When Kashi Naresh suggested India establish Varanasi as a free city, like the Vatican

There is a growing literature on how sovereign India dealt with the problem of the princely states. A vast majority succumbed to the overwhelming force of a centralised India or the new state of Pakistan. Much is known of the bigger and problematic princely states like Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Mysore, Baroda and others like Junagarh, whose ruler took a planeload of mongrels to Karachi, and Travancore whose Dewan declared that the kingdom would join neither India nor Pakistan.

But some like Benares used different idioms to secure their position. The Benares state was to be merged with the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh) and it was in that context that the Maharaja of Benares had reached out to Rajagopalachari. “As the pope (sic) rules over the Vatican city of Rome so like arrangement should be made for the governance of Kashi. Everybody looks up with reverence at the Vatican city of Rome. No nation opened fire over it even in the last war. If likewise Kashi be declared a free city, its glory and fame would be considerably enhanced.”

Vibhuti Narain Singh was adopted by Sir Aditya Narain Singh, the Maharaja of Benares, in 1934 when he was seven years old. In April 1939, Vibhuti Narain Singh succeeded after the death of Sir Aditya as Kashi Naresh and ruled under a council of administration till he came of age in June 1947. But soon enough, India’s independence was on the horizon endangering his sovereign powers. Benares was one city which was regularly visited by rulers and chieftains from all over India and Nepal. From the Holkars of Indore to Ranjit Singh of Punjab, and the Raja of Vizianagram to wealthy landlords from Bengal all of them registered their presence in Benares. Most of them maintained houses and a retinue of servants in the sacred city and spent lavishly on the upkeep of the various ghats.

But now the sacred city was to be subsumed within the larger state of United Provinces, which already had Allahabad and Lucknow as major administrative centres. None of the cities in United Provinces or perhaps the Indian sub-continent could surpass Kashi’s importance as a pilgrim city, a fact which was alluded to in the letter to the Governor-General. “Kashi is the religious and cultural centre of India. There is not a single religious sect which has not a (sic) establishment of its own in Kashi. The grace and glory assigned to Rome in Europe is in a greater degree assigned to Kashi here in India.”

This letter was written not from the Kashi Naresh’s traditional seat of Ramnagar palace in Benares, but from Baroda House in Delhi. Perhaps the Maharaja of Benares was already canvassing support for his concept. The letter was followed up by a similarly worded telegram by leading citizens of Benares, which included the eminent scholar Dr Bhagwan Das, who was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955. But nothing came out of it, beyond a simple acknowledgment by the office of C Rajagopalachari.

In October 1949, the Benares state was merged into the United Provinces, and like the other rulers, the Maharaja of Benares too was given a pension. In the early 1970s when the privy-purse was abolished, Vibhuti Narain Singh, along with others, unsuccessfully challenged its Constitutional validity in the Supreme Court. The former ruler, however, never joined politics and continued to be greeted by cries of Har Har Mahadev whenever he appeared in public till his death in 2000.

His son Aditya Narain Singh is now the titular head residing at Ramnagar palace, and carries on the legacy of his predecessors by organising the annual month-long Ramlila and presiding over other important rituals. A part of the palace houses a museum which has several objects connected to the royal family including vintage cars and other memorabilia.

The recent assertion by a religious group seeking Varanasi to become the new capital of India to be governed by priests somewhat echoes the letter written by Maharaja Vibhuti Narain Singh in 1949. Such recurring calls highlight the unrivalled prominence of Varanasi as a site for pilgrimage, piety and politics. As American author Mark Twain famously said: “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”