[1] Born on 9 October 1928 at Bhuj, Maharaj Kumar Himmatsinhji was the youngest of five sons of Mirza Maharao Vijayrajji Sawai Bahadur, the Maharaja of Cutch and as such younger brother of last Maharaja of Cutch, Shri Madansinhji.
[1][2] In 1947, when India got independence, his father Sri Vijayaraji was away in US for his treatment and Yuvraj Madansinhji was in Delhi.
Himmatsinhji, who was at the time a student, hoisted both the flags of Kutch and of India on 15 August 1947, in the grounds of Gangaba Sahib Middle School at Bhuj.
[3] He married Princess Padmini Kumari, daughter of Maharaja Pratapsinhji Jhala of Wankaner in 1951.
[2] Himmatsinhji's father, Maharao Vijayaraji, funded Salim Ali's survey of the birds of Kutch and Himmatsinhji took considerable interest and later became an ornithologist in his own right[1][2][6][7] and regularly published notes on the birds of the Kutch region,[8] most of these were in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society apart from a few books and these include: