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Snowbiz247 Episode One (VIDEO): His Royal Highness Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of "The Undercover Princes" Fame
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"Undercover Prince" Revealed: His Royal Highness Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil
In the world premiere first episode of Snowbiz247, Producer and Host Nicholas Snow brings you a candid conversation with His Royal Highness Manvendra Singh Gohil about coming out gay, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show and HRH's participation in the reality TV show "The Undercover Princes." The discussion continues about rumored gay celebrities in India such as Karan Johar. Prince Manevendra also reveals techniques for using Strawberry Yogurt in the bedroom.
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Even Oprah Noticed: Meet India's Gay Prince of Social Transformation, Yuvraj Manvendra Singh Gohil of Rajpipla The coming out of Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil created an extraordinary plot twist in a true story of a royal dynasty that has spanned 600 years and 39 generations. Even Oprah noticed. Meet the Prince of Societal Transformation.
By Nicholas Snow, Originally Published Mid-2008
Royalty in India
Monarchies around the world have very different significance in their countries of origin. Some monarchs have almost god-like status and hold great power, while others are more ceremonial in nature. One country may have a single royal family, while another, in fact India, has royal dynasties from 500 or so princely states, all of which became part of a democratic India in 1950 after independence achieved from British rule in 1947—so I learned in my exclusive interview with Yuvraj (“The Prince”) Manvendra Singh Gohil of Rajpipla, 39th in line in the Gohil Dynasty, thriving for 600 years in the Princely State of Gujarat.
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of Rajpipla as photographed by Nicholas Snow in Bangkok, Thailand - February 2008
Prior to India becoming a democratic republic, the royal families possessed ruling power, and generally commanded great respect because of their contributions to culture and society over the centuries. When the republic was formed, the royal families continued to have power and privileges, as well as government support to maintain their palaces, although they did not rule. In 1971 because of the political maneuverings, royal families were stripped of any true authority despite guarantees in the constitution of India that royal authority would go on indefinitely.
Today, the royal families of India are much revered because of past and present good works, and held as role models. In fact, many very important traditions and rituals may only be carried out by royalty. In the absence of a male heir, royal families will adopt one, which is how the Gohil dynasty began approximately 600 years ago when a princess from the Parmar Dynasty adopted a male heir.
Royalty in India is also patriarchal, with the daughter serving no role but to marry a prince from another royal family. Prince Manav (as he is known to his friends) has one sibling, a sister who married into a royal family in the north of India. Historically, royal families in India would often have marital alliances with the Royal Family of Nepal as well. Today, most royal families maintain their palaces, although many have been fully or partially converted into hotels, museums or other enterprises.
Within the royal families of India, interaction among family members is generally extremely formal, and done through private secretaries. The children are in fact raised by governesses or nannies and often educated away from their parents.
Prince Manav was educated in Bombay, now known as Mumbai, and grew up primarily in the family’s colonial 15-bedroom mansion, at times with up to 22 servants—the home was eventually sold by the Prince’s grandfather to the Russian consulate, at which point they downsized to an eight bedroom estate. The Prince is quite aware of the wealth and privilege in which he was raised, acknowledging that it is not uncommon in India for entire families to live in one or two rooms.
Not Quite An Arranged Marriage
“As other gay men, I mean I would say, normally would know around the time of puberty, is when actually I came to know that I am different from others—I was attracted towards the same sex…I wasn’t sure what it was called…I certainly knew that I was different from others…,” explained the Prince, who did not know at the time this was called “gay” or “homosexual.”
The Prince was brought up in a controlled, restricted environment with limited access to the outside world. Without a frame of reference, he believed he was going through a phase, and thought he might be the only one experiencing such feelings. He was unclear and had no one to talk to. At the Bombay Scotttish School, the Prince was surrounded by the children of all the Bollywood stars and kids from other affluent families, but as a child, had no “experimentation” stories, and he did not act on his feelings later at the university as well.
When he became marriageable age, the Prince voluntarily got married, thinking his orientation would change. He got married to a princess, of course, and this was not forced upon him—it was his own decision. When a prince in India becomes of marriageable age, multiple offers begin to come into his parents from various royal families. The Prince ultimately chose his bride because she was an artist, and also because she was from a nearby town and would be familiar with the local culture and customs.
The offers generally come from relatives, but any possible marriage must first be deemed astrologically compatible, indicating a successful marriage life, at which point an offer would be considered. After this, the parents of the prospective bride and bridegroom speak and arrange a meeting. The actual meeting takes place for a limited time only, and in the presence of family. In the Prince’s case, his sister was present when he first met his future wife, and this meeting took place for only an hour or so. Historically, only an exchange of photos would take place, with no meeting.
When a meeting like this ultimately occurs, the marriage is moving ahead and the meeting is but a formality. Beforehand, the background of the bride is investigated to determine her upbringing. There is another criteria—each family must have dissimilar Gotras, another name indicating lineage. If the Gotra is too close, the marriage may not take place.
The Prince was married at the age of 25. His wife was 22. The marriage lasted for just 15 months and ended in an annulment. The Prince was emotionally attached to his wife but not sexually, hence the marriage was never consummated. The prince viewed his wife more as a sister. The young couple lived in one of the wings of the family’s 35-bedroom, 100-year-old palace, and had the marriage continued, they would have been presented with a palace of their own.
After about a year and a half of marriage, the Prince’s young wife filed a divorce case against him, indicating the marriage should be annulled due to non-consummation, citing impotency. The prince accepted and agreed to the non-consummation part, vouching for his wife’s virginity—which was confirmed with a medical test—but medically proved his own potency to discharge this ground.
“But there was no discussion on the orientation part or anything of that sort,” the Prince explained. “…I always had this doubt in my mind that my wife must have known about it, because when I was not interested in having any relation with her, she must have definitely found out if there is another girl in my life. She was unable to understand why I am not interested in her… We never discussed that part during the marriage.”
His family didn’t ask about it either, because, as the Prince explained, “In our families there is a drawback in the sense that there is little or no communication between the parents and children…we still follow the old manner… Communication is very seldom specific, and very formal. In fact we don’t even address each other by the names… I cannot call my father, ‘Dad.’ And I cannot call my mother, ‘Mom’. And similarly, she cannot call me by my name. We address each other as ‘His Highness’ or ‘Her Highness’ and they call me ‘the Prince.’”
Royal parents and children also make appointments to see one another and, in fact, may not even know if the other is in the same palace without first enquiring of the staff. “So we don’t develop an attachment with the parents,” explained the Prince.
In India, an annulment is an alternative of divorce, and there is a certain amount of compensation, either in a lump sum amount or a monthly allowance, to be paid to the wife to maintain her until she gets married. The Prince’s wife received a fair monthly allowance, but was remarried within a year.
“When my wife left me and went to her parents’ place,” confided the Prince, “she just gave me a small bit of advice. She told me, ‘you have tried to spoil my life, or rather, managed to spoil it. My advice to you is, please don’t do it again to another girl.’ And that really touched my heart and I decided that whatever may ever happen, I am not going to get married again.”
Now, about the palace, the Prince, explained, “The good thing about it is that it is pink in color, which is a very gay color. In fact, our whole city is pink... This has been the case with a lot of princely towns in India…it is more to give an identity to the town. So, I think my forefathers, my ancestors, had vision maybe, or foresight, that one of their descendants would be a gay prince, so they decided on this color. Most probably, I think that could be one of the reasons. I call my palace a strawberry cake.”
The palace was built by the Prince’s great, great grandfather for his great grandfather, who had three wives—two Indian and one English—so the palace became quite huge as wings were added for each wife.
Yoga to the Rescue
The Prince was emotionally fragile, if not distraught, after his marriage ended, “so I didn’t have the courage to go back and live in the palace, so I lived in Bombay for some time, till I got balanced, mentally balanced,” adding that “In order to obtain mental equilibrium, I joined a short course in Yoga. I actually stayed in a Yoga center for a short period of time, just to fill in the gaps to attain the kind of mental balance in my life…”
“That’s where I discovered the philosophy of life, and it’s there that I started reading books and I was trying to find how what kind of behavior I am undergoing, and I read about homosexuality. And when I talked to people in the institute about homosexuality, I was told, ‘it’s a perversion’ because people there, too, didn’t know what it is really. I thought maybe they’re right and I’m wrong—I may be a pervert.”
After becoming a certified yoga teacher, the Prince began to spend more time in his own principality, teaching yoga. Initially there was a lot of reluctance because of the amount of respect and reverence his loyal subjects had for their Prince, but they began to attend his classes. The people ultimately started coming around and responding. The Prince also became involved with other social work activities and started an agricultural project—a farm. He lived in the palace but would go down to the farm to breed earthworms and manufacturer compost, fertilizer for farmers—he did this to divert his mind.
In Search of a Gay Life
By this time, the Prince knew he was gay but was not comfortable with his sexuality because of his lack of information. The Prince read in a newspaper about the launch of a gay newsletter in Bombay called the Bombay Dost (Dost means “friend”).
“By then I had started venturing out, not being that guarded, that protected,” the Prince confided, and he ultimately found and purchased a copy of the newsletter which he was too afraid to read anywhere except in the privacy of his own toilet—where he would also write his first letters in response to pen pal ads, having secured permission from a friend to use their return address and not his own.
“My way of writing was of course very, very, formal. I did not know how to write a love letter. I had never written one in my life,” he confided. His heart raced when he received his first response. “I was not prepared to, you know, receive some letters. I made a big thing but I was really quite scared. More scared even to meet someone, you know. I had never met a gay person in my life, actually, so I did not know how to do it.”
He called one of the people who had written him, and they arranged to meet at the Prince’s school canteen, as the Prince had gone back to the university to complete his law studies. As the Prince is highly refined in his manner and presentation, and had disclosed that he was from Rajpipla, his new friend guessed that he was in fact, the Prince. By the way, they were able to identify one another in the canteen because they had described for one another what they would be wearing.
It turned out the Prince’s new friend was actually the editor of Bombay Dost, started some years earlier by the man known as India’s first gay activist, Ashok Row Kavi.
“I was desperately wanting to meet this gay activist…,” explained the Prince. His new friend explained at the canteen, “’We are having a party at my residence. Would you like to join us?’ And then he told me that Ashok Row Kavi was going to be there, and I was totally shocked, you know, and unexpected that my first response to my pen pal letter would bring me so fast to this gay activist, and I agreed. I said, ‘whatever happens, I’m definitely coming for the party, and I would like to meet this gentleman.”
The duo met at the party and had a great dialogue. That day was very rainy, pouring cats and dogs, which creates rivers in the streets of knee-deep water. The Prince had is car but for discretion, had not brought his driver. When they were leaving, the Prince offered Ashok a ride home. As the drive ensued, the Prince was in for a surprise.
“It turned out that he was my next door neighbor,” the Prince exclaimed of Ashok. “He has been living there since so many years and I didn’t know about it. And another coincidence happened that we happened to study in the same school. He was a student of Bombay Scottish School. He also belongs to an elite family. His father—they owned a mansion in Bombay—was a leading Bollywood film producer. I couldn’t’ believe that, my god, the guy who I’ve been searching since the time I’ve known about him happens to be my next door neighbor.”
So, yes, the most famous openly-gay activist in India was the Prince’s next door neighbor.
“Of course, then we became the best of best friends,” explained the Prince. “My mother apparently knew Ashok Row Kavi because Ashok was a journalist, he still is a journalist.”
Apparently, Ashok, a journalist trying to do something about a local slum issue, had already met the Prince’s mother, but the Queen was unaware of Ashok’s gay activism and, in fact, had wanted the Prince to meet Ashok. Sure, Prince had heard the name “Ashok” but did not realize it was the Ashok.
“When I was meeting Ashok, my mother thought I was going for slum activism,” the Prince related with a smile. “Little did she know that this little queen was going for getting comfortable with his sexuality. He became my non-biological mom over a period of time,” the Prince shared of Ashok. “In fact, he is the universal mother to a lot of gay men in India and the world over.”
“It was Ashok Row Kavi that actually made me comfortable with my sexuality—he told me it’s absolutely fine,” said the Prince. “He removed the guilt feeling from me—I was having lots of guilty conscience, like I’m doing something wrong, and he was the one who sensitized me and made feel like I’m absolutely normal, and that what I’m doing is natural. And then I slowly got myself involved in the work he was doing…for HIV/AIDS prevention work amongst the gay community in Bombay.”
A First Time for Everything
The Prince began to cut his activist teeth under the mentorship of Ashok, while the Queen believed the prince was working on yoga and slum issues. Again, via Bombay Dost, the Prince met someone from his own princely state. The gentleman happened to be part of the medical profession, but not a doctor, and coincidentally had a relationship with a hospital in Rajpipla where the Prince himself was a trustee. The Prince invited the gentleman to lunch at the palace, and then for an overnight stay in one of the wings that had been converted into a hotel.
I wondered how the two would end up on the same room without the staff noticing.
As the royal compound is large with two roaming security guards, the Prince made his move when neither guard was in sight. “At night, I sneaked into his room,” the Prince confided. “I went to his room, and you can imagine what happened after that.”
I could imagine, but I wanted to know the g-rated version, what would have happened up until the time the camera faded to black in the movie version.
“It was the first experience for me and I didn’t know how to start. Well, for him, it wasn’t a first experience,” said the Prince of the younger man (they were both in their 20’s). “He had several men before, but he was a bit reluctant, also, because for him it was his first experience with a prince. So he was also a bit nervous, and I was also nervous, and I was of course more nervous than him…”
“He was resting on the bed, the back rest, with his legs on the bed and I took a chair and sat facing him. I wasn’t even touching him. I was looking at him and that’s how we began the conversation. I didn’t know how to start it so I thought the best way is to keep away from him and kind of wait till he makes the first move,” revealed the Prince.
“So, as the night was going past, he sort of from the back rest he got to sit on the bed and he came a little closer to me, and the first touch was, he touched my hand—and it was cold and sweaty and perspiring. He told me, ‘be relaxed.” In fact, his tone also showing nervousness, but he came to know that I was also nervous. He knew this was my first time with a guy so he was trying to relax me. I said, ‘No, I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me.’ He just told me, ‘Be cool about it. Don’t worry.’ After he got my hand, we just sort of embraced each other…”
The adventure continued, with the Prince simply mirroring his companion’s every move. With an embrace, they were both on the bed. “I was nervous and then, over a period of time, the nervousness faded down and the excitement grew. In fact, he made me feel very much relaxed. He sensed that I wasn’t prepared for it so, in fact he first made me feel very mentally prepared, and then went back to the physical part of it.”
“So you snuck back to your palace afterwards?” I asked.
“I didn’t forget my shoe there, heading back,” the Prince joked in a reverse-Cinderella reference, but the event was life-changing.
“This person played a very important part of my life, the friend of mine with whom I had the first sexual experience, because he exposed me to the gay world of Gujarat. He was having a huge network, had a lot of friends in Gujarat… Like how Ashok exposed me to the gay world in Bombay…”
The Prince would go to his new friend’s apartment on many occasions while his driver slept in the car—for community building, networking, and who know’s what else. “He introduced me to a lot of friends in the whole area, and slowly and slowly I started talking to them about our rights, our issues, our stigma, discrimination… Ashok had trained me while I was in Bombay, how you should you empower others, and you know, first make them feel comfortable. I followed the same guidelines of Ashok, how he made me feel comfortable with my sexuality, because there were a lot of men in our area who were still not coming to terms with their sexuality. You know, even in spite that they are gay, they would say, ‘we are straight.’”
