Jaipur: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain, died in Belmore on Thursday. World leaders including from India expressed their grief and offered condolences with the family of the queen who served the British throne as a monarch for more than six decades. The deceased queen had a special bond with India and visited the country thrice in her lifetime. But the most remembered is the 1961 visit for the controversy it created in the country.
During her tours Queen Elizabeth II visited the Taj Mahal, the Golden Temple, the Gateway of India in Mumbai and Jaipur. Queen Elizabeth II visited India thrice in her lifetime with her husband Prince Edward and the late Prince Philip of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1961, 1983 and 1997. Elizabeth (II) came to India for the first time on January 23, 1961.
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The Queen visited Jaipur with her husband, where she was accorded a warm welcome as per Indian tradition. She stayed at the City Palace. The then Maharaja Sawai Mansingh II had taken an elephant ride with Elizabeth in the corridors of the City Palace. A controversy had arisen during the Queen's 1961 visit to Jaipur. Maharaja Sawai Mansingh had specially invited the then Chief Minister Mohanlal Sukhadia and the then Public Works Minister Maharaja Harishchandra of Jhalawar and asked them to come to the palace wearing the official palace dress including achkan, safa and a sword.
However the then Chief Minister Sukhadia said that he would come wearing a Gandhi cap after which another revised invitation was sent to the ministers. The feud had turned ugly as the ministers were not reportedly even introduced to Queen Elizabeth at the palace. The then Governor Gurmukh Nihal Singh had later sent the report of the incident to the Government of India and wrote that the Maharaja “wanted to demonstrate the monarchy”.
The then Governor had also expressed the apprehension that the influence of feudal royals may increase in Rajasthan, the result of which could be seen as an effect on the elections that were to follow. The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had also objected to the diktat of the royal palace. Former Maharaja Sawai Mansingh, former Queen Gayatri Devi, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip had also gone for hunting of the Ranthambore Tiger which was legal at the time. In 1940, the then Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Mansingh, had sent a diamond-studded ring to Queen Elizabeth of British Emperor George VI on Christmas.
