Baiza Bai

Baiza Bai ran Gwalior and a banking house after her husband died, was deposed by the British for being effective, and spent thirty years trying to get it back. She was the daughter of a Maratha commander, Sakharam Ghatge, and married Daulatrao Shinde in 1798; she rode with him on campaign, was present at the battle of Assaye in 1803, and was consulted on the state's finances during his reign. When he died in 1827 without a son, she adopted an heir and ruled as regent. She was an unusually able financier: the Gwalior treasury under her lent money across northern India, and contemporaries estimated her personal fortune in tens of millions of rupees, much of it placed with bankers in Ujjain and Benares. She resisted the East India Company's attempts to control the state's revenue and its army, and the British Resident treated her as an obstacle. In 1833 the adopted heir, now a teenager, was set against her by a faction the Residency encouraged; troops mutinied over arrears, and she was driven out and refused permission to return. She lived in exile at Dholpur, Fatehgarh and Benares, petitioning for restoration and funding temples and ghats. She was suspected of encouraging the 1857 rebellion and was watched throughout it, without anything being proved. She was allowed back to Gwalior only in 1860 and died there three years later. She endowed the Baiza Bai ghat and a market at Benares, both of which still carry her name. British officials who dealt with her described her ability in terms they rarely used about Indian rulers and recommended removing her anyway. Her granddaughter's descendants remained the ruling family of Gwalior. She is one of the few Indian women of the period whose financial dealings are documented well enough to be studied.

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