Face of India: September 6th, 1998
The Maharaja - Captain Amarinder Singh

Maharaja Captain Amarinder Singh - equal under the law with every other citizen of independent India but whose family ruled the largest Sikh state under the British Raj.

Amarinder first shows Mark the old 100 roomed palace of Patiala in the Punjab where his family lived until the early years of this century. He now survives as a businessman and politician. They visit his stud farm - "a business as well as a hobby" and then return to his modern palace where he and his family are still surrounded by the splendours of his family's regal past.

Although only 5 at the time of independence, Amarinder has lived his life through the rough and tumble of democratic India. He has seen the socialism that India's first Prime Minister, Nehru hoped would solve the problem of chronic poverty deteriorate into the despair of a bureaucratic nightmare. Failure to control the increase in population is what Amarinder sees as the failure of successive governments. But the problem is finally an economic one. Children are a substitute for a welfare system; an insurance for care in old age.

Mark goes with Amarinder to a political rally of the Akali Dal, a Sikh party. Amarinder Singh is by no means the only Maharaja to be a democratic politician nowadays. But India changes gradually - respect for Amarinder is such that many of his supporters still try to touch his feet.

Later, over lunch, they discuss the key question of corruption in India. Amarinder acknowledges its existence, - "from Prime Ministers downwards". He tells Mark that people have almost come to accept it as normal - "If you want something done you have to pay, so you may as well pay more and get it done properly".

Amarinder then shows Mark some of his family treasures, including a sword and arrow belonging to the first of ten Gurus who founded the Sikh religion in the 17th Century. They go on to discuss the Sikh separatist movement and the dangers of the breakup of India through similar separatist movements. Amarinder is not hopeful. He sees a country where the population problem is already out of control and where the economy is in a similar danger. "In such circumstances people tend to flock back to their roots" he says. Although not a pessimist by nature, he fears that the breakup of India is a very real possibility.

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