Gaj Singh II of Jodhpur | |
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Head of the House of Rathore-Jodhpur | |
Period | 26 January 1952 – present |
Predecessor | Hanwant Singh I |
Heir apparent | Prince Shivraj Singh |
Born |
Jodhpur, Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, India |
13 January 1948
Spouse | Princess Hemalata Rajye of Poonch (m. 1963 - present) |
Issue | Princess Shivranjani Rajye Prince Shivraj Singh, Hereditary Prince of Jodhpur |
House | Rathore-Jodhpur |
Father | Maharaja Hanwant Singh I of Jodhpur |
Mother | Princess Krishna Kumari of Dhrangadhra |
Religion | Hinduism |
Gaj Singh (born 13 January 1948) is a former member of the Indian parliament and a former High Commissioner of India. He was the Maharaja of Jodhpur from 1952 until the royal powers, privileges and privy purses were abolished by an amendment to the Constitution of India in 1971.
Gaj Singh is the son of Maharaja Hanwant Singh of Jodhpur by his first wife, Maharani Krishna Kumari of Dhrangadhra. He succeeded to the titles and dignities of his father when only four years of age, in 1952, when his father died suddenly in a plane crash. He was enthroned shortly afterwards.
The infant and his siblings were raised by their mother, Rajmata Krishna Kumari. At the age of eight, Gaj Singh was sent first to Cothill House, a prep school in Oxfordshire, England, and then to Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Singh's full title as Maharaja was His Highness Raj Rajeshwar Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hind Maharajadhiraja Maharaja Shri Gaj Singhji II Sahib Bahadur, Maharaja of Marwar.
In 1970, Gaj Singh returned to Jodhpur to take up his duties as Maharaja of Jodhpur and head of the Rathore clan. In 1973, he married Hemalata Rajye, daughter of the Raja of Poonch, a major feudatory state of Kashmir State and his wife Princess Nalini Rajye Lakshmi Devi of Nepal. They are the parents of two children, being: