Jind Kaur
Maharani Jind Kaur | |
---|---|
2nd Sukerchakia (by marriage) | |
Father | Manna Singh Aulakh |
Religion | Sikhism |
Maharani Jind Kaur (c. 1817 – 1 August 1863) was regent of the
She was the youngest wife of the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Ranjit Singh, and the mother of the last Maharaja, Duleep Singh. She was renowned for her beauty, energy and strength of purpose and was popularly known as Rani Jindan, but her fame is derived chiefly from the fear she engendered in the British in India, who described her as "the Messalina of the Punjab".[4]
After the assassinations of Ranjit Singh's first three successors, Duleep Singh came to power in September 1843 at the age of 5 and Jind Kaur became Regent on her son's behalf. After the Sikhs lost the
In January 1861 Duleep Singh was allowed to meet his mother in
Family
Jind Kaur Aulakh was born in Chachar, Gujranwala, the daughter of Manna Singh Aulakh, into an
On 7 June 1864 her son Duleep Singh married Bamba Müller, daughter of Ludwig and Sofia Müller, by whom he had four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and three daughters. After the death of his first wife he married Ada Wetherill, daughter of Charles and Sarah Wetherill, and had two more daughters.[9] All his children died without issue. One, by Duleep Singh's first marriage, Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh, was active in the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom.[10]
Regency
After the death of Ranjit Singh, Jind Kaur and her son lived in relative obscurity under the care of Raja Dhian Siṅgh at Jammu that was governed by his brother Gulab Singh. On 16 September 1843, after the assassination of Maharaja Sher Singh and his wazir (vizier), the army proclaimed the 5-year-old Duleep Singh as sovereign. At first the new wazir, Hira Singh, took little notice of the young Maharaja and his mother. Jind Kaur became fiercely defensive of the rights of her son and pleaded with the regimental committees to protect his position asking 'who is the real sovereign, Duleep Singh or Hira Singh? If the former, then the Khālsā should ensure that he was not a king with an empty title.' The council supported her and she gradually became the symbol of sovereignty. She took control of the government with the approval of the army and cast off her veil. As Regent, she reconstituted the Supreme Council of the Khalsa and restored a balance between the army and the civil administration. She held court, transacted State business in public and reviewed and addressed the troops.[7]
The young Maharani was faced with many problems.
In tackling these problems, the Maharani had the advice and support of the newly appointed council of elder statesmen and military leaders. To strengthen her power base, Jind Kaur betrothed Duleep Singh to the daughter of Chattar Singh Attariwalla, the Governor of Hazara province and a powerful and influential member of the Sikh nobility. Army pay was increased. Gulab Singh was brought to Lahore to face charges of treachery and his nephew, Hira Singh, was replaced as wazir by Jawahar Singh. Gulab Singh was allowed to return to Jammu after paying a fine of 6,800,000 rupees (68 lakh) and promising future good behaviour.[11]
Pashaura Singh arrived in Lahore in January 1845. He was received with honour but was persuaded to return to his estates by the army and a promise of an increase in his jagir. However, in July he took the fort at Attock and declared himself to be the ruler of the Punjab. A force commanded by Chatar Singh besieged the fort and forced him to surrender on the promise of a safe conduct. However Jawahar Singh had decided that he posed too great a risk to the young Maharaja and he was secretly taken back to Attock and strangled. For his involvement in this, Jawahar Singh was stabbed to death in front of his sister, the agonised Maharani.[12]
On 13 December 1845 the British
Imprisonment
After the war the British rewarded the leaders who had helped them, including Lal Singh and
The following year, the new British Resident, Sir Frederick Currie, described her as "the rallying point of rebellion" and exiled her from Punjab. She was taken to the Chunar Fort, about 45 km from Varanasi, and her jewellery was taken from her. Her treatment by the two Residents caused deep resentment among Sikhs. The Muslim ruler of neighbouring Afghanistan, Dost Mohammad Khan, protested that such treatment is objectionable to all creeds.[13]
A year later she escaped from the Chunar Fort, disguised as a servant, and travelled through 800 miles of forest to ask for sanctuary in Nepal. She arrived at Kathmandu in April 1849.
Exile in Nepal
The mid-19th century was a time of great political upheaval in the Indian subcontinent with expanding British power. Noting the common adversary in the British, Nepal's Prime Minister Bhimsen Thapa and Maharaja Ranjit Singh forged a secret alliance against the British. However, Maharaja Ranjit Singh died suddenly in 1839 and the Sikh Kingdom started to disintegrate.
Rani Jind Kaur became the regent in 1843, as her son King Duleep Singh was still an infant. Led by her, Punjab went to war with the British in 1845. Lahore sent for help to Kathmandu, but the court in Kathmandu was divided and King Rajendra Bikram Shah did not respond positively.
Following Punjab's annexation, the British imprisoned the Rani in Chunnar fort near Varanasi. However, two years later in 1849, she managed to escape from the fort disguised as a maid and traveled 800 km north to reach Kathmandu. Initially, she stayed at the residence of Amar Bikram Shah, son of General Chautariya Pushkar Shah, who had been Nepal's Prime Minister in 1838-39. Amar Bikram Shah's residence in the Narayanhiti area provided her with the facilities and dignity offered to royalty. But whenever outsiders came, she would disguise herself and was introduced as a “maid from Hindusthan”. “Rani Jind Kaur had chosen to stay at Amar Bikram Shah's residence because Chautariya Pushkar Shah was one of the key officials engaged in forging an alliance between Nepal and Punjab against the British when Maharaja Ranjit Singh was alive. She stayed in Amar Bikram Shah's house for a few months before she decided to come out of her hiding and approach the then Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana.
