The fourth most beautiful woman of the 20th century ranked by the Eastern Voice, the popular vogue magazine added her name to the list of the ten most beautiful women of the world. Her spellbinding beauty mesmerised everyone. She was none other than Maharani Gayatri Devi from the Jaipur Rajgharana. It was on May 23, 1919 Gayatri Devi came into the world as the princess of Koch Behar, which is now in West Bengal. She was conceived by Maratha Princess Indira Raje of Barda and Prince Jitendra Narayan of Cooch Behar. She lived her life “Queen Size” and left behind an intriguing legacy.
Maharani Gayatri Devi though famous around the world for her beauty, was in tussle with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, since she entered the public life. Let’s have a look how she took on Nehru in Lok Sabha and why Indira Gandhi was at loggerheads with Gayatri Devi:
The People’s Liberation Army unexpectedly overran India’s under-equipped troops on October 20, 1962, when it launched a full-scale invasion of the country’s northern frontiers and Ladakh. Only a few hundred kilometres or so separate some of the fighting from Cooch Behar. The war ignited a raging debate in Parliament. The government’s cover-up of China’s repeated intrusions into India over the previous few years and Nehru’s exploitation of the Defence of India Act to muzzle critics of his policies were both attacked by Ayesha [Gayatri Devi] at the earliest chance. When Nehru mocked the opposition in response, Ayesha yelled, “If you had known anything about anything, we wouldn’t be in this mess today.” She reiterated her statement in “more legislative terms” when Nehru seemed to ignore her. This time, the opposition members mockingly yelled “Chivalry” in response to the prime minister’s statement, “I will not bandy words with a lady.
Maharani Gayatri Devi and Indira Gandhi as it is relatively lesser known , that both knew each other from their youth. Both had gone to school at Patha Bhavana, the institution Rabindranath Tagore established in Santiniketan, West Bengal. Indira abused her in front of lawmakers, calling them, according to Khushwant Singh, “a bitch and a glass doll,” because she couldn’t stand the idea of a woman more attractive than herself. Indira Gandhi’s petty, vengeful side was brought out by Gayatri Devi.
The two most influential families in the country were fiercely at odds with one another on the political front since Congress had lost to Gayatri Devi in the Lok Sabha elections three times in a row. It was quite famous during those days that Gayatri Devi’s presence in Parliament was to the great annoyance of Indira Gandhi. Mrs. Gandhi detested princely privilege more than her father, despite the two of them attending Patha Bhavana together. When the Emergency was announced, Gayatri Devi, who was 56 years old, was receiving medical care in Bombay; as a result, she was spared the first round of arrests. The opposition seats in Parliament were essentially vacant when she arrived in the Indian capital at the end of July to attend. The police arrived at her residence in New Delhi on the evening of July 30 to make an arrest under the COFEPOSA Act, using the loose change in pound notes and assorted coins discovered at Moti Doongri as justification. Ayesha’s stepson Bhawani Singh, who was lodging with her in her Delhi home, was also detained at the same time. Both were transported to Tihar Jail. It would later turn out that the decision to detain Ayesha and Bubbles was made on July 24. The Intelligence Bureau believed they were in Patna and ready to flee to Nepal, but this intelligence was not forwarded to the Home Ministry, and the first attempt to detain them was made in Jaipur. The Shah Commission, established by the Indian government in 1977 to look into excesses during the Emergency, would observe that “a noteworthy element of these arrests seems to be the hurry with which the whole case was processed in the course of one day.”
Ayesha was put in a stench-filled space typically used by travelling doctors, with a single tap but no running water. She had anticipated a prison that was spotless, “like an army barrack.” Instead, the circumstances were terrible. Prisoners urinated in the filthy open drain outside her cell. Recalling the terrible experience Gayatri Devi wrote “There were no fans, and the mosquitoes appeared to be eating us up”. A Communist Party worker who advocated for the rights of Dalits and Adivasis, Srilata Swaminathan, was already present in the space. She had angered Indira Gandhi by mobilising workers on opulent farmhouses outside of Delhi belonging to the elite of the city, including Rajiv Gandhi, Indira’s son, to demand higher wages.
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