Opinion: Of Scindias and 'treachery' - Priyanka's visit to Rani Laxmi Bai memorial high on symbolism

By Milind Ghatwai: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s decision to visit Rani Laxmi Bai’s Samadhi in Gwalior before launching her party’s campaign in the crucial Gwalior-Chambal belt of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh has as much to do with contemporary politics as history, with alleged treachery being the common theme.

More than three years ago, the scion of the erstwhile royal family and senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia switched his loyalty from the grand old party to the saffron camp to bring down the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh in what the Congress described as an act of treachery.

As many as 166 years ago, the royal family had been accused of siding with the British and making Rani Laxmi Bai vulnerable during the 1857 revolt, described later as the First War of Independence. The queen of Jhansi fought with valour before sacrificing her life. Poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan in her famous poem on the queen had described the Scindias as friends of the British.

In 1967, Jyotiraditya’s grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia had brought down the DP Mishra-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. It was believed that Vijaya Raje, who contested the Assembly elections on the Jana Sangh ticket, orchestrated a campaign against Mishra, and succeeded in forming the first non-Congress government in central India.

Posters targeting these alleged acts of treachery before and after Independence came up in Gwalior ahead of Gandhi’s visit, where the memorial is located. "1857 mein Jhansi ki Rani Laxmi Bai ke saath gaddari, 1967 me Congress chief minister DP Mishra ke saath gaddari, 2020 mein Congress chief minister Kamal Nath ke saath gaddari. Gaddari se nata hai gaddari karna aata hai," the posters read. In a nutshell, the posters equated the Scindia family with treachery.

The Gwalior kingdom was one of the few kingdoms that qualified for a 21-gun salute during the Raj, and covered huge swathes of land. After Independence, the descendants of the royal family followed different ideologies and were either in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, its successor BJP, or the Congress. After several decades, all current members of the Scindia family, including former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, former minister Yashodhara Raje and Jyotiraditya Scindia are on one side of the divide.

The royal family’s alleged treachery with Rani Laxmi Bai has always remained a tricky issue but the main leaders in both Congress and the BJP chose to ignore it for obvious reasons. And yet, the historical association has always lurked in the background and occasionally exploded on senior leaders like it did in 2006 and 2017.

In 2006, Vasundhara Raje faced protests when she came to Indore to unveil the bust of Rani Laxmi Bai. She was the chief minister of Rajasthan and even MP was under the BJP rule but that did not save her from having a brush with a historical occurrence dating to nearly 150 years ago. Incidentally, years later she ordered the removal of a paragraph from Subhadra Kumari's poem from a school textbook in Rajasthan.

In 2017, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan treaded a dangerous path when he attacked the Scindia dynasty while addressing a campaign rally in Bhind district. "The Ater region had stood with Maharani Laxmi Bai and not with the British. I know the Scindias sided with the British and persecuted the people," Chouhan had said, delving deep into history.

Probably, he had in mind Guna MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was then chief whip in the Lok Sabha, and Bhind fell under the area of his influence. Jyotiraditya used to call the shots when it came to the distribution of tickets and organisational appointments.

The historical reference, however, angered Jyotiraditya’s aunt Yashodhara, who was a minister in Chouhan’s Cabinet. Retorting angrily, she had said, "The statement attributed to the CM amounts to insult." She recalled the contribution of her mother Vijaya Raje Scindia, one of the founding members of the BJP. Ironically, the Congress had targeted Chief Minister Chouhan for insulting the Rajmata and asked him to make his stand clear on Vasundhara Raje and Yashodhara Raje if the Scindias were oppressors.

Jyotiraditya’s defection in March 2020 has allowed the Congress to completely appropriate Rani Laxmi Bai. In the subsequent by-elections that followed, the Congress had called Jyotiraditya a "traitor" for deceiving his own party. The Congress had done very well in the Assembly elections in 2018 before the victory in the by-elections changed the equation in favour of the BJP.

With history weighing on his mind, Scindia visited the samadhi (memorial) of Rani Laxmi Bai in Phool Bagh locality in Gwalior on her death anniversary in 2021. It was then said that this was probably the first-ever visit by a member of the Scindia family. The Scindia family did not contest the claim, at least not openly.

In April this year, Jyotiraditya and Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh engaged in a war on Twitter. Scindia had alleged that the Congress was left with just one ideology which is of a traitor, an ideology which works against the country. Ramesh reminded him of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s poem. Scindia retaliated with many tweets asking Ramesh to read history, more than poetry. Scindia quoted Jawaharlal Nehru’s 'Glimpses of World History' that praised the role of Maratha power in challenging British supremacy.

When Priyanka spoke at the Jan Aakrosh Rally in Gwalior after paying tribute to Rani Laxmi Bai, she did not talk about the royal family’s historical or recent acts of treachery. That was done by the Leader of the Opposition in MP Assembly Govind Singh and others who lambasted the Scindias and their alleged acts of treachery. Gandhi referred to Rani Laxmi Bai more than once but referred to Jyotiraditya only once, saying she could talk about him for 10 minutes but won’t engage in personal attacks. "He changed his ideology completely," she said of the Union minister.

(Milind Ghatwai is a freelance journalist with over three decades of experience.)

(Views expressed in this opinion piece are that of the author.)