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Many historians and creative writers have applied their talents to the reconstruction of the lives of those who were at the centre of the upheavals that shook their countries and destroyed their lives. Monarchies, the world over, have passed through the crumbling phase but their fall becomes more poignant when it is caused by a foreign hand against the will of the people. The King in Exile – The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma by Sudha Shah is a riveting tale of the last king of Burma who was exiled to India. A well- researched book, it has not fallen into the trap of adding colours of imagination to the characters. The author has written the story of King Thibaw, as a young boy his life in the forbidden palace, his life and times with his queen as the last ruler of Burma and then his exile to India, his four daughters and their children. Despite the best efforts of the author it is very difficult to empathise with king Thibaw and his queen as rulers. They were rulers who were deified by their people but such was the insecurity that they dared not set their foot outside the palace even among those who worshipped them. The author has taken considerable pain in absolving king Thibaw and queen Supayalat of the ba rbaric massacre of the members of their own royal family in order to insulate themselves from future conspiracies.
The life of the royal family in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, is again a testimony to the tragic flaws that they had acquired as rulers without responsibility. They had lived in an island of riches that was surrounded by squalor and when forced to live in the real world, their lives were shattered much like that of Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot. They lived beyond their means. It was this trait that they bequeathed to their daughters who too were constantly dogged by the need to make supplications to their oppressors for more grants and monthly pensions. In Ratnagiri, the first victims of the effects of exile were the daughters who were deprived of proper education. It was, therefore, not surprising that two of the princesses married against the wishes of the king to men below their status. In fact, the first princess cannot be said to be married at all as she remained the other woman in the life of their own Indian servant. It is the story of this princess that haunts the reader much after the book is finished. The second princess too married against the wishes of the family and with the support of the British administrators in Ratnagiri. She lived her later life in Kalimpong, still pretending to be royalty. The third and the fourth princess returned to Burma with the queen after the death of the king and played minor roles in the nationalist struggle. However, throughout their life, they struggled with the management of their finances. With all their failings, it must be said that this royal family, like in many countries, was seen as intangibly important to national identity. Fortunately, the succeeding generations were happy to play the role of patriots without claiming any right to the centre stage.
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THE mystique attached to royalty continues to charm mankind the world over. That explains why we are attracted to even the Bourbons and the Tsars who manufactured their own tragedies. Even our very own Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Emperor whose command could not be heard beyond the walls of Red Fort, has been romanticised, one suspects more because of the poignancy of his poetry. We saw this aura at work again in Romania three years after the fall of Communism in 1989. King Michael I of Romania, who had been forced by the Communists to abdicate in 1947, and had become a commercial pilot, returned to the country to celebrate Easter, and was greeted by a million people.
Shah has been partial in judging their responsibility in inviting the English invasion and their consequent exile. Their professed innocence and shifting of blame on advisers reflects poorly on their ability to rule even if they were to be treated as the representatives of God.