[2] He belonged to a cadet branch of the Gaekwad dynasty, descended from a morganatic marriage of the first Raja of Baroda, and so was not expected to succeed to the throne.

By order of the Secretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury, Malharrao was deposed on 10 April 1875 and exiled to Madras, where he died in obscurity in 1882.

During his minority he was extensively tutored in administrative skills by Raja Sir T. Madhava Rao who groomed his young protégé into a person with foresight and with a will to provide welfare to his people.

On assuming the reins of government, some of his first tasks included education of his subjects, uplifting of the downtrodden, and judicial, agricultural and social reforms.

[4] Fully aware of the fact that he was a Maratha ruler of Gujarat, he identified himself with the people and shaped their cosmopolitan attitude and progressive, reformist zeal.

He was the first Indian ruler to introduce, in 1906, compulsory and free primary education in his state, placing his territory far in advance of contemporary British India.

[3] According to his granddaughter Gayatri Devi, she states in her autobiography that due to some reason he had been unable to attend the rehearsals and didn't know how to greet The King-Emperor.

[6] For several years already, Sayajirao had angered the British by his open support for the Indian National Congress and its leaders; the incident before the King-Emperor proved to be the last straw.

On the Diamond Jubilee of his accession to the throne, he set apart large funds out of his personal and state funds for setting up a University in Vadodara for the benefit of students from the rural areas of his state – a task that was ultimately completed by his grandson Sir Pratapsinghrao Gaekwad, who founded the Maharaja Sayajirao University and settled the trust as desired by his grandfather.

Those persons whom he patronised included Dr. Babasaheb alias Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, later the head of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution that came to force in 1950; Vitthal Ramji Shinde, the founder of the “Mission to the depressed class” and one of the most important social & religious reformers in Maharashtra;[8] and Dadabhai Naoroji, who started his public life as the Dewan (Minister) to the Maharaja in 1874 and thereafter went on to become the first Asian Member of the British House of Commons where he made no secret of the fact that he would also be representing 250 million of his fellow subjects in India.

In 1895 the Maharaja is claimed to have witnessed the successful flight of an unmanned aircraft constructed by S. B. Talpade, which happened eight years before the Wright brothers took to the skies.

Sayajirao commissioned and paid for research and its publication by James Hornell on Marine Biology, which to this day remains a key source of information.

After the death of Appaswamy in 1939, Kantimati and their son, Guru Shri Kubernath Tanjorkar, left Baroda to teach in Lucknow, and then worked in the film industry in South India until Sayajirao's successor, Pratap Singh Rao Gaekwad recalled the family to Baroda in 1949 to teach in the Music Department in the Kalavan Palace, later absorbed into the Maharaja Sayajirao University (Gaston 1996: 158–160).

So what we have here is a tradition of very distinguished Bharatanatyam dancers and teachers, members of a family considered an offshoot of the Tanjore Quartet bani (stylistic schools; Gaston 1996: 159), already established in Gujarat by the time Mrinalini set up her own academy.

A strong proponent of rights for Indian women, she proved every bit as willful and capable as her husband for the 53 years of their marriage, becoming equally well known throughout India.

They had several sons and one daughter: Other descendants of Sayajirao would wed the rulers of Kolhapur, Sawantwadi, Akkalkot, Jath, Dewas Jr., Kota, Dhar, Jasdan, Sandur and Gwalior.

After that both brothers were respected in open court (Baroda state darbar) and their bronze statues were established in royal Sayaji Baug by Sayajirao Gaekwad.