As Jaipur turns smart, a princess is being remembered

The year was 2008 and a frail 88-year-old woman was staging a sit in behind the Moti Dungri temple. She was opposing the construction of a multi-storey on that piece of prime land. 

Breathing fire, she had gone on record to rechristen Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) as Jaipur ‘Destruction’ Authority. She was the Rajmata of Jaipur, Maharani Gayatri Devi, deeply connected to the city, its people and heritage and had never shied from standing up for the city and its people. 

Cut to the present. A 40-feet stretch of road caved in near Bad Ke Balaji at Kishanpole Bazar a few days during ongoing digging for Smart City project. People moved on and about their daily chores. 

Earlier, they had come up to protest the dismantling of old chowks (market squares), the prized motifs of the heritage city, that were uprooted to pave way for the Metro. 

Gayatri Devi had even protested felling of the old banyan and peepal trees. “She would never have sat and watched what is going on. She stood against felling of trees in Jharkhand Mahadev. She was a voice that could lead the people,” said Bharat Sharma of Dharohar Bachao Samiti. 

Her sit-in at Moti Doongri isn’t a lone incident when the third wife of erstwhile ruler Man Singh II had taken a stand for Jaipur, its architecture, facae and green belts. 

In 2004 she had threatened to lead a public protest against indiscriminate, unplanned multi-storeys that were coming up in the Walled City. She had opposed Jal Mahal being given into private hands.

“Everything about the old city is planned and symbolic. Lamp posts crowned with rising sun along the spine of Johari bazaar are being pulled out. The Sun is a symbol of the Kachchwa family of erstwhile rulers of Jaipur. Across the world development involves preserving the heritage. In Jaipur’s it’s the opposite,” said Suresh Mishra, a social activist.