Наследие 600 лет: князь Катихава запускает проект устойчивого развития деревень

The House of Kathiwada traces its origins to 1434, with the erstwhile princely state ruled by the Jadon Rajput dynasty. While its formal political status ended with the Independence in 1947, the family’s legacy continues through its work in heritage, culture, and rural development. At the centre of this new chapter is Rana Digvijay Sinh Kathiwada, son of Rajmata Sangita Devi Kathiwada and the late Yuvraj Bharat Sinh Kathiwada. A custodian of one of Madhya Pradesh’s oldest royal legacies, Digvijay is now taking that heritage forward through Kathiwada 2034, a long-term vision focused on education, ecology and sustainable rural development. (Also read: Inside Prince Azam Jah’s royal life: Son of Hyderabad’s 8th Nizam shares rare stories of palaces, culture and legacy ) In an exclusive interview with HT Lifestyle, Digvijay Kathiwada speaks about his family’s nearly 600-year legacy, Kathiwada 2034, and his vision for the region. For Digvijay, the significance of the House of Kathiwada’s nearly six-century history lies less in royalty and more in custodianship. “The House of Kathiwada was established in 1434, and by 2034 we'll mark 600 years of unbroken lineage of the Jadon clan of Rajputs. That's not a statistic I take lightly,” he says. Across 23 generations, the family governed a valley nestled in the Vindhya hills. Yet, he believes the most important inheritance was never political power. “We were never the biggest or most powerful princely state, but we were rooted. That core value of responsibility is the actual inheritance, more than any title. Going forward, the legacy of custodianship is what stands the test of time,” he says. His understanding of that responsibility was shaped by the landscape around him. “My forefathers planted forests that still stand, built water systems still in use, and made decisions for a community that stretched across castes and cultures long before ‘inclusive development’ was a phrase anyone used,” he says. “Growing up, I understood this history less as a story about kings and more as a story about stewardship and custodianship, and about what you owe a place that has trusted your family for six centuries.” Although Kathiwada lost its formal political authority after Independence, Digvijay believes its social legacy continued. “It lost its formal political power in 1947 but it never lost its social one,” he says. “My great-grandfather and grandfather governed with administrative authority; I lead through influence, partnership and direct investment instead.” Today, Kathiwada comprises 125 villages and roughly 200,000 people, with Bhil and Bhilala tribal communities forming a significant part of its population. Digvijay sees the region’s relative isolation as both a challenge and an advantage. “The valley itself has evolved slower than most of India... That’s partly why it stayed under-documented and underinvested for decades. But that same isolation preserved something most of rural India has lost, which is its fairly intact ecology, intact community structures and a cultural continuity you can still feel walking through the villages,” he says. His challenge now is to introduce opportunity without destroying those qualities. “My job today is to build the infrastructure and opportunity this place has been owed, without erasing what made it worth protecting in the first place,” he says. Some of Digvijay’s strongest memories of Kathiwada are rooted in traditions passed down through generations. He recalls being expected from a young age to sit with elders and villagers and genuinely listen. His coronation at 18 was another defining experience. “The ‘Raj Tilak’ and the ‘Rajyabhishek’, where you're bathed in cold water and milk, are rituals that go back centuries and connect you physically to everyone who held this role before you,” he recalls. The forests planted by his ancestors remain another reminder of this responsibility. “Every time I walk through parts of it, I'm reminded that stewardship in this family was never fancy; it was literal generational labour,” he says. Ultimately, one lesson has stayed with him above all: “You don't inherit this to hold onto it, you inherit it to pass it on.” This philosophy also shapes his understanding of heritage today. “The legacy only matters if it's still useful to people in today's context. For every ‘today’ there is a tomorrow, and every generation must adapt to changing times, changing wants and needs of the people of the land,” he says. “Heritage that doesn't serve the living isn't heritage, it's just nostalgia. Heritage is not only about the past, it's very much about the present.” His years studying urban planning in Los Angeles prompted Digvijay to think about what it would take for a rural