Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1913 — WOMAN RULES INDIAN STATE [ARTICLE]

WOMAN RULES INDIAN STATE

Begam of Bhopal Has Governed Country Wisely and Well for Eleven Years.

There have been a few opportunities to know something of that interesting and unusual woman, the Regain of Bhopal, who has for the last eleven years been ruler of her country, the small state of Bhopal, in the middle of Central India. The Begam was born in 1858, and the free, Independent spirit of her family is shown by the fact that though a girl her advent was not knwelcome.

When she was seven years old arrangements were made for her marriage, and the boy selected for/her husband was brbught to the court and shared her studies. When the Begam. was fifteen they were married, and strangely enough, the marriage was a happy one. The Begam found in her husband a faithful friend, and it Is said'that she mourned his death very deeply. In 1888 the Begam’s eldest daughter died. She would have been her heir, the first born, Irrespective of sex, being In Bhopal the heir apparent.

In 1901 she became ruler owing to the death of her mother and at once set about improvements and reforms in all the various state departments. One of the Begam’s chief interests was education, particularity, too. the education of girls. She decided, therefore, to open and patronize personally a girls’ school. The education of girls in Bhopal was chiefly limited to a study of the Koran and the rudiments of the Urdu language, with here and there some Blight knowledge of writing learned from fathers and brothers. But their attendance at schools and their advancement in general knowledge was looked upon as a dangerous innovation.