Chitrangada Singh (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Raje Scindia; born 1967) is an Indian businesswoman and a descendant of the former ruling family of a major

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

during the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

in India. She is the eldest child of the late

Madhavrao Scindia Madhavrao Jivajirao Scindia (10 March 1945 – 30 September 2001) was an Indian politician and a minister in the Government of India. He was a member of the Indian National Congress party. Scindia was the son of Jiwajirao Scindia, the last rul ...

, an Indian politician and a granddaughter of

Jiwajirao Scindia Maharaja Jivajirao Scindia KStJ (26 June 1916 – 16 July 1961) was an Indian prince and government official. In the British Raj, he was the ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Gwalior in central India from 1925 until 1947. After ...

, the last ruling

Maharaja Mahārāja (; also spelled Maharajah, Maharaj) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or " high king". A few ruled states informally called empires, including ruler raja Sri Gupta, founder of the ancient Indian Gupta Empire, a ...

Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...

. Her wedding in 1987 to the grandson of

Hari Singh Maharaja Sir Hari Singh (September 1895 – 26 April 1961) was the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hari Singh was the son of Amar Singh and Bhotiali Chib. In 1923, following his uncle's death, Singh became ...

the last ruling Maharaja of

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

—an extravagant social event in a drought-ridden India—was covered widely in the Indian and international press. She is the co-manager of two heritage hotels: Karan Mahal in

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its ...

and Taragarh Palace in the

Kangra valley Kangra Valley is a river valley situated in the Western Himalayas.Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, England, in February 1967. Her father was studying at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

at the time; her parents and she lived in a two-bedroom cottage that had no central heating—her parents doing the housework including chopping wood. After her parents' return to India, Chitrangada enrolled in

Welham Girls' School Welham Girls' School is a private boarding school for girls located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. History The school was established in 1957. Welham was named after the little Welsh village from where its founder, H.S. Oliphant hailed. A ...

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, district and is governed by the Dehr ...

Wedding

Chitrangada's mother Madhaviraje Scindia and paternal grandmother

Vijayaraje Scindia Vijaya Raje Scindia (12 October 1919 – 25 January 2001), born Lekha Divyeshwari Devi and known popularly as the Rajmata of Gwalior, was a prominent Indian political personality. In the days of the British Raj, as consort of the last ruling Ma ...

both hailed from the Rana family of Nepal, and Maharaja Yasho Rajyalakshmi of Jammu and Kashmir, wife of Maharaja

Karan Singh Karan Singh (born 9 March 1931) is an Indian politician and philosopher. He is the son of the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh. He was the prince regent of Jammu and Kashmir until 1952. From 1 ...

also hailed from the same family. The two families were therefore well known to each other, and they arranged the wedding of their children in the usual Indian way. This is despite the fact that, whereas the Dogra dynasty of Kashmir belong to the

Jamwal Jamwal is a toponymic surname for a Dogra Rajput clan of the same name from Jammu, in Jammu and Kashmir, India. They claim descent from the traditional founder of Jammu, Jambu Lochan, and there at one time some of their members were rulers of ...

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

community of the far north of India, the Scindias belong to the

Maratha The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed a ...

community of western and central India. Considerations of community background were set aside because Maharaja Karan Singh, a philosopher and politician, was known for his progressive views, and because the Scindias had already received two generations of Rajput brides from Nepal anyway. On 11 December 1987, Chitrangada Raje married the politician Vikramaditya Singh, the son of

, a philosopher and politician who was the first

Sadr-i-Riyasat Sardar, also spelled as Sardaar/Sirdar ( fa, سردار, , 'commander', literally 'headmaster'), is a title of royalty and nobility that was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, chiefs, kings and other aristocrats. It has also been u ...

of Indian state of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

and also the son of

, the last ruler of the

Wedding

Hospitality business

References

Further reading