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Duleep Singh’s exile of no return

More than 164 years ago, one of the chapters of the tragic story of Punjab’s last maharaja was written in Mussoorie, the popular hill station of North India.

Duleep Singh’s exile of no return


Jaskiran Chopra

More than 164 years ago, one of the chapters of the tragic story of Punjab’s last maharaja was written in Mussoorie, the popular hill station of North India. The month of April brings to mind the time when this maharaja, all of 16, left his country and was taken to England where he was to become a great favourite of Queen Victoria.

He was Duleep Singh, born on September 4, 1838, to the beautiful Maharani Jindan, wife of the great Sikh monarch, Ranjit Singh. After Ranjit Singh’s death, his kingdom plunged into a decade of chaos. After two Anglo- Sikh wars, Punjab was ready for annexation by the British. Duleep Singh, the child king, had to sign away his kingdom and wealth, to the Governor General of India, Lord Dalhousie. His mother was sent into exile and Duleep Singh was taken in hand by Dr John Login, a Presbyterian army surgeon. Duleep lived under his close watch away from Punjab, in Fatehgarh, a small settlement on the banks of the Ganges and soon became a Christian. But before he left for England, he reached Mussoorie in 1852 after an incognito visit to Haridwar and a short stay in the Doon valley. He also spent some time in Mussoorie in 1853.

He was kept at the Castle Hill Estate near Landour Bazaar and there has been a long-standing demand that the government makes a Maharaja Duleep Singh Museum at this place that is now with the Survey of India. When The Black Prince, a film on his life, was released last year, it created a great interest in his life. Those who were somewhat familiar with this tragic tale were happy to see it on the silver screen and inspired to find out more. Those who had never heard the story were greatly moved. The story of this monarch who lost his country, his throne and everything familiar before the age of 16 evokes pity and fear, which are the essential emotions that a tragedy must evoke in audiences according to Aristotle’s views in poetics.

In his historical novel The Exile, author and diplomat Navtej Sarna, writes, “Duleep Singh was separated from his mother and his people, taken under British guardianship and converted to Christianity. At 16, he was transported to England to live the life of a country squire. A child duped of his kingdom, a man who changed his religion twice, a king who yearned to come back to his people but never could.” When the boy-king was sent to England in 1854, he was under the impression, as his guardian Dr John Login had told him, that he would be back after completing his education and would settle down in a landed estate in Dehradun, free to spend his summers in Mussoorie. But this journey took him away forever.

Login did his best to keep him away from the gaieties associated with the hill station as the main idea behind the temporary residence in the hills was to afford him calm for his studies. It was in Mussoorie that his famous portrait was painted by R. Beechey, the royal painter of the Nawab of Oudh. The Maharaja autographed it and sent it to Lord Dalhousie.

Duleep Singh was deported to England where he lived in exile for the rest of his life. In 1849, on September 5, John Login wrote a letter to his wife Lena (from Lahore), saying, “Yesterday was the birthday of the little Maharaja; he is now eleven… I had the great pleasure of presenting to the Maharaja, on the morning of his birthday, a lakh of rupees worth of his own jewels from the toshakhana ...he appeared ...dressed most splendidly... When I congratulated him on his appearance, he innocently remarked that on his last birthday he had worn the Koh-i-noor on his arm!” This was part of his tragedy… he was being gifted things from his own treasure. Duleep Singh died a tragic death in Paris on October 21, 1893 and was buried at a small church in Elveden.

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