The Rani was given asylum by the Prime Minister of Nepal and Jung Bahadur Rana with full dignity as a Queen consort of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. A brand new residence, Charburja Durbar, was built in the Thapathali durbar complex and an allowance was set by the Nepali government.[7] The British Resident in Kathmandu kept an eye on her, believing that she was still intriguing to revive the Sikh dynasty.[14] She lived in Nepal for 11 years.
Reunion and final years
In November 1856 Jung Bahadur Rana sent the Governor-General of India a letter which he had intercepted from Duleep Singh to Jind Kaur, suggesting that she come to England. The letter was dismissed as a forgery. However, shortly afterwards Duleep Singh commissioned Pundit Nehemiah Goreh to visit Kathmandu on his behalf and find out how his mother was managing. This attempt was also doomed to failure and the Pundit was forbidden to contact the Maharani. Duleep Singh then decided to go himself, using the pretext of a tiger shoot in Bengal. In 1860 he wrote to the British Resident in Kathmandu, enclosing his letter in one from Sir John Login so that it would not be intercepted or dismissed as a forgery.[15] The Resident reported that the Rani had 'much changed, was blind and had lost much of the energy which formerly characterised her.' The British decided that she was no longer a threat and on 16 January 1861 she was permitted to join her son at Spence's Hotel, in Calcutta. At the time several Sikh regiments were returning home via Calcutta at the end of the Chinese war. The presence of Sikh royalty in the city gave rise to demonstrations of joy and loyalty. The hotel was surrounded by thousands of armed Sikhs and the Governor-General, Lord Canning, requested Duleep Singh, as a favour, to leave for England with his mother by the next boat.[15]
During the passage to England, Duleep Singh wrote to Sir John Login, who had been his guardian throughout his adolescence in British hands, asking him to find a house for his mother near Lancaster Gate. Soon after her arrival, Lady Login visited with her three youngest children. She had heard tales of the Maharani's beauty and influence and strength of will and was curious to meet the woman who had wielded such power. Her compassion was aroused when she met a tired half-blind woman, her health broken and her beauty vanished. "Yet the moment she grew interested and excited in a subject, unexpected gleams and glimpses through the haze of indifference and the torpor of advancing age revealed the shrewd and plotting brain of her, who had once been known as the 'Messalina of the Punjab'."[15]
While in India Duleep Singh had negotiated the return of the Maharani's jewellery, which had been kept in the treasury at Benares. These arrived at Lancaster Gate just before the Maharani returned Lady Login's visit, and her delight was so great that "she forthwith decorated herself, and her attendants, with an assortment of the most wonderful necklaces and earrings, strings of lovely pearls and emeralds", to wear during the visit. The portrait of the Maharani by George Richmond shows her wearing some of the jewels, including the emerald and pearl necklace, which was sold by auction on 8 October 2009 at Bonhams for £55,200.[16]
For a while Duleep Singh moved with his mother to Mulgrave Castle in Yorkshire. Attempts were made to arrange a separate establishment for her on the estate, but she was determined not to be separated from her son. In the last two years of her life she reminded the Maharaja of his Sikh heritage and told him of the empire that had once been his, sowing the seeds that twenty years later led him to research for weeks in the British Library and to petition Queen Victoria, hoping naïvely to remedy the injustice he had suffered.[5]
Popular media
In 2010, The Rebel Queen, a docudrama short was released by Michael Singh and starred Indian actress Diana Pinto as the Maharani.[20] In January 2020, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni released The Last Queen a book inspired of her life.[21] She is also a major character in George MacDonald Fraser's comic historical novel Flashman and the Mountain of Light.
Maharani Jind Kaur is also portrayed in The Black Prince by Shabana Azmi.[22]
See also
References
- ^ Ahluwalia, M. L. (2001). Maharani Jind Kaur. Singh Brothers. p. 13.
Since she was the daughter of his friend-officer who hailed from a nearby village (Chichrianwali) of his own birth-place, Gujranwala
- ISBN 9781787383081.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73521. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Herpreet Kaur Grewal (31 December 2010). "Rebel Queen – a thorn in the crown". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
- ^ a b c Christy Campbell – Chapter 5
- ^ Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail – Maharani Jind Kaur Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ISBN 978-8173802041. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
- ^ B S Nijjar' – p10
- ^ Christy Campbell – preface
- ^ ODNB – Duleep Singh
- ^ Jagjit Singh, K. "Gulab Singh (1792-1857)". Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. Punjabi University Patiala. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
- ^ Khurana, J. S. "Pashaura Singh Kanvar (1821-1845)". Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. Punjabi University Patiala. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
- ^ All About Sikhs – The Annexation of the Punjab
- ISBN 978-9994611027.
- ^ a b c Lady Login, Chapter 14
- ^ Description of the emerald and pearl necklace
- ISBN 978-9384544935.
- ^ "Maharaja Ranjit Singh Information". maharajaranjitsingh.com. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
- ^ Basu, Shrabani (26 July 2009). "Rebel With a Cause". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013.
- ^ The Guardian, 31 December 2010, Rebel Queen
- ^ "In conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: The bestselling author on new book The Last Queen, and her craft". Firstpost. 17 February 2021. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
- ^ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3962984/?ref_=vp_vi_tt
Bibliography
- The Encyclopedia of Sikhism, Harbans Singh, Editor-in-Chief, Punjabi University, 2002
- The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, January 2012 edition
- B S Nijjar, Maharani Jind Kaur, Punjab Govt. Records
- Christy Campbell, The Maharajah's Box, Harper Collins, 2010, ISBN 9780730446415
- E Dalhousie Login, Lady Login's Recollections, Smith Elder, 1916