Examines the political worldview of courtly and royal women in India during the late colonial and post-Independence period. This book offers a history of the zenana, which served as the 'women's courts' or 'female quarters of the palace', where women lived behind pardah in seclusion.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Palace Politics: Zenana Life in the Late Colonial Princely State, c. 1890-1947; Chapter 2 Reading the Role of Women in Succession Disputes: Kenneth Fitze's A Review of Modern Practice in Regard to Successions in Indian States; Chapter 3 A Discourse on Desire: The Politics of Marriage Alliance in the Hindu Zenana; Chapter 4 Breaking (Male) Hearts: The Role of Love, Colonial Law and Materrnal Authority in Two Disputed Royal Marriages in Early Twentieth-Century Kathiawar; Chapter 5 Troubles in Indore, The Maharaja's Women: Loving Dangerously; Chapter 6 From 'Pardah to Parliament': Dynastic Politics and the Role of Royal Women in Postcolonial India; Chapter 7 Epilogue;