lives on in the riding breeches called jodhpurs.
- Umaid Singh: his grandfather, who built Umaid Bhawan and gave Jodhpur its twentieth-century face.
- Hanwant Singh: his father, the last ruling Maharaja, who signed Jodhpur into India and died young in 1952.
- Read the whole line: our piece on the Jodhpur royal family and the Rajput dynasties guide tell the longer story.
1971: a title without a state
At twenty-three he faced a question no Maharaja before him had faced. What do you do with a vast palace and an old fort when the state stops paying for them?
The amendment: in 1971 a change to India's constitution abolished the privy purses and ended official recognition of the former rulers.
The problem: palaces like Umaid Bhawan were enormous, and the income that kept them had gone.
Facts to know
- The change
- Privy purses abolished in 1971
- Titles
- Courtesy only from then on
- Umaid Bhawan
- Part opened as a hotel in 1971
- Mehrangarh
- A museum trust set up soon after
- His answer: open part of the palace to paying guests, keep part as a home, and give the history to the public.
- A hotel wing: part of Umaid Bhawan Palace has taken guests since 1971. Today it is run by Taj.
- A museum wing: another part became the Umaid Bhawan Palace Museum, with the art deco rooms, clocks and family photographs.
- A family wing: the family kept a wing as its home, and still lives there.
Local tip
Visit the Umaid Bhawan museum before your fort day. Its photographs of the twentieth-century court give the older galleries at Mehrangarh their human scale.
Saving Mehrangarh
Before the 1970s, many of India's royal forts were crumbling, half empty or stripped. Mehrangarh became one of the first to be cared for as a serious museum.
The trust: in the early 1970s he set up the Mehrangarh Museum Trust to care for the fort and its collections.
What it holds: palanquins, howdahs, arms, paintings, textiles and the painted rooms of the old palace, including the Phool Mahal.
- Conservation: the trust has restored walls, gates, palaces and paintings, and employs specialists to care for the collections.
- Telling the story: galleries, labels and an audio guide explain the Rathore history in plain words. Our Mehrangarh guide walks you through them.
- Beyond the fort: the trust also cares for Jaswant Thada, the marble cenotaph below.
- Treasures abroad: works from the Mehrangarh collection have been lent to major museums overseas, so the world could see the court's art.
- A model for others: many Rajasthan families who later opened their forts as museums looked to Mehrangarh for the way to do it.
Inside the museum he built
Mehrangarh's galleries are the clearest picture of what the trust has done. These are the rooms we never let guests skip.
The palanquin gallery
- What you see: royal litters, some covered and screened for the women of the court, some open for state processions.
- Why it matters: each one is a lesson in how the court moved and how purdah worked.
The howdah gallery
- What you see: elephant seats in silver and painted wood, used for weddings and royal processions.
- Look for: the finest silver work, and the small rails that kept the rider steady.
The Phool Mahal
- What you see: the flower palace, a hall of gold leaf, painted panels and stained glass, built for pleasure and dance.
- When: early, before it fills, when you can stand quietly in the middle.
The Takhat Vilas
- What you see: a painted private chamber, with Christmas-bauble ornaments hanging from the ceiling and murals on every surface.
- Why it matters: it shows the taste of a nineteenth-century ruler better than any portrait.
The armoury and the paintings
- What you see: swords, shields and guns of the Rathore warriors, and galleries of Marwar painting.
- Ask your guide: to show you a painting of the fort itself, and compare it with the view outside.
Local tip
Take the trust's audio guide even if you have a personal guide. Its stories of the rooms are told by the family's own historians, and it adds a great deal.
Diplomat and parliamentarian
For a few years his work took him far from the desert, to islands in the Caribbean, and later into Parliament in Delhi.
To the Caribbean: from 1978 to 1980 he served as India's High Commissioner in Trinidad and Tobago, with accreditation to several neighbouring island nations.
Why it mattered there: Trinidad and Tobago has a large community of Indian descent, many of whose ancestors came from northern India.
Facts to know
- High Commissioner
- Trinidad and Tobago, 1978 to 1980
- Also accredited to
- Several Caribbean nations
- Parliament
- A term in the Rajya Sabha
- Focus
- Heritage, culture and Rajasthan
- Into the upper house: he later served a term in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament.
- A public voice: he has spoken widely for the protection of heritage, crafts and the culture of Marwar.
- The family's long habit: service outside the palace runs in the house, from Sir Pratap Singh's soldiering to his own father's election campaign.
- Heritage as public good: the thread through all of it is the idea that a former ruling family's history belongs to everyone who wants to learn it.
Music, festivals and the desert
One October night at Mehrangarh, under a full moon, a Manganiyar singer's voice can carry from the ramparts to the blue city below. That night exists because the fort chose to share itself.
The folk festival: the Rajasthan International Folk Festival has been held at Mehrangarh each autumn since 2007, under his patronage.
Who plays: Langa and Manganiyar musicians of the Thar share the courtyards with folk musicians from around the world.
- The rock park: the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, opened by the trust in 2006, restores native desert plants to the volcanic rock below the fort walls.
- Walking it: trails wind between the rocks and down towards the city. It is one of the loveliest walks in Jodhpur in the early morning.
- Music of the desert: the trust's work has helped give the desert's hereditary musicians a stage at home. Read about Manganiyar music.
- Plan it: if you want the festival, tell us early. Rooms in Jodhpur fill quickly in festival week.
Local tip
Book the dawn concert if the festival offers one. Music on the ramparts as the sun rises over the blue city is something our family still talks about.
What Bapji means to Jodhpur
Titles have had no legal force since 1971. In Jodhpur, the affection never needed one.
The word: Bapji is close to father, said with warmth. You will hear taxi drivers, shopkeepers and hotel staff use it.
The flag: when the head of the family is in residence, his flag flies over Umaid Bhawan, and the city notices.
- Festivals: the family takes part in old ceremonies at festivals such as Dussehra and Holi, in public, before the city.
- Why the affection lasts: many Jodhpuris credit the family's half-century of care for the fort and palace with keeping the city's history alive and its visitors coming.
- How we speak of him: with respect, and only of his public work. We never discuss the family's private life, and we ask guests not to.
Jodhpur in his lifetime
When he came to the title, few foreign travellers came to Jodhpur. Today it is one of the great stops on any Rajasthan journey.
A city opened to visitors: the fort museum, the palace hotel and the festivals gave travellers reasons to stay longer.
Heritage hotels: family palaces and forts around Jodhpur, such as Ajit Bhawan and Bal Samand Lake Palace, began welcoming guests too.
- The blue city: the old lanes below the fort became a destination in their own right. Our piece on Jodhpur's blue city explains the colour.
- Crafts and markets: visitors brought new buyers to the bandhani dyers, leatherworkers and antique dealers of the old city.
- Village estates: forts in the villages of Marwar, such as Rohet and Khimsar, opened their doors, linking travellers to rural life.
Where to see his work
You can see the results of fifty years of stewardship in a single day in Jodhpur. This is the route we use.
Morning at Mehrangarh
- Why first: the fort at opening time, with a trust guide or the audio guide, before the groups.
- Look for: the restored palaces and the galleries of palanquins and paintings.
The walk down through the rock park
- Why: the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park shows the trust's work beyond the walls, with native plants and wide views.
Late afternoon at Jaswant Thada
- Why: the marble cenotaph glows in low light, and its portraits put faces to the Rathore names.
Evening at Umaid Bhawan
- Why: the museum wing, then dinner in the palace if you are staying. You are a guest in a house the family still lives in.
- Stay: two nights here, with a third in a village fort such as Rohet Garh.
Why his approach matters for travellers
Half the palace hotels and fort museums you will visit in Rajasthan followed a path that Jodhpur helped open. Knowing that changes how you see them.
Heritage that pays for itself: a hotel wing, a museum and a family home under one dome is now a familiar model across Rajasthan.
- Museums run by families: trusts like Mehrangarh's keep collections together in the places they belong, rather than scattered.
- Culture as well as stone: festivals, music and native plants are part of heritage too, and Jodhpur shows how to include them.
- Your part: stay in heritage properties, pay for guides and museums, and buy from real craftspeople. That is how the model keeps working. Our page on travelling responsibly explains more.
Before you go
A little planning makes the fort, the palace and the festival far easier to enjoy.
Go early: Mehrangarh at opening time, before the heat and the groups.
Book festival week early: rooms fill quickly when the folk festival is on.
- Dress for climbing: comfortable shoes and a hat for the ramparts and the rock park.
- Respect the private wing: at Umaid Bhawan, parts of the palace are the family's home and are not open to guests or visitors.
- Read first: our Rajput dynasties guide gives the Rathore background in a few minutes.
What most visitors miss
Most visitors see the fort, take a photograph of the palace from the road and move on. These are the details that show the stewardship behind them.
The conservation in progress: look for scaffolding and restorers at work on walls and paintings. The fort is cared for continuously, not restored once.
The labels: read them. The galleries explain who made each object and why, which is rarer in India than it should be.
- The Chamunda temple: at the far end of the ramparts, the fort's goddess still receives daily worship from Jodhpur families. It reminds you the fort is a living place, not only a museum.
- The rock park at dawn: native plants, birds and the ramparts above you, and almost no one else on the trails.
- The palace's photographs: in the Umaid Bhawan museum, the pictures of the young Maharaja and his family's public ceremonies tell the story of this page in images.
- The flag: before you leave Jodhpur, look up at Umaid Bhawan and see whether the flag is flying. The city always knows.
Who will enjoy this story
Gaj Singh's story suits travellers who are curious about what happened to India's princes after the kingdoms ended.
History lovers: it is the last chapter of the princely story, told through buildings you can walk into.
Museum lovers: Mehrangarh is one of India's finest museums, and knowing who made it so adds to the visit.
Facts to know
- Allow
- Two or three nights in Jodhpur
- Best months
- October to March
- Festival
- The folk festival, each autumn
- Pairs with
- Rohet, Khimsar, Udaipur
- Music lovers: plan around the autumn folk festival at the fort.
- Families: children love the cannons, the palanquins and the long views from the ramparts, and the rock park is perfect for a morning scramble.
- Who might skip it: if you prefer nature to history, give Jodhpur one night and spend the rest of your time in the villages or the dunes.
- Planning it: our Jodhpur itinerary and the Royal Rajputana journey give Jodhpur the time it deserves.