community to develop without simply copying a city. That thinking eventually became Kathiwada 2034, a 15-year vision centred on education, ecology and economic development. “Kathiwada 2034 is my answer to a 15-year plan built around a simple belief that ecology, education and economy aren't competing priorities; they reinforce each other when you design for that,” he explains. The plan uses 153 acres of family land as its nucleus, with schools, farms, forests, sports fields and cultural spaces envisioned as part of the development. But the ambition goes beyond infrastructure. “I want this valley to prove that rural India doesn't need aid forever; it needs the right kind of investment once, designed well for generations to come,” he says. Rather than chasing scale immediately, Digvijay believes in building deeply within smaller clusters. “We're not trying to reach everyone at once with something thin. Instead, we're building deep, block by block, starting with a 153-acre nucleus where we can get education, ecology and economy working together properly, then letting the model radiate outward,” he says. Community participation remains central to that approach. “Nothing here happens top-down. Decisions on schools, farming, sports and healthcare are shaped with the villages and the people living there, not announced to them,” he says. “I'd rather do ten things properly for one cluster of villages than do a hundred things badly across the whole district.” The same philosophy of reactivating heritage can be seen in Kathiwada City House in Worli, a project envisioned by his mother, Rajmata Sangita Devi. She transformed the family’s Art Deco bungalow in 2002 into a space for art, design and culture. “Kathiwada City House was my mother, Rajmata Sangita Devi's, vision. She repurposed our Art Deco family bungalow in Worli in 2002 into a space that blends art, design and culture rather than let it sit as an unused heritage property,” Digvijay says. Today, it houses Circle Sixty Nine and an art gallery and has become a gathering point for creators and cultural voices. For him, the project demonstrated that heritage does not have to be frozen in time. “Heritage properties don't have to be frozen as museums. They can be reactivated as living, revenue-generating cultural spaces for a greater good,” he says. “It's the same philosophy that now shapes how we're restoring Kathiwada Raaj Mahal, where heritage is treated as infrastructure for the present, not a relic of the past. KCH in Worli is our urban embassy for rural good.” Turning this vision into reality comes with challenges. Digvijay points to the gap between the urgency of rural development and the pace at which institutions often function. “I've had to learn to nudge the government to deliver on its promises while simultaneously building what genuinely cannot wait, in parallel, ourselves,” he says. Another challenge has been the lack of reliable data about the region. “Kathiwada was statistically invisible for decades. There was no real data, no monitoring, no baseline to plan, and so a huge amount of early work was just making the valley legible before we could even design for it,” he says. Ultimately, he wants Kathiwada to become self-sustaining rather than aid-dependent. “There's also the challenge of proving this can be self-sustaining rather than aid-dependent, and that's a much harder and slower thing to build than simply raising money and spending it,” he says. For him, patience is perhaps the hardest part. “Patience is the hardest currency to hold onto when there's real urgency underneath it. This last line is perhaps my daily pain point.” His definition of “living heritage” brings together the various strands of his vision. “Living heritage is heritage that's still working and still generating value in some sense, not necessarily money value. It's still shaping decisions, still something people actively participate in rather than just observe,” he says. He believes younger generations will connect with heritage only when it translates into tangible opportunity. “Heritage stays relevant only when it's tied to opportunity—when the school your family built actually gets your kid a better future, when the land your family protected gives you a livelihood, not just a photograph,” he says. For Digvijay, that is ultimately the test of Kathiwada’s 600-year legacy. “Six hundred years means nothing to a 16-year-old in the valley unless it translates into a real, tangible shot at a better life. That's the best test I hold this whole legacy to.” As Kathiwada approaches its 600-year milestone in 2034, the ambition is therefore not simply to celebrate how long the legacy has survived, but to determine what it can leave behind. “For now and up until 2034, our target is pinned and our goals are clear,” Digvijay says.