Page 33 - Demo

It appeared as though Maharani Vidyavati Devi did not want her husband to have any say in their children's upbringing. As the Maharaja pointed out, the Court of Wards is proposing to send his children with %u201cthe avowed object of giving them the benefit of public-school education in Great Britain, but their object is to completely cut away all his relations with them%u201d.As PVG Raju, writing more than three decades later would suspect the hand of the Collector, %u201cThe Government of Madras was rather vindictive in its action, and an effort was made to separate and break up the family. An Englishman, who was Collector of Visakhapatnam, played a prominent part in the whole enactment of a most tragic attempt on the part of the Government to forcefully remove the four children and have them educated in England%u201d.The Maharaja laid out his opposition in four points: %u201cFirstly, that a prolonged stay in England would make it difficult for the minors upon their return here, to re-adapt themselves to Indian conditions; secondly, that the absence of instruction in the vernaculars would be highly detrimental to their interest; thirdly, that they would be strangers in their own land and would find their natural environment unsuited to them; and fourthly, that the boys would lose touch with their tenantry, whose affections they would alienate - a serious handicap when they enter on the administration of the estate; and that in the case of the girls the public would look upon the step with the utmost disfavour%u201d. Justice Subba Rao immediately understood what was at play here. As he observed,Maharaja Alak Narayan with Maharajkumar Vijayanand23