Duleep Singh

This article is about Maharaja Dalip Singh Sukerchakia. For other uses, see Dalip Singh

Maharaja Dalip Singh Sukerchakia (a.k.a. Maharaja Dalip Singh), (Black Prince of Perthshire), GCSI (6 September 1838 in Lahore, Sikh Empire - 22 October 1893 in Paris, France) was the last Maharaja of Sikh Empire. He was the youngest son of the legendary "Lion of the Punjab" (Maharaja Ranjit Singh) and the "Messalina of the Punjab" (Maharani Jind Kaur), and came to power after a series of intrigues, in which several other claimants to the throne and to the Koh-i-Noor diamond killed each other. After his exile to Britain, he was befriended by Queen Victoria, to whom he gave the prized diamond which is now part of the Crown Jewels, set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth, and on display in the Jewel House in the Tower of London.

Today he is considered as Britain's first Sikh settler , having been exiled to its shores in 1854, after being dethroned and his country annexed by the British Raj in 1849.

Early years

A young Maharaja Duleep Singh.

Maharaja Duleep Singh the last sikh Maharaja of Punjab

Maharajah Duleep Singh, entering his palace in Lahore, escorted by British troops after the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46)

Dalip Singh was crowned to the throne of Punjab in 1843 succeeding his half-brother, Maharajah Sher Singh. After the close of the Second Anglo-Sikh War and the subsequent annexation of the Punjab on 29 March 1849 , he was deposed at the age of eleven by the East India Company under Governor-General Hardinge and was separated from his mother, who was imprisoned. He was put into the care of Dr John Login and sent from Lahore to Fatehgarh on 21 December 1849.

The British took, in controversial circumstances, the Koh-i-Noor diamond along with other items of his family's personal estate, country and religious property (most items were sold by public auction) to Queen Victoria as reportedly part of the terms of the conclusion of the war and the 250th anniversary of the East India Company on 3 July 1850. His health was reportedly poor, and he was mostly in quasi-exile in Fatehgarh and Lucknow after 1849, with tight restrictions on who he was allowed to meet. No Indians, except trusted servants, could meet him in private. As a matter of British policy, he was to be anglicised in every possible respect. While no specific information was released about his health, he was often sent to the hill station of Landour near Mussoorie in the Lower Himalaya for convalescence, at the time about 4 days' journey. He would remain for weeks at a time in Landour at a grand hilltop building called The Castle, which had been lavishly furnished to accommodate him.

Conversion to Christianity

In 1853, under the tutelage of his long-time retainer Bhajan Lal (himself a Christian convert) he converted to Christianity at Fatehgarh with the approval of the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie. His conversion remains controversial, having been effected in unclear circumstances before he turned 15. He was also heavily and continuously exposed to Christian texts under the tutelage of the devout John Login. His two closest childhood friends were both English, one being the child of Anglican missionaries.

In 1854, he was sent into exile in Britain.

Duleep Singh (1838-1893) in 1854.
a portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Life in exile

London

Dalip Singh's arrival on the shores of England in 1854 threw him into the European court. Queen Victoria showered affection upon the turbaned Maharajah, as did the Prince Consort. Dalip Singh was initially lodged at Claridge's Hotel in London before the East India Company took over a house in Wimbledon and then eventually another house in Roehampton which became his home for 3 years. He was also invited by the Queen to stay with the Royal Family at Osborne, where she sketched him playing with her children and Prince Albert photographed him, while the court artist, Winterhalter, made his portrait , He eventually got bored with Roehampton and expressed a wish to go back to India but it was suggested by the East India Company Board he take a tour of the European continent which he did with Sir John Spencer Login and Lady Login.

Scotland

On his return from Europe in 1855 he was given an annual pension, and was officially under ward of Sir John Spencer Login and Lady Login, who leased Castle Menzies in Perthshire, Scotland for him. He spent the rest of his teens there but at 19 he demanded to be in charge of his household. Eventually, he was given this and an increase in his annual pension. In 1858 the lease expired and Dalip Singh rented the house at Auchlyne from the Earl of Breadalbane. He was remarkable in the area as the first Indian prince to visit Scotland, and soon had the nickname, the "Black Prince of Perthshire". He was known for a lavish lifestyle, shooting parties, and a love of dressing in highland costume. (At the same time, he was known to have gradually developed a sense of regret for his circumstances in exile, including some inner turmoil about his conversion to Christianity and his forced departure from the Punjab). His mother stayed in Perthshire with him for a short time, before he rented the Grantully Estate, near Aberfeldy. Following the deaths of his mother and John Login in 1863, he returned to England.

Mulgrave Castle

Dalip Singh took on a lease at Mulgrave Castle in Yorkshire in 1858 and enjoyed the English countryside while there.

Elveden Estate

Dalip Singh bought (or the India Office purchased for him) a 17,000 acre (69 km²) country estate at Elveden on the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, close to Thetford, in 1863. He fell in love with Elveden and the surrounding area and restored the church, cottages, and school. He transformed the run-down estate into an efficient game preserve and the house into a quasi-oriental palace where he lived the life of a British aristocrat. Dalip Singh was accused of running up large expenses and the estate was sold after his death to pay his debts. Today, Elveden is owned by descendants of the Guinness family of brewing fame; it remains an operating farm and private hunting estate.

Re-initiated into Sikhism

While in exile, he sought to learn more about Sikhism and was eager to return to India. Though previous efforts were thwarted by his handlers, he reestablished contact with his cousin Sardar Thakar Singh Sandhawalia, who on 28 September 1884, left Amritsar for England along with his sons Narinder Singh and Gurdit Singh and a Sikh granthi (priest), Partab Singh. He also brought a list of properties held by Dalip Singh in India, all this renewed his connection with Sikhism .

The British Government decided in 1886 against his return to India or his re-embracing Sikhism. Despite protests from the India Office, he set sail for 'home' on 30 March 1886. However, he was intercepted and arrested in Aden, where the writ of the Raj began. He could not be stopped from an informal re-conversion ceremony in Aden, far less grand and symbolic than it would have been in India, done by emissaries sent by Sardar Thakar Singh Sandhawalia, who was earlier planning the Pahaul ceremony at Bombay . Dalip was forced to return to Europe.

Death

Dalip Singh died in Paris in 1893 at the age of 55, not having seen India (let alone the Punjab) again after he was 15, except for two brief, tightly-controlled visits in 1860 (to bring his mother to England) and in 1863 (to scatter his mother's ashes).

Dalip Singh's wish for his body to be returned to India was declined, in fear of unrest given the symbolic value the funeral of the son of the Lion of the Punjab may have caused, given growing resentment of British rule. His body was brought back to be buried according to Christian rites, under the supervision of the India Office in Elveden Church beside the grave of his wife Maharani Bamba, and his son Prince Edward Albert Duleep Singh. The graves are located on the west side of the Church.

A life-size bronze statue of the Maharajah showing him on a horse was unveiled by HRH the Prince of Wales in 1999 at Butten Island in Thetford, a town which benefited from his and his sons' generosity .

A film titled, Maharaja Duleep Singh: A Monument Of Injustice was made in 2007, directed by P.S. Narula . In an auction at Bonhams, London on 19 April 2007, the 74 cm high white marble portrait bust of Maharajah Duleep Singh by Victorian sculptor John Gibson RA in Rome in 1859 , fetched £1.7 million (£1.5 million plus premium and tax) .

Heraldry

A coat of arms was granted, commissioned by Prince Albert.

Family

Dalip's mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, was in exile in Nepal. In 1860 he was allowed to return to India and he decided to bring his mother back to England. She died in England in 1863.

Dalip Singh married twice, first to Bamba Muller and then to Ada Douglas Wetherill. He had eight children in total, six from his first marriage to Bamba:

• Prince Victor Duleep Singh
• Prince Frederick Duleep Singh
• Prince Albert Edward Duleep Singh
• Princess Bamba Sutherland
• Princess Catherine Duleep Singh
• Princess Sophia Duleep Singh

He also had two children from his second marriage to Ada Douglas Wetherill:

• Princess Pauline Alexandra Duleep Singh
• Princess Ada Irene Beryl Duleep Singh

All the eight children died without issue, ending the direct line of the Sikh Royalty.

Maharani Bamba Muller

Maharani Bamba Muller was an Arabic-speaking, part-Ethiopian, part-German girl, whose father was a German banker and whose mother was an Abyssinian Coptic Christian slave. She and Dalip met in Cairo in 1863 on his return from scattering his mother's ashes in India; they were married in Alexandria, Egypt on 7 June 1864. The Maharani died in London on 18 September 1887.

Ada Douglas Wetherill

Some sources describe Ada Douglas Wetherill as a French princess. In fact, she was neither French nor a princess. This is very likely a fiction created to give her some legitimacy later in life. Wetherill had been Dalip's mistress before he decided to return to India with his family, and upon being stopped in Aden by the British authorities he abandoned his family and moved to Paris, where she joined him. She stayed with him through his years in Paris and also travelled with him to St Petersburg, Russia, where he failed to persuade the Czar of the benefits of invading India through the north and reinstalling him as ruler .

Queen Victoria and Maharaja Dalip Singh reconciled their differences before he died. Out of loyalty to Maharani Bamba, the Queen refused to receive Ada, who she suspected had been involved with the Maharaja before Maharani Bamba's death in 1887.

Possible descendant

It has been claimed that Dalip Singh may be the great-great-grandfather of Bob Goddard, a British debt collector for Halifax. Genetic evidence suggests that Goddard has an unusual combination of minor blood groups that is rare among the white British population but common among Asians. The genealogical history of Goddard's family suggests his grandfather, Charlie Goddard, was born in 1888 as the illegitimate child of an English maid serving at Breckles Hall in Norfolk. It was rumoured that the father may have been an Indian prince, believed to be Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, who was a resident at Breckles Hall when Charlie was born.

or prince Akash kanojia (present prince of Garah) may be the next maharaja of Punjab ==Further reading==

• Sir John Login And Duleep Singh, by Lady Lena Login. W. H. Allen & Co., London. 1890.
• Maharaja Duleep Singh Correspondence, by Dhuleep Singh, Ganda Singh. Published by Punjabi University, 1977.
• Sikh Portraits by European Artists,, by Aijazuddin, F.S. Sotheby Parke Bernet, London and Oxford U. Press, Karachi and New Delhi, 1979.
• The Duleep Singh's: The Photograph Album of Queen Victoria's Maharajah, by Pete Peter (Bhupinder Singh Bance). Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-3488-3
• The Maharaja's Box: An Imperial Story of Conspiracy, Love and a Guru's Prophecy, by Campbell, Christy. Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-653078-8 The Maharaja's Box
• Queen Victoria's Maharajah, Duleep Singh, 1838-93, by Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand. 1980. ISBN 1842122320, ISBN 9781842122327
• Duleep Singh: The Maharaja of Punjab and the Raj, by Rishi Ranjan Chakrabarty. Published by D.S. Samara, 1988. ISBN 0951495704.
• Maharaja Duleep Singh: The Last Sovereign Ruler of the Punjab, by Prithipal Singh Kapur. Published by Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee, Dharam Parchar Committee, 1995.
• Maharaja Duleep Singh, Fighter for Freedom, by Baldev Singh Baddan. Published by National Book Shop, 1998. ISBN 817116210X.
• Maharaja Daleep Singh, by Balihar Singh Randhawa. Sikh Literary & Cultural Stall, 1998. ISBN 1900860015.
• The Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Government: A Narrative, by Surjit Singh Jeet. Published by Guru Nanak Dev University, 1999.
• The Annexation of the Punjaub, and the Maharajah Duleep Singh, by Evans Bell, Thomas Evans Bell. Adamant Media Corporation, 2001. ISBN 0543924327.
• Maharaja Dalip Singh Cheated Out, by Avtar Singh Gill. Jaswant Printers. 2007
• The Exile, by Navtej Sarna. Penguin, 2008. ISBN 9780670082087.

External links

• Duleep Singh Website
• RoyalArk on Punjab's dynasty, includes extensive bios
• Genealogy of Lahore (Princely State) Queensland University
• Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail
• Maharajah Duleep Singh, Biography and Images Norfolk Museum and Archeology Service

Video links

• BBC 2 film on Duleep Singh