Qualla: Baroda State

Baroda State: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Various, Public domain. Kashirao and his three sons walked 600 kilometers to apply for a throne. It was 1875, and the seat of Baroda -- one of the wealthiest princely states in India -- stood vacant after its occupant had been deposed for attempting to poison the British Resident with arsenic. Maharani Jamnabai, widow of the previous legitimate ruler, summoned branches of the Gaekwad dynasty to present themselves and their sons. From the village of Kavlana, the family came on foot. The boy who would be chosen, twelve-year-old Gopalrao, would be renamed Sayajirao and placed on a gilded throne that came with solid gold cannons, a carpet made entirely of pearls, and the governance of over a thousand square miles of Gujarat.

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Image: Various | Public domain

Baroda State: In the Heart of the Banyan Tree

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bagdadmehmud, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name Vadodara, from which the anglicized Baroda derives, comes from the Sanskrit vatodara: "in the heart of the banyan tree." The 17th-century Gujarati poet Premanand Bhatt also called it Virakshetra, the land of warriors. Early English travelers knew it as Brodera. The state...

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Image: Bagdadmehmud | CC BY-SA 4.0

Baroda State: The Poisoner on the Throne

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The succession crisis of the 1870s reads like a Jacobean revenge tragedy set in Gujarat. When Maharaja Khanderao Gaekwad died in 1870, his brother Malharrao was next in line but had already been imprisoned for conspiring to assassinate Khanderao. The succession was delayed becaus...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Baroda State: Reformer and Collector

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lafayette, Public domain. Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the boy who walked from Kavlana, became one of India's most progressive rulers. Adopted by Maharani Jamnabai on 27 May 1875 and enthroned on 16 June, he ruled under a regency council until assuming full powers on 28 December 1881. He founded the Bank of Bar...

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Image: Lafayette | Public domain

Baroda State: Resistance, Rails, and the End of a Kingdom

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Baroda's history was not only royal pageantry. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Koli chieftains Nathaji Patel and Yamaji Patel led a revolt in Chandap, drove out Gaekwad cavalry, and retreated into the Taranga hills. They assembled 2,000 Koli and Bhil soldiers and adopted gue...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain