India, June 26 -- "We have all different ways of beginning the day. The Englishman starts his day on bacon and eggs, the German on sausages, the American on cornflakes. His Highness prefers a virgin." So wrote KL Gauba of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala and his 350 concubines in His Highness (1930).

A lacerating account of the excesses of the princely class, His Highness looked forward to India being rid of "medieval despotism". Its tone was diametrically opposed to that of a book published when Gauba was born. This was Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), in which Dadabhai Naoroji highlighted the "splendid prospect" held out by Mysore, which had transformed the sizable budget deficit left behind by British administrators int...