The word Darbar or Durbar, as the British wrote it, was of Persian origin, introduced to India by the Mughals. It could be used to describe a ruler's court, the formal and informal meetings were held.

The ceremonies by which a Maharaja or Nawab was installed, the meticulous exchange of official presents as between the subordinate ruler and the representative of the paramount government, took place here. The seating at these ceremonies and the order of precedence, all this was not something invented by the British or even by the ruler, but a survival of a state of affairs that had existed long before the British ever came to rule these parts.'

The order of precedence was taken most seriously by both the British and the princes, because 'when you go back to Mughal times or even earlier it was your place in court, and where you sat in court or where you were greeted on arrival that showed the world what your position was. It affected your prestige and it was on that prestige and influence that the ruler's power depended. Constant attempts by princes to improve their position in the established order of precedence created many problems.

The British contribution to princely protocol was the gun-salutes that reinforced a ruler's public standing. They, too, provoked much interstate rivalry, which successive Viceroys only fuelled by awarding personal salutes to favoured rulers that gave them an additional 2-gun salute on top of the state salute. One ruler in the 1930s who was notorious in the Political Department for 'always pushing himself forward' in an attempt to increase his gun salute from 13 to 15 guns was the Jam-Saheb of Nawanagar, who believed he should be placed higher on the table than his near neighbours Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Porbandar, Dhrangadhara and Palanpur. There was good reason behind such ambitions, for 'if you were a prince with no gun salute, then every twopenny-halfpenny political Agent could come and visit you every three months and ask to see the accounts. Whereas if you had a high enough gun salute, then the Political Agent could only come to you like a chaprassi (messenger), and if you had a 19-gun salute then you were left alone, because only the Viceroy could come and bother you. So the higher the gun salute, the less trouble you had - and this was the attraction.'

Another form of public recognition that 'touched the princes to the quick' was the awarding of titles and decorations. Many were hereditary and went with the job, appellations such as Rais-ud-Daula (Chief of the Kingdom), Sipar-i-Saltanat (shield of the Kingdom), Farzand-i-Khas (Privileged Son) or Lokendra (Protector of the World), either given in the days of the Mughals or self-awarded by ancestors to bolster their prestige - part of a process of aggrandisement that saw plain raja develop into such superlatives as Maharajadhiraja (Great King of Kings), or even Sawai Maharaja, a title conferred on the rulers of Jaipur by Emperor Aurangzeb and meaning 'one and a quarter Maharaja'. To these the British added their own honours, notably the KCSI, KCIE, GCIE and the much-coveted GCSI. The end result was that a ruler such as the Seventh Nizam had a title that ran on for several lines and could be translated as: 'Lieutenant - General His Exalted Highness Seventh in Line Equal to the rank of Asaf Jah, Victor of the Realm and the World, Regulator of the Realm, Regulator of the State, Viceroy Sir the Honourable Osman, Ali Khan, the Brave, Victorious in Battle, Faithful Ally of the British, Grand Commander of the Star of India, Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire, Nizam of Hyderabad and Berar.'

Physical symbols of kingship the Raj chinnha were equally important outward sings: the royal chhatri or umbrella that was held over the ruler's head when he walked or rode in procession: the chamars or chaoris made of yaks' tails set in silver handles that originally served as fly-whisks; the gold morchals and silver abdagaris in the form of fishes and pear - shaped discs on the end of long poles that were carried as standards; the fans of peacocks' feathers and the great gold and silver maces carried by the court heralds and mace-bearers; and, above all, the gadi or raised cushion 'synonymous with power' upon which the ruler sat cross-legged or with his feet tucked under him. Adding weight to this royal regalia were the various declarations of sovereign authority made on all formal occasions by the royal bards, poet's, singers and heralds.

Not every state ran to resident singers and poet laureates to extol the virtues of the ruler and his clan in music and words, but every formal Darbar would have its chobdars, bhaldars, chamardars and chhadidars in attendance. It was the duty of these last two to carry the state regalia in particular the silver-handled fans and fly-whisks: 'These people were normally Muslims who in the old days functioned as bodyguards and you can see their importance when you go into a temple. On both sides of the idol there are often statues of "Jai" and "Vijay", the two bodyguards'. In Sangli State they' dressed in red with gold embroidery and gold turbans, with a waistcloth or belt made of Paithani cloth'. In larger states the more important members of the nobility might also be given the privilege of having their own mace-bearers, so that in Bikaner there were as many as fifteen attending the ruler's court.