The social network ultimately convened a three-day conference during which 55-60 gay men gathered at one of the Prince’s palaces, and at the encouragement of Ashok Row Kavi, representatives of the government attended as well. On the final day, with support and funding from the government, the Lakshya Trust was founded to educate MSM (men who have sex with men) in the principality about HIV/AIDS—the first CBO (Community Based Organization) of its kind outside of Bombay.
Family Ties
Much later, the Prince started drifting away from the family business and doing more social work and gay activism and work fighting HIV/AIDS in the community. He had no problems with his bread and butter because as he says, he was born with a golden spoon. His farm was profitable which provided the income he needed, but surprisingly, his family was still putting marriage pressures on him.
Yes, he had no girlfriend, but now, he had a lot of men in his life. By then, Ashok had come out much more in the media so the Prince’s mother, the Queen, came to know Ashok as more than just a slum activist. At one point, the prince’s mother even charged that it was Ashok that had recruited the Prince into gay life.
In the year 2002, not only was the Prince was getting a lot of marriage pressure from the King and Queen, but from the people in his town as well, anxious for news of an heir apparent. There were also teething problems with the trust, and these factors combined caused the Prince to completely stress out, requiring hospitalization for 15 days. During the hospitalization, the Prince came out to his psychiatrist, who was very comfortable with it—calling it no big deal. The psychiatrist volunteered to talk to the King and Queen, and the prince gave his consent.
The psychiatrist shared the info with the parents, one at a time, via their private secretaries of course. The King and Queen believed this was “not possible” that their son was gay, referencing all of the girlfriends the Prince had had, along with a great upbringing, etc. The psychiatrist advised that his parents needed to accept the Prince to help him recover and be happy, that they had no choice but to accept him because they could not afford to lose their son. The King and Queen’s acceptance was half-hearted, as they were still intent on finding a cure for homosexuality.
During the effort to cure the Prince, the King and Queen would take him to see the religious heads and also pressure him to get married, which they believed could cause heterosexuality. The prince put his foot down and stressed that he did not want to ruin another girl’s life. He said, “Would you want your own daughter to marry a known gay? We have no right to spoil the life of a girl if you have no right to spoil your own daughter.”
The King and Queen knew about the trust, but were ignorant and believed that the Prince could get HIV from casual contact during his volunteerism. The already formal relations in the royal family became even more formal, and in an ironic twist, the King and Queen threatened to out the Prince, to disclose to the media that he is gay and working with the HIV/AIDS issue.
Media Firestorm
The Prince decided to come out of the closet on his own terms and in 2006, cooperated with a journalist, editor and newspaper who guaranteed the story would be accurate, non-homophobic, and ultimately formally approved by the Prince and his journalist colleagues prior to publication.
Initially, the paper was going to run the story in a supplement, but instead featured it as the lead story on the front page. With a huge photo, the headline read, “The Prince of Rajpipla Declares That He is Homosexual.” The news spread throughout India in multiple languages, as there was great shock that someone from a royal family would make such a proclamation, and most shocked, it seemed, were members of other royal families quite intent on staying in the closet themselves.
“They were shitting in their pants,” explained the Prince, indicating that other royals started calling up the King and Queen, pressuring that they disown and disinherit the prince for the shame and humiliation that he had brought upon the family. The townspeople in the principality were pressured to excommunicate the Prince as well.
Ultimately, the King and Queen issued a public notice to the newspaper via their lawyer indicating, “We hereby disown the prince and disinherit him” because “he is engaged in activities which are objectionable by the society.” Three months had transpired since the front page coming-out story.
Yes, the Prince was at a conference in Delhi and learned of the turn of events when a reporter from the Times of India asked him to comment. At the time the Prince took the moral high road and said that he did not blame is parents, but instead blamed their ignorance and misunderstanding of the issues. He also stated that “his parents were pressured by people with vested interests,” and that he would not take any action against his parents.
“I was never owned by them, so where is the question of disowning? They can go ahead and disinherit me,” the Prince stated.
In another twist of fate, a major television show invited a lawyer on as a guest who explained that the Prince’s parents had no legal right to disinherit a rightful heir to ancestral property—the media in India ate this story up, and the Prince maintained that he would continue to work for his cause, for activism, for empowerment, and that this parents’ actions would not prevent this.
A media firestorm persisted for days, as the Prince and his family were on practically every channel, several times a day, which provoked the King to communicate a request to the prince via His private secretary, “Please stop it now. His Highness is very upset. He is regretting having given the notice.” The King requested the Prince stop granting interviews until such time as a meeting could take place at the Royal residence in Bombay.
At the meeting, the King’s secretary did most of the talking, indicating about the King and Queen that “They were not mentally prepared for this coming out to the society.” The King later publicly revoked the disinheritance, granting an interview to the Times of India indicating that he regretted having bowed to outside pressure, reaffirming his son as a gifted individual who was not dependent upon family wealth. The headline of the story was, “I acted in anger.”
The Prince’s story was ultimately reported in the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, and in a national telecast on the America Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on July 3rd, 2007. The Prince then flew to Chicago in October, 2007, to appear on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, themed “Gays around the World.”
“We got royal treatment in America,” explained the Prince, “much more than what we even got in India.” From the stretch limo to the best hotels, to Oprah herself showing the Prince a great deal of respect, stating, “You’re the most genuine royal I’ve met.”
This was of course, a big deal back in India. People who were initially homophobic became congratulatory towards the Prince and a subsequent royal gathering at the family palace, while still formal, was quite pleasant.
Onward and Upward
In the year of the Prince’s coming out, the Lakshya Trust was awarded the Civil Societies Award for Outstanding Contributions for HIV Outreach Among MSM, presented by India’s regional head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The QMC (Queer Media Collective) recently awarded the Prince the Gay Newsmaker of the Year at ceremonies in Mumbai. About the recognition, the Prince acknowledges the contradictions, as on one hand, in India there is a law that criminalizes homosexual acts, and on the other hand, the government is funding HIV/AIDS education.
Many people from royal families around the world have come out to the Prince, and have shown their support for him. Moving ahead, the Prince is intent to create both a hospice for HIV/AIDS patients, to care for patients with love and dignity, and to empower the staff so they may find economic independence and avoid becoming sex workers. The Prince would also like to create an old age home because, as he stated, “The heterosexual world doesn’t understand our issues.”
The Prince remains a volunteer and trustee with the Lakshya Trust and in fact, donates 65% of the income from his farm and ancestral properties directly to the trust and related charities. When he is not working, the Prince is in Mumbai at the family residence studying classical Indian music from an elder master of the Harmonium. And representing his native India, the Prince also serves on a regional board working to educate MSM about HIV/AIDS, and yes, he still teaches Yoga.
His Royal Highness. Looking to the Future
Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil as photographed by Mr. Vipul Mane, Divya Bhaskar Newspaper
“My hopes and dreams are to make India a country which accepts homosexuals, accepts us as the way we are, as human beings… It is the mindset of the society which needs to be changed… I’ve just given a push to this movement by openly coming out and talking about our rights. I wish to continue this,” declared the Prince, “and I wish to see a day where gay marriages are allowed in our country.”
The Prince also wants to see a day when he is settled down with a man who shares his political and social passions, someone with whom he can grow old, and when the time is appropriate—when he becomes King—he will adopt a male heir to maintain the Gohil dynasty for a 40th generation.
Could this be karma?
“Maybe I was assigned to be born in that manner. Maybe I was assigned to be an activist. Otherwise, you can think, I had no doubts of anything in my life. I had all the luxuries of life with me. What was the necessity of me to start in the first place an organization to work for the gay community? There was no reason for me to do that… Give aside homosexuality—there is not a single royal family in India who has started an organization to work on HIV/AIDS. So, I think of it as maybe I was assigned to be born in this family and to be born here,” concluded the Prince, “and to find support from people like Ashok Row Kavi—who happened to be in my neighborhood!”
For more information, visit www.lakshyatrust.org.
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