Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner (1880-1943), Indian Ruler and general

Sitter in 10 portraits
Ruler and Statesman. The Maharaja was regarded as a progressive ruler, who promoted water supplies, railways, hospitals and schools in Bikaner (Rajputana), as well as a representative assembly in 1913. He put the resources of his state at Britain's disposal in 1914, and himself served in France and Egypt. He was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet and a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919. The first Chancellor of the Indian Chamber of Princes from 1921 to 1926, he attended the Round Table Conferences in London in 1930-1, but his role, like that of other princes in the sub-continent, was to become an anachronism as a new urban, educated middle class strove for independence.