Royals in Maharashtrian Writings: A Polyphony of Narratives

This article examines a range of texts produced by authors from different caste-class backgrounds in the Bombay Presidency in Western India between the 1850s and the 1920s. They were composed for commemorating special occasions such as the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne (1897) or the visits to India of the Prince of Wales (1876, 1922) and King George V (1911). These texts offer an opportunity for us to understand the various points of view about the British royalty as manifested in the world of Marathi speakers ranging from the harshly critical to the unabashedly loyalist, with many shades in between. The yardstick of modern nationalism has a fixed and negative image of what royalism represented for the colonial subjects. This article seeks to redress the balance.