A Covid passing turns a historical past web page: the final Maharaja of Kutch

THE MAHARAJA of Kutch, Maharrao Pragmalji III, was laid to relaxation at a quiet funeral on Friday after he died of Covid-related issues early within the day. He was 85 and the titular head of the Jadeja dynasty, which traces its origins to 1,000 years again because the rulers of Kutch, having ceded to the Indian Union in 1948.
Born as Prithvirajji on May 3, 1936, he was the eldest of 5 youngsters — three brothers and two sisters. He is survived by a brother and a sister, and Maharani Priti Devi, the princess of the erstwhile state of Tripura, whom he had married in 1957.
The royal couple had no youngsters, and with Pragmalji’s dying, the title could stop to exist since he didn’t title an inheritor obvious. Both had been contaminated with Covid-19 three weeks in the past and had been below therapy at Accord Hospital in Bhuj. “Maharani is out of hospital but still recovering,” mentioned Pratapsinh Jadeja, the late Maharaja’s nephew.
The royal household’s contributions included giving land within the port city of Kandla in addition to Adipur and Gandhidham, to refugees who got here from Sindh in Pakistan after Partition. A robust advocate for a separate state of Kutch, Maharrao Pragmalji was additionally the Director (emeritus) of the Sindhu Resettlement Corporation (SRC) Ltd, shaped for the resettlement and rehabilitation of people that migrated from Sindh to India throughout Partition in 1947.
Upon the dying of his father Maharrao Madansinhji in 1991, Prithvirajji was appointed the Maharrao and renamed Pragmalji III, mentioned Pratapsinh.
“The Maharrao had willed that the title should cease to exist with him,” claims Krutarthsinh Jadeja, the Thakoresaheb of Devpur, a principality of the erstwhile Kutch state. He is a distant relative of Maharrao Pragmalji III.

Pratapsinh, nonetheless, says there can be a successor, because the “gaddi” or throne can’t be vacant. “It does not matter now as we are also commoners. Our grandfather Maharrao Madansinhji was the last ruler of Kutch,” says Pratapsinh.
Nearly 200 folks together with authorities officers of the district got here to pay their final respects on the Ranjitvilas Palace in Bhuj the place Maharrao Pragmalji’s physique was saved in state on Friday. He was cremated with due Covid-19 protocol at Chhaterdi in Bhuj, the royal resting place, the identical day.
Pragmalji prided in the truth that they had been “descendants of Lord Krishna”. “We are Chandravanshis (descendants of the moon) and as per the genealogy Lord Krishna was the 54th descendant (of the moon) and the Maharrao was the 183rd,” says Krutarthsinh, calling him a “devout Hindu”.
In the huge earthquake of January 26, 2001, Kutch bore the brunt with nearly 13,800 folks killed within the district. The Prag Mahal and Aaina Mahal in Bhuj owned by the royal household had suffered in depth injury and had been renovated by the Maharrao in 2013.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who as Chief Minister of Gujarat had given a significant thrust to trade agriculture and tourism within the desert district of Kutch on the Indo-Pak border, additionally tweeted in Kutchhi, expressing grief on the demise of the Maharrao.
Apart from Ranjitvilas in Bhuj, the opposite well-known palace owned by the household is the Vijayvilas palace on the Mandvi seashore which has hosted a number of movie shootings together with Bollywood’s Hum Dil de chuke sanam.
Kutch didn’t see many Covid-19 instances final yr. It recorded a most of 42 instances in a single day final September. But by the second week of April, the case numbers witnessed a pointy rise. The district reported its single-day highest surge this yr on May 10 with 244 new instances and it wasn’t till May 19 that the district confirmed indicators of a slowdown. The district has reported 12,190 Covid-19 instances until date and 145 deaths, as per official well being division knowledge.