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- [00:01]
William Dalrymple
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire a chat community discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter. Sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:20]
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- [01:17]
Anita Anand
tremphyaradio.com and we're live on Matchday as
- [01:21]
William Dalrymple
Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it.
- [01:24]
Anita Anand
Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. What a finish.
- [01:28]
William Dalrymple
There's no doubt about it, it just tastes better. Matchdays deserve Pepsi.
- [01:35]
Anita Anand
So good, so good, so good.
- [01:38]
Commercial Advertiser
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- [02:13]
Anita Anand
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand and me, William Durimple. So today we're going to start a mini series about the extraordinary daughters of the last ruler of the Sikh Empire, the Maharaja of the Punjab. Now these four episodes are going to take us through the stories of different sisters. Sisters, you have Sophia, Catherine, Bamba, Irene and Pauline. Now, these stories are so diverse. They include the suffragettes, the women who fought to get women the vote, mixed race life in Edwardian London, lesbian love in Nazi Germany, and resistance against the British Empire. And let me tell you, Empire Club members get this whole series in one go with no ads. So just follow the link in the description to Join our club.
- [03:02]
William Dalrymple
Now, these princesses grew up in the heart of the British Empire, which had destroyed their world and their family. And in this, I'm gonna hand the reins over to Anita because this is really not just her story, it's a story which she discovered, which she made famous. A woman who had been totally forgotten by history was resurrected. And you wrote wonderful book about it, which I much loved and enjoyed and reviewed.
- [03:26]
Anita Anand
You did, and you were very, very kind of it. And, you know, it's very probably whatever I do in this life, the thing I'm going to be most proud of. I wrote the biography of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and published it in 2015. And, you know, you've got to just imagine, at that time, no one had ever heard of the Indian suffragette. It was just a strange, weird. Some people said, have you made up a novel? Because it seems so far fetched. But now, 2026, this is a woman who had a postage stamp dedicated to her. She's had a blue plaque in her
- [03:57]
William Dalrymple
honour, which you opened and managed to drop the entire thing on your head. I rem.
- [04:01]
Anita Anand
Curtain came on my head. Yes, it did. I yanked it with gusto. Also currently, an exhibition in Kensington Palace Gardens is dedicated to her and her sisters. So we're gonna begin this series with Sophia, the Indian princess who fought for British women to have the vote. And I should say we sort of lightly covered this at the beginning of
- [04:20]
William Dalrymple
our Empire adventure, when we were just little baby Podlings.
- [04:25]
Anita Anand
You liked the Podlings.
- [04:27]
William Dalrymple
I knew you would.
- [04:28]
Anita Anand
Yes. So, look, we're going to go into much more detail, but also, rather than just telling you about the family a lot, I urge you to go back and listen to our Koh I Noor episodes where we go into a real deep dive into her father and grandfather. But we might as well sum it up. So, I mean, just why don't you take the reins here, Willi, and sum up what her backstory, her lineage is.
- [04:50]
William Dalrymple
So, Sophia Dulip singh was born 150 years ago and she was product of, of the great Sikh Empire, which was a considerable empire. Not many people, I think, learned about this at school, but the Sikhs at one point controlled not only the current Indian Punjab and its Pakistani equivalent over the border, but a huge chunk of Kashmir and Himalayas right up to the borders of China and the Wakang Corridor. And it's an enormous chunk of territory and was very powerful. It was the one Indian kingdom which at the time of Ranjit Singh had resisted the British. It had ex Napoleonic generals running its army. And it was both economically and militarily a considerable force. And the British did not tangle with it.
- [05:29]
Anita Anand
You're right. And right at the helm of that was Sophia's grandfather, Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
- [05:35]
William Dalrymple
Sheri Punjab.
- [05:37]
Anita Anand
Sheri Punjab. The lion of Punjab was what he was known as. There were two very different memories of Ranjit Singh's reign in Pakistan. He is, Willy, not remembered very kindly in India. A hero who repelled a Afghan warlords who came over the mountains and would regularly raid Punjab. But Pakistan, not so enamoured.
- [05:58]
William Dalrymple
It is one of those stories which divides depending on which side of the border you are. Pakistanis remember the very brutal generals, many of them these ex Napoleonic guys who were regularly hanging people all over the gates of Peshawar and so on. But in India, he's regarded as one of the most tolerant, most enlightened rulers. And of course, for Sikhs, he's their great hero. Every Sikh looks to Ranjit Singh as the greatest warrior who led their people and did this extraordinary job of freeing them from the bondage of both Marathas and Afghans and Moguls and giving them their own enormous state.
- [06:32]
Anita Anand
Yeah, absolutely right. And look, just in case you don't know, he cuts quite the figure. He had one empty, sightless eye socket. And there is this story that's attached to his mythology that when a courtier once asked him, you know, what happened to your eye, sire? He said, God wanted me to look upon all religions with one eye, which is why he took the light from the other from me. And Willi, something very famous that people will be familiar with on his bicep. Tell us.
- [06:58]
William Dalrymple
So something that's still knocking around in contemporary politics. And anyone that saw our recent series about Mamdani's intervention about the Koh I Noor, this links back to Ranjit Singh because Ranjit Singh prized the diamond out of the Afghans, particularly Shah Shujir Al Mulk, who was his prisoner, allegedly, according to Afghan sources, torturing his son in front of him until he handed it over. And this is, you know, the symbol, this was the jewel in the crown in the hands of the Sikh. So this is a great moment for Sikh history.
- [07:28]
Anita Anand
Absolutely right. So look, the story goes that after the death of Ranjit Singh, and again go to our Koh I Noor episodes if you want to hear this in more detail. We go into it in granular detail in that. But there is great upheaval in the kingdom and the family is at war because who is going to succeed Ranjit Singh until the last man Standing is not a man at all. It's a little boy called Duleep Singh
- [07:51]
William Dalrymple
with chubby cheeks in the picture.
- [07:53]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Indeed.
- [07:53]
Anita Anand
And he is going to be the father of our heroine today, Sophia. His story. We go into an enormous amount of detail in our Koh I Noor episodes again. And Willy, I mean you've sort of said it's heartbreak story, isn't it really?
- [08:07]
William Dalrymple
It's a deeply upsetting story, both politically because it's is the tale of the end of Sikh rule and the conquest by this corporation by the East India Company. But also on a personal level. This is a guy who loses his kingdom, grows up to be this beautiful adolescent that sort of Queen Victoria falls in love with, who's famously painted by Winterhalter. It's one of the greatest, if not the greatest portrait to come from the Raj.
- [08:30]
Anita Anand
So yeah, really tragic, you know, completely disenfranchised. He ends up in England and becomes a favorite of Queen Victoria, one of her many pets, some have observed, because she liked to a foreign prince and princess, but she loves him and so he's in great favor. But he can't marry anybody when he comes of age because he's too brown. Instead he goes searching for a bride. And the place that he searches for a bride is a mission in Cairo because he wants someone virginal, pure. He's disillusioned with the kind of sophistication of the British court.
- [09:04]
William Dalrymple
You should have to say that at this point he is far from virginal.
- [09:07]
Anita Anand
Oh no. Living at large in the clubs of England. But he finds this young beauty and she's 16 years old. Her name is Bamba Muller. And it's really important because she gets written out the story and that's what we're trying to put back these really important characters into this story. She is the daughter of a German merchant and what was described at the time as an Abyssinian slave, somebody that was a mistress rather than a wife. Somebody who serviced hermula rather than was his partner in life. And they then duleep. The product of this union, this very beautiful Arabic speaking, completely clean living flower of a child is married to a much older man in 1864 and she is the mother of Sophia. So Sophia and her siblings, there are six of them, there were seven, but one died very soon after birth, but six of them in the nursery. And this poor woman, Bamba Muller, who is completely alienated from society, she's alone. She doesn't have anything in common with the, you know, the Duchess of Athol or all the People who are flocking around Duleep Singh and his marvellous house called Elverdon on the Norfolk, Suffolk Borders,
- [10:23]
William Dalrymple
which used to belong to my mother's family, the Keppels, before he bought it.
- [10:28]
Anita Anand
Absolutely. Got to get a Dalrymple in there somewhere.
- [10:30]
William Dalrymple
Not a Duranpool, a Keppel.
- [10:31]
Anita Anand
It's a Keppel. It is a Keppel in there. But he sort of recreates this grand Mughal, Indian, Sikh Empire throwback with a mishmash of styles that he gleans from archives in the London Museum. And John Nash designs it for him. And so, you know, there is all of this going on and she. It looks like this young girl is going to grow up in the lap of luxury. We should talk about the children, though. I mean, because there were a few of them.
- [11:00]
William Dalrymple
So there are these wonderful photographs of these kids. There's Victor, the eldest, who will go to Sandhurst to inherit the title Frederick to the family as Freddy, who will go to Cambridge and become an antiquarian, improbably. And then there's Albert Edward, who she calls Eddie. And then there's three extraordinary women, Bamba, Catherine and Sophia.
- [11:21]
Anita Anand
Yeah. And honestly, the women are much more interesting than the men in this story,
- [11:25]
William Dalrymple
as so often the case.
- [11:26]
Anita Anand
Anita, I'm glad you concede that point. Six children all in the nursery together, splitting their time between Belgravia and Elvedon. It should be said that after the huge falling out that takes place over the Koh I Noor diamond, again, I refer you to the Koh I Noor episodes. It is a terrible alcoholism that descends on poor Bamber Muller, is somebody who is not very good at handling the situation that she is in. And increasingly, because she's lonely and because she's isolated and because her husband is basically sleeping around behind her back, she is starting to reach for the bottle. Anyway, Sophia, born on the 8th of August, 1876. It's her 150th anniversary this year.
- [12:09]
William Dalrymple
During a heat wave.
- [12:10]
Anita Anand
During a heat wave which we're recording this, experiencing that heat wave right now, becomes a beloved of Queen Victoria. Out of all of the daughters, it is Sophia who is the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She even takes her name, her middle name, as a sort of a doffing of the cap by the maharaja who's still friendly when she's born to Queen Victoria. Her middle name is Alexandrovna, named for Queen Victoria, whose name is Alexandrina. So even then, you know, Dule has to put his own little twist on it, but he has this Thing of, you know, you are connected to the Queen of England, the Empress of India. Don't you ever forget it. And Victoria, despite, you know, the fact that she wears this family heirloom and is referred to behind her back by some of the duleep singhs as Mrs. Fagin, the receiver of stolen goods, does actually warm to the children and to Sophia in particular. So it all feels, William, that it's all going to be great, they're going to live this charmed existence, but it goes wrong. It goes very badly wrong.
- [13:17]
William Dalrymple
And Dulip, who is in his youth, this beautiful boy that Queen Victoria falls in love with, who is painted by Winterhalter, one of the greatest portraits of. Of the Raj, he turns into a bit of a monster, actually, by then. He's not. He's not someone who we would have liked on this podcast.
- [13:35]
Anita Anand
No. And he's not kind, really. Not kind. I mean, you know, he sort of. He acts. The adoring father, has a camera, because cameras have just been invented at this time. So he takes these loving portraits, particularly of Sophia. She's the most sort of photographed as a young baby of all of her brothers and sisters, and he likes seeing these portraits of her sitting in her mother's lap. And her mother just looks so, so sad. But the little baby is sort of like beaming out and lovely, but there's not much else. And that's because his mind's on other things. Because for him, catastrophically, the British keep him on rather a short leash financially, which he doesn't like. You know, he spends like his best friend, the Prince of Wales, because he's been taught to believe by Queen Victoria that he's one of the family. You know, he sort of spends a lot of time at Osborne House in the Isle of Wight, is right in the inner sanctum of. Of her affections. But every time he needs some money, he has to write to the India Office, he has to ask them. He has to say, look, can I actually spend money on this or that? And he does spend.
- [14:40]
William Dalrymple
And he's aware, isn't he, that they've taken this incredibly rich kingdom. The richest land in India was his, and now he's having to write for every fiver he wants to put on the horses at Newmarket.
- [14:52]
Anita Anand
Yeah, absolutely. He's leading a dissolute lifestyle. Let's not, you know, make any bones about this. But what he becomes bitter about is when they start to cut him off, because they start thinking, the India Office. Queen Victoria's been too indulgent of this guy. Why should we be paying his gambling debts or if he wants the latest styles for his children, why? Why should we be doing that? So they start returning his invoices, saying we're not going to pay them. And so he has to start selling his jewels, you know, whatever little he has left from this vast fortune that had been amassed by the Sikh Empire. And he writes to the Queen accusing her government of having to, you know, having set out to destroy him from the very beginning. I'll just read a little bit from one of the letters, Willie, that he wrote in rage. From childhood, I have been absolutely in the hands of the government without a will or independent action of my own children, trusting implicitly to their good faith. And now there appears to have been a deliberate intention from the first to leave my children and family to gradually sink in this world.
- [16:01]
William Dalrymple
And in 1886, he finally starts, doesn't he? He packs up with his wife and children and he tries to go back to India to raise the flag, he tries to reconvert Sikhism. And he has a plan which the British get onto that he's going to ferment a revolution in India. And so there's one very simple solution for that that the British have. They just don't let him get there.
- [16:24]
Anita Anand
Yeah, he gets as far as Aden. You're absolutely right. The British controlled port on the Red Sea. All voyages go through the Suez Canal. That was the trajectory. He stops. He is stopped at Aden. He is arrested, his family is arrested. Sophia's first arrest, and it will be the first of many, happens when she is nine years old. So what happens in Aidan is that he declares himself Duleep Singh, Sophia's father, as the implacable foe of the British, that he is going to get back to India one way or the other. The Tsar is going to rise up with him. They are going to pincer the British out of the north of India.
- [17:03]
William Dalrymple
And this is a complete reversal from the days in his 20s when he was this apple of Queen Victoria's eye,
- [17:09]
Anita Anand
the darling of her eye. Absolutely right, absolutely right. It is the most sour of relationships. So he's staying in Aden, refusing to go back home to England and be a good boy. But what he does at this point, Willy, is why I actually, you know, for somebody I really did care for when he was a little boy. And I felt terribly sorry about his separation from his mother, how the British put her in a tower, how they forced him as a frightened little boy to sign this piece of paper that gave over his kingdom, his diamond, his future and was sort of sent off to become a Britisher. I despise what he does at this point because he cuts his family loose. He tells his wife, who is already depressed enough to be married to such a neglectful man that, you know, you go back, take the kids back. I have nothing to do with this. I am onwards to India. So she has to go back to England, penniless. He has sold everything, everything for this adventure to go and reclaim his throne. He has thought nothing about the welfare of his children. He buckers off to Paris. He's got a secret meetup with his mistress, a chambermaid from Kennington called Ada Wetherell. Remember her name. We're gonna meet her again in episode four. She's going to be very important.
- [18:30]
William Dalrymple
Who he meets in basically a bordello.
- [18:33]
Anita Anand
It's a knock and shop. Yes. Cox's Hotel, appropriately named. Ada works there and Duleep is a frequent flyer, shall we say. And that's how those two get together.
- [18:44]
William Dalrymple
It's all very tragic, tragic, tragic story.
- [18:47]
Anita Anand
100%. Bamber washes up back in England with six listless children. She is abandoned, she is humiliated, she is broken. People are spitting at her in the streets because they are, you know, the newspapers, which once adored Dooley but now talking about him being a traitor, that he's trying to side with the Tsar. What the hell? This ungrateful Eastern potentate. Who the hell does he think he is? And she dies. In 1887, Sophia is 10 years old. It's actually Sophia who gets ill first. She catches typhoid. Her mother, who has just managed to pull herself out of a bottle long enough to be distraught and is nursing her and is praying on her knees every night for her to recover, catches the typhoid. And the very morning Sophia opens her eyes and her fever has broken. The first thing she sees is her mother dead on the floor by her bed. So just imagine that kind of trauma. She sort of never forgave herself for that. That she had the illness that then spread to her mother.
- [19:52]
William Dalrymple
And then only six years later, Eddie dies, the much beloved Eddie, and
- [20:00]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
he
- [20:00]
William Dalrymple
develops pneumonia, doesn't he?
- [20:01]
Anita Anand
Yeah. Sophia's beloved little brother that she has actually acted as mother to ever since her own mother died is so promising. He has just won a place to eat and before he gets to take it up, he develops pneumonia and he dies. And you know, Sophia sits by his bedside just like her mother, sat beside her with Bamba and Catherine while he's slipping in and out of consciousness and calling for his parents. It is awful. So there you have, you know, Sophia sitting by little Eddie's bedside with her sister Bamba, also named after their mother, and Catherine, looking at this little boy fighting a fever that he just can't escape, and he's slipping in and out of consciousness and he's asking for his mother and father and he dies. And he's buried in Elvedon in the churchyard and next to his mother. And people still go on pilgrimages there.
- [20:57]
William Dalrymple
Very tragic little graveyard under these very English conifer trees. I went in pouring rain. Which didn't add to the kind of atmosphere of happiness about the whole place.
- [21:06]
Anita Anand
Well, I mean, if you. If you do ever venture that way, you'll see that there are always little tributes left in front of these three graves.
- [21:13]
William Dalrymple
Lots of flowers by flowers and candles.
- [21:16]
Commercial Advertiser
Yeah.
- [21:16]
Anita Anand
And little notes.
- [21:17]
William Dalrymple
Yeah.
- [21:18]
Anita Anand
So the Duleep Singh family. And Sophia's just basically losing everybody she loves, you know, Father, who then, very soon after Eddie dies, he dies broken and broke in a Parisian hotel. Never made it back to Punjab, never got his reputation back. Was destroyed by this second relationship with Ada Wetherell. More of that in the fourth episode of this miniseries. And the three remaining sisters are now effectively looking after each other. Victor, the eldest, he's at Sandhurst. He doesn't really. He hasn't really got a paternal bone in his body. Freddy's at Cambridge. Nobody else is going to come and save them.
- [21:55]
William Dalrymple
Who's paying the bills and where are they living?
- [21:57]
Anita Anand
Good. Really good question, because Indians don't like to hear this, but it is Queen Victoria who intervenes. And it is Queen Victoria, because of her affection, largely for Sophia, who decides to put her hand out and catch this desperate family. So she puts these children under the guardianship of a man called Arthur Oliphant. When Sophia Catherine Bamber vict, you know, are getting older, just before they're all going off to their own adventures, she gives Sophia primarily, but the other sisters are in tow, a home. Faraday House, on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. It's a grace and favour residence and she gives an allowance of 200 pounds a year to keep it up. And this is where Sophia is going to live on and off for the rest of her life.
- [22:38]
William Dalrymple
Is it in the palace or on the grounds or wherever?
- [22:40]
Anita Anand
Right opposite the front gates of Hampton Court. So it's part of the Crown estate, or it was part of the Crown Estate at that time. Time. And it was one of this real estate of grace and favour that the Queen would give to those she had the most Affection for. So there would be heroes from the mutiny, as the British called it. Anyone who had fought and lost their lives, their wives and children could find a home here in these grace and favours or dignitaries or favourites of the court. And Sophia is one such. So this is going to actually be pretty much the center point of her life for the rest of her life.
- [23:17]
William Dalrymple
And how old is she by the time she moves into Faraday House? We saw her age nine coming back from Aiden. What is.
- [23:23]
Anita Anand
She's 18 years old when her coming out occurs at Buckingham Palace. She has her debut in front of Queen Victoria herself. And there's a very beautiful little detail about how Queen Victoria allows her to kiss her on both cheeks, which is really a sign of favor. Otherwise people curtsy from a distance. But Sophia is kissed and embraced and she has tea with the Queen.
- [23:45]
William Dalrymple
So she hasn't lost any of her status.
- [23:47]
Anita Anand
Sophia has it. But Victoria loathes her sisters, absolutely hates them.
- [23:52]
William Dalrymple
Goodbye.
- [23:53]
Anita Anand
Because they hate her, that's the thing. And she has spies looking after these children who are constantly feeding back anything disloyal that they might say. And Sophia is always regarded to be sort of the pliant one, the mannered one, whereas the other two are called wild and feral.
- [24:09]
William Dalrymple
And she grows into quite a beauty.
- [24:11]
Anita Anand
She's not classically beautiful. I find her beautiful. And the newspapers at the time were good. And the newspapers at the time found her beautiful. Partly it was because she knew how to dress herself.
- [24:22]
William Dalrymple
She's wearing some very fancy dogs. On the pictures I'm looking at here,
- [24:26]
Anita Anand
she's able to wear the very latest fashion and in fact, the British embrace her. They call her, you know, sort of a perfect Edwardian princess, a thoroughly English gal, notwithstanding her Oriental name is how the Church Times put it. But, you know, despite this quite vacuous life that she's leading, you know, going
- [24:50]
William Dalrymple
to every party, breeding prize Pomeranians. I like that.
- [24:54]
Anita Anand
Yeah, she's. I mean, she enters crafts and wins with her dogs and she's. She's also, you know, very good on a horse. Her stock is rising, the sisters is sinking and Victor and Freddy are sort of, you know, nothing and nowhere. Victor's a lot like his father and he's being closely watched.
- [25:15]
William Dalrymple
I think you're underestimating this nice antiquarian who does some lovely antiquarian stuff.
- [25:20]
Anita Anand
He will be very important, Freddie, but not in any way that newspapers will notice or society will care. That's why he goes off to. To live in Norfolk quietly and collect books and coats of arms, you know, That's Freddie. But Freddie is a. Is a great supporter, solace to the rest of the family, even though Sophia is the one that they can bear and the one that they like. She isn't from what British society would call, you know, a safe family, a safe background. You know, she's got a father who tried to bring down the Raj. Her grandmother escaped a British fortress. Her elder brother Victor is as scandalous as his dad was and is declared bankrupt. And that's reported widely in the press. And you know, Freddie quietly living his antiquarian life in Norfolk, where he's so eccentric. Freddie, he banishes electricity from his house. He thinks it's awful.
- [26:12]
William Dalrymple
I love the sound of him.
- [26:13]
Anita Anand
Collects Jacobean art. You'd like him even more because he says, love Jacobinard. He loves all that. And he also, he loves the monarchy. So one little detail which I found when I was doing research is that he hanged a portrait of Oliver Cromwell upside down in his toilet. So anybody who was taking a leak would have a look at Cromwell standing on his head. So, you know, you've got a really sort of strange family. But we're going to take a break now because this thoroughly English girl who's been sort of moderately educated but not
- [26:46]
William Dalrymple
too much in Brighton of all places.
- [26:49]
Anita Anand
Yeah, I mean, they're all sort of packed off to different places to try and improve them. Something will happen in 1902 which will change everything. And this thoroughly English gal who everybody loves and invites to every party is going to end up enemy of the people, despised by the British press. Join us after the break.
- [27:19]
Fox Sports Advertiser
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- [27:48]
Commercial Advertiser
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- [27:57]
William Dalrymple
You could say that again.
- [27:58]
Commercial Advertiser
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- [28:07]
William Dalrymple
Now we party.
- [28:09]
Anita Anand
This is incredible.
- [28:11]
Commercial Advertiser
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- [28:11]
William Dalrymple
I am clearing the rest of the day.
- [28:13]
Commercial Advertiser
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- [28:24]
Anita Anand
Welcome back. So the year is 1902. The three sisters are desperate to get to The Delhi Darbar, the celebration of Edward VII's coronation. Victoria has died. Her son has taken over. There is going to be this great grand spectacle for Edward's coronation. Edward's not going to be bothered to turn up. He won't turn up. But the great and the good, everybody from Sapphire Society is going, but the girls don't have an invitation. And so they sort of scheme and they beg and they try, and they end up going behind the back of the Secretary of State for India and turning up and actually what should have been a triumphant homecoming for them, you know, sort of returning to the place where your father was a maharaja is awful. Will you just go through sort of the kind of treatment that. Cause I think it's true to say, and I have said this, that this is the first time Sophia will experience racism in England. She's a little darling. She's Queen Victoria's favorite. Everybody, you know, she only sort of swears, skitters across the top of high society in India. She's another brown face among millions.
- [29:36]
William Dalrymple
And this, I think, is a frequent feature of the colonial period, that Indians such as Gandhi come to England. They become successful lawyers. They have a circle of vegetarian, spiritualist, mystic, loving friends around them. And the minute they go back to India, suddenly they're downgraded. They become colonial subjects. They're not treated with any respect to at all. They were treated as the colonized. And this is what Sophia finds having been very much, you know, the, the, the. The queen of crafts with her Pomeranians and all the rest of it and riding around on an early bicycle and this sort of thing.
- [30:10]
Anita Anand
Absolutely. Lady ladies magazines love it. They can't get enough of her, you
- [30:14]
William Dalrymple
know, but the colonial authorities, rather than regarding her as a. A top dog breeder or whatever, regard her as a massive threat because she is the daughter of the deposed King of the Punjab. He could stir things up.
- [30:28]
Anita Anand
Yeah. And Willi, they told them no. They told them not to come, but they sort of snuck on different boats to get over to India and they're there anyway. So when they do reach India, they are frozen out. The British officials at the Darbar treat them with contempt. They're not invited to any of the main ceremonies. They are pretty much shunned. And this is something that Sophia's never seen. The other thing she's never seen is how much her father and grandfather had. You know, there are no roads in Lahore named for her father and grandfather, but there are lots named for Victoria. There are statues of Victoria everywhere. They're sort of on A reflection of
- [31:09]
William Dalrymple
London still there, sitting in the middle of the Mall in Lahore.
- [31:12]
Anita Anand
Yeah, yeah, the Mall, exactly. You know, so there are all these reflections of. Of British places in her country, but her people are not acknowledged and her family is not acknowledged.
- [31:26]
William Dalrymple
And even the Afghans have a nice memorial in the middle of Lahore in the form of the Zanzam gun, which is the great gun of the Punjab, which was an Afghan gun. But there's nothing from the Sikh period which is visible or which is celebrated. There are beautiful Sikh pavilions, of course, in Lahore Fort.
- [31:44]
Anita Anand
Well, and also there's a. The. The tomb of Ranjit Singh still is in Lahore. And I've been there, but, you know, other than that, it's kind of like she's. Her whole entity has been deleted. But, you know, where. It hasn't been deleted. It hasn't been deleted in the minds of the people. So everywhere she goes, when she travels to Punjab from the delidabar, she is greeted by Sikhs primarily, but not singularly, who throw themselves at her feet and say, you are the lion's cub. Tell us what you want us to do. Do you want us to fight? We will fight for you. And, you know, this respect that she gets from people who look like her completely turns her mind. And while she's in this sort of state of mental and emotional turmoil, she gets introduced to Indian nationalists.
- [32:30]
William Dalrymple
Lala Lajput Rai, who's not a famous name in Britain but is well known in India, leading early nationalist 1907. On that visit, she meets him and she's very much in the. In. In this group of people who will be in the center of the. Of what will be the Indian National Congress and so on.
- [32:47]
Anita Anand
And what they start telling her about what Indians are experiencing, she. Her eyes, you know, the scales fall from her eyes. What was I thinking? Hang on. They don't. They don't accept me, okay? They're nice to me. But look at what they're doing in this country. And you're right. She. She starts to mix in nationalist circles. She starts to become political. And Lala Lajapit Rai is like a father to her, like the father she really didn't have in her own father. You know, he sort of cares for her. He shows her love and respect. And she writes furiously to her friends because Lala Lajpat Rai eventually will be caught in a lati charge, a charge with long sticks. Lattes are these long sticks that the police. Yeah. And they could beat you savagely with them. And, you know, this is an older man who is peacefully protesting, and he gets whacked over the head and he dies.
- [33:42]
William Dalrymple
There's a moment of sort of complete revelation that these people that she thought respected her have rejected her. And the people she's forgotten about, her own people, the Sikhs and the people of northern India, cluster around her and give her the respect that she's not been getting from anyone else.
- [34:00]
Anita Anand
But they also expect something from her. You know, what they're saying is, tell us what to do. And she's like, I've never had to tell anybody what to do in my life. And when Lala Lajpet Rai is killed, she snaps. And she actually puts in writing in her diary how much she hates the British. She has never thought this in her life. She has fought her sisters who have hated the British for quite some time.
- [34:27]
Fox Sports Advertiser
That.
- [34:28]
Anita Anand
That is no way to live. They're not our enemy. What are you talking about? Our father abandoned us. They're the ones who took care of us. But after Lala Lajpat Rai dies, well, that's it. So when she returns back to England,
- [34:40]
William Dalrymple
she's a changed woman. She's completely different.
- [34:43]
Anita Anand
Well, she starts doing things for other people rather than being sort of this selfish magazine pinup. She starts fundraising for the lashkas, you know, these Indian sailors who are dumped in England without being paid. You know, she starts looking after the abandoned ayahs who come over with small English children. And then, you know, when the children outgrow their need, they don't have the money to get back. And the most important thing is that she hears this voice that echoes what she's heard in India. And in India, it went awaz, dho, avastho, aavaazdho. In England, the cry is, give us a voice. Give us a voice. Give us a voice. And it is coming from the suffragettes. So we shouldn't be too surprised, Willi, that she throws herself into the cause. She recognizes it.
- [35:35]
William Dalrymple
For those who don't know who the suffragettes are, explain to us, Anita, who they are. Because major force in at the beginning
- [35:42]
Anita Anand
of the 20th century, so women didn't have the vote. And it's, you know, fairly. We're talking about the 1900s. They don't have the vote, okay? And they are fighting to be recognized, first politely, with suffragist organizations who try and lobby politicians, argue their case. And then the suffragettes, who are much more militant, they march, they smash windows, they set fire to post office boxes.
- [36:08]
William Dalrymple
They're off bombs every so often.
- [36:10]
Anita Anand
Yeah, I mean, they don't kill people. But they do destroy property, rip up the orchids in the, in Kew Gardens. You know, that the kind of thing that people thought, oh, that's not what women do. It's a scandal. And these women are scandalous. They are detested by the press. It's a male owned press. And so they are demons, harridans in the eye of the British press establishment. And Sophia, knowing this, knowing that she had, you know, sort of done the backstroke and the adulation of the British establishment, throws herself with these wicked, wicked women. She not only donates money, she drives press carriages through the streets of London. And this was one of the things that the suffragettes did to attract press attention, but also to wind people up. They would sort of drive their press carts covered in all their Votes for women badges and park them outside theaters so that when the drunkards came out from a music hall performance, there would be a barney and there would be a fight. And they could be seen to be fighting physically against the establishment.
- [37:16]
William Dalrymple
Now, all this culminates in Black Friday, the 18th of November 1910. And the man behind it is, well,
- [37:25]
Anita Anand
Winston Churchill, you may have heard the name. So Winston Churchill is the Home Secretary. Winston Churchill has had some experience of Sophia de Leipzing, and I think it's fair to say he didn't like her. He didn't like her at all. Because not only has she been sort of rattling tins and going on these runs and making a spectacle of herself, she's been selling the suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court palace, which the Daily Mail has loved to get angry about. So, you know, it's wound up the establishment so much that King George V, who's now on the throne, you know, Edward doesn't reign for very long, tries to get her thrown out of Hampton Court. He goes to his private secretary and he said, is there any way of removing this tiresome princess from this, this place? It's embarrassing. And the answer that goes back is if you want to put Queen Victoria's goddaughter out on the street, you do it. Because let us tell you here at the India Office, we think it might send out a rather dangerous message to India, where things are already restive and we're talking about 1910 here, there's trouble brewing. And how is it going to look that this little Indian chit of a girl is standing up to the British establishment? This takes us neatly to Caxton Hall, November 1910, the 18th of November, I think one of the most depressing days in British democratic history. So the government's been dragging its feet on this piece of legislation called the Conciliation Bill. And the Conciliation Bill would give the vote to some women. But on the 18th, the Prime Minister Asquith effectively kills it dead. He says it's not going to have enough time to pass. He guillotines it, he suffocates it. Emmeline is ready. She's thawed. Emmeline Pankhurst, who is this sort of pale faced, absolute virago of a woman who leads the suffragettes.
- [39:17]
William Dalrymple
Queen of the suffragettes. Yep.
- [39:19]
Anita Anand
She knew this might happen. So she's gathered about 300 of her most committed suffragettes and they plan to march to Parliament and hammer down the door and make Asquith explain himself, not as a huge mob, because Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, has cleverly passed a piece of legislation that makes it illegal to walk in groups of more than 12. So what they do, they're suffragettes because they are smart, is that they separate into many different groups of 12 and leave at 5 minute intervals to get to the House of Commons. And Sophia Daliep Singh is in the vanguard of this, marching shoulder to shoulder with Emmeline Pankhurst and the rock star suffragettes of their day. They reach the gate, St. Stephen's Gate. If you've been to Parliament Square, you'll know it very well. And they are effectively kettled by the police. They're sort of pushed back and not allowed to move. It doesn't seem violent. The place is filled with bystanders. There are sailors on shore leave who've turned up because it's been, well, trailed in the press, that Asquith is not going to let this bill pass and that the suffragettes aren't going to let that stand. And so everybody is expecting violence. The suffragettes put on a good show, right? So it's filled with men, it's filled with police officers on horseback, in uniform, some not in uniform, and just members of the public. Lots of men gathered in Parliament Square and the police had been given a really unusual order that day. They've been told, don't arrest the women, discourage them. Sort of a euphemistic line. But what it means is basically push them, hurt them, until they give up and go away. Because what Winston Churchill doesn't want is he doesn't want these bloody women clogging up the legal system, standing in courtrooms, denouncing the unfairness of not giving women the vote and making their speeches and going to prison and going on hunger strike and embarrassing him and the Crown even more so. What follows on Black Friday when Sapphire is kettled at the gate with Emmeline. The next group arrives and then the group after that, and then the next group. And Sophia is forced to watch, as these women are, there's no easier way of put it, sexually assaulted by the police. Some are picked up and thrown against pavements and railings. You've got members of Parliament hanging out of the windows just to get a better look at what was going on, because it's a complete circus. Police officers picking up women and throwing them into crowds of men, saying, here, do whatever you want to these bloody bitches. You know, they're obscene testimony from that day. It is gruesome what is done. Women's breasts are punched, they are kicked between the legs, they are thrown back and thrown back, but not arrested. And you've got Emmeline and Sophia and the others at the gate saying, arrest them, Just arrest them. And no arrests are being made.
- [42:21]
William Dalrymple
And what happens to Sophia herself? Is she assaulted?
- [42:25]
Anita Anand
What she does is she's a tiny, tiny slip of a woman. This violence goes on for six hours, but quite sort of early on, she manages to slip the cordon. She's tiny, right?
- [42:36]
William Dalrymple
She's about five foot tall, roughly, like another lad of the Punjab on this podcast.
- [42:41]
Anita Anand
I have two inches on her, let me tell you. Five, two. So she sort of slips up because she sees this one police officer who is repeatedly picking up a woman and smashing her against the concrete. And this woman gets up again because the women will not go back. That's the other thing. You know, they've been treated so harshly, but their absolute commitment is, we are going to get this vote this day. We are not going to retreat. No retreat. And so this poor woman who's dazed after being smashed against the concrete and gets up again, she's picked up again, off her feet, dashed to the ground again. Sophia sees this and thinks, actually, third time, she is going to die. So she rushes in, she gets in between the police officer and this unnamed suffragette. We never learn her name. And she body checks the man away. Now, he would have been shocked out of his shoes, Willy, because it would be like seeing, I don't know, one of the huge celebrities of the day, Zendaya, popping up in a riot and pushing a police officer back. And he. All he wanted to do was get the hell away from her, because wherever she is, there is press attention. And the police officers that day have covered up some of them, their identifying numbers, so that they can behave whatever way they want. And there'll be no repercussions. Sophia, having pushed him off this woman and potentially saved her life, won't let it go. And she starts screaming at him, show me your number. Show me your number. Just show me your number. And he tries to melt into the crowd. She follows him. She's a nutter, right? You know, you score this as a win that you've saved this woman's life, