Malhar Rao Gaekwad was the eleventh Maharaja of
Baroda State
Baroda State was a kingdom within the Maratha Confederacy and later a princely state in present-day Gujarat. It was ruled by the Gaekwad dynasty from its formation in 1721 until its accession to the newly formed Dominion of India. With th ...
reigning from 1870 to 1875. He was the sixth son of
Sayaji Rao Gaekwad II and became
Maharaja
Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...
of Baroda after the death of his elder brother,
Khanderao II Gaekwad.
Reign
Malhar Rao spent money liberally on prostitutes, nearly emptying the Baroda coffers (he commissioned a pair of solid gold cannon and a carpet of pearls, among other expenses) and soon reports reached the Resident of Malhar Rao's gross tyranny and cruelty. Malharrao further attempted to cover up his deeds by poisoning the British Resident at Baroda,
Robert Phayre, brother of
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...
Arthur Purves Phayre
Sir Arthur Purves Phayre (7 May 1812 – 14 December 1885) was a career British Indian Army officer who was the first Commissioner of British Burma, 1862–1867, Governor of Mauritius, 1874–1878, and author.
Early life
Phayre was born in Shre ...
with a compound of
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...
. By order of the
Secretary of State for India
His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, known for short as the India secretary or the Indian secretary, was the British Cabinet minister and the political head of the India Office responsible for the governance of ...
,
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903), known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United ...
, Malharrao was deposed on 10 April 1875 and exiled to
Madras
Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...
, where he died in obscurity in 1882.
References
External links
BARODA
1830s births
1882 deaths
Maharajas of Vadodara
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