September

As a British Sikh, I have always had a deep fascination with ‘Maharaja Duleep Singh’, and the tragic events that led to him being taken away from his mother and Punjab as a little boy. He was one of the first Sikhs to arrive in the U.K, and his experiences in a predominantly white Anglo-Saxon country were difficult, especially the strange relationship he must have had with the royal family and the British.

Maharaja Duleep Singh, nicknamed the ‘Black Prince of Perthshire’, was the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. He was the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the only child of Maharani Jind Kaur.

After the assassinations of his predecessors, he came to power in September 1843 at the age of five. But in 1849, following the closely fought ‘Anglo-Sikh Wars’, the British annexed the Punjab, and Duleep Singh was compelled to resign his sovereign rights. At age 10, he was put in the care of Dr. John Login, and then exiled to Britain at age 15, where he was much admired by Queen Victoria, who had written of the Punjabi Maharaja; "Those eyes and those teeth are too beautiful". The Queen was godmother to several of his children.

Maharaja Duleep Singh was not allowed to meet his mother for 13 years. In 1856 he tried to contact his mother, and finally met her on 16 January 1861 in Calcutta. He returned with her to the UK, where during the last two years of her life she told Duleep Singh about his Sikh heritage and lost Empire. He then sought to learn more about Sikhism and to return to India. Despite the British being against it, he set sail for home on 30 March 1886. He was arrested in Aden, where he was forced to return to Europe, even after a re-conversion ceremony.

Maharaja Duleep Singh died in Paris on 22 October 1893 at the age of 55, having seen India only twice after the age of fifteen. Although he had married twice and fathered eight children, all died without bearing any children, ending the direct line of the Sikh Royalty.