Rajpipla: The Kingdom Behind the Statue

There is a palace in Narmada district with a domed central block, a sweeping portico and a good deal of Italianate ambition, built in the 1910s by a maharaja who would go on to win the Epsom Derby. It sits in a small, sleepy, entirely ordinary town about thirty kilometres from the Statue of Unity, and the several million people who visit the statue each year drive straight past the turning.

Rajpipla was the capital of a princely state that ran for centuries, and its rulers — the Gohil Rajputs — built the way princely rulers did: palaces, a clock tower, gardens, guesthouses, civic buildings, all in the confident hybrid styles of the late colonial period. The state acceded to India in 1948, the town became a district headquarters, and the buildings mostly stayed. It is one of the most rewarding hours in the district and almost nobody spends it here.

The palace, and the Derby

The Rajvant Palace, also known as the Vijay Palace, was built for Maharaja Vijaysinhji and completed in the second decade of the twentieth century. Its architecture is the eclectic confidence of the era: a central dome, Italianate detailing, Gothic and Indian elements mixed in, marble, stained glass, ironwork and a long facade set behind gardens. It has been operated as a heritage hotel, and access for non-residents varies, so ask rather than assume — but even from the grounds and the approach it is a striking building.

Its owner is the reason Rajpipla appears in unexpected places. Maharaja Vijaysinhji was a serious racehorse owner, and in 1934 his colt Windsor Lad won the Epsom Derby — the first and, for a long time, the only Derby winner owned by an Indian. Windsor Lad went on to win the St Leger the same year. There is a statue and local memory of the horse in Rajpipla, and the story is the kind of improbable detail that makes princely India endlessly interesting: a small state in the Narmada hills, and its ruler's colt first past the post at Epsom.

The town holds other buildings from the same period — the Indrajit and Padmini Mahal, various guesthouses and civic structures, a clock tower, and the general fabric of a planned princely capital. Several are in institutional use or private hands and not open, which means the visit is largely an exercise in walking and looking rather than touring interiors. That is fine. The scale and coherence of it is the point.

A confident 1910s palace in a small town nobody stops in, thirty minutes from the Statue of Unity.

A prince, and a rather modern story

Rajpipla's other claim on public attention is much more recent. Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, of the same family, came out publicly as gay in 2006 — the first member of an Indian royal family to do so — and has since become one of India's better-known LGBTQ rights campaigners, working on HIV prevention and awareness and establishing a trust and a support centre on family land near the town.

A Derby-winning colt in 1934 and, seventy years later, the first Indian prince to come out publicly — Rajpipla's two claims on the world's attention

The reaction at the time was severe and included a public disowning, and the story has been covered extensively in Indian and international media over the two decades since. Whatever one's view, it has made a small Gujarati town a reference point in a national conversation, and it sits oddly and rather wonderfully alongside the Windsor Lad story in the same family's history.

None of this is presented to visitors — there is no interpretation centre, no heritage trail, no signage tying the town's stories together. Rajpipla is not curated. You arrive, you look at the palace, you walk a few streets, you ask a couple of people questions, and you leave with a much better sense of what a princely state actually was than any museum would give you.

The town and the country around it

Rajpipla itself is a working district town on the Karjan river, with a bazaar, a temple to Harsiddhi Mata, some pleasant older streets and no tourist infrastructure to speak of beyond the palace hotel. An hour or two covers it. What makes it worth building into an itinerary is what surrounds it: this is the gateway town for the Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, and it sits between the sanctuary's hill forest, the Narmada at Garudeshwar and the Kevadia complex.

That gives you an obvious two- or three-day shape. Statue of Unity and the dam on one afternoon; the forest and Zarwani waterfall for a night and a morning; Garudeshwar's ghats at dusk; and Rajpipla for the palace and a walk. The town is also the more characterful place to sleep than Kevadia's new hotel strip, if you can get into the palace or find a decent local option. For anyone driving between Vadodara and the Statue of Unity, it costs almost nothing to detour.

Practicalities

Rajpipla is about 80 km from Vadodara, roughly two hours by road, and Vadodara is the practical gateway with an airport and a major railway station. Bharuch and Ankleshwar on the Mumbai–Delhi corridor are around 60 km away, and Kevadia — with its new railway station — is about 30 km. Buses run to Rajpipla from Vadodara, Bharuch and Ankleshwar, but a hired car makes far more sense given the district's spread.

October to March is the comfortable season, with the monsoon a strong second choice if the Shoolpaneshwar waterfalls are part of your plan, since the surrounding hills are at their best from August to October. April to June is hot. Accommodation is the palace hotel plus basic town options; Kevadia has the volume, and the forest campsite at Zarwani has the atmosphere. Access to the palace interiors depends on whether it is operating and how busy it is, so telephone ahead rather than turning up with expectations.

If you go

• Telephone ahead about the Rajvant Palace — access for non-residents depends on whether it is operating as a hotel and how busy it is.
• Ask locally about Windsor Lad; the 1934 Derby win is genuine local memory and the best story in town.
• Allow an hour or two for the palace and a walk through the older streets; Rajpipla is not a full-day destination.
• Use it as the characterful base for Shoolpaneshwar, Zarwani and Garudeshwar rather than staying in Kevadia's hotel strip.
• Come October to March, or in the monsoon if the waterfalls in the sanctuary are the point of your trip.

Rajpipla is the reason to take the turning. Thirty kilometres from a statue that draws millions, there is a domed Italianate palace built by a maharaja whose horse won the Epsom Derby, in a town whose royal family later produced India's first openly gay prince, and none of it is signposted or curated in any way. Give it two hours, ask questions, and use it as the base for the forest and the river rather than sleeping in a new hotel by the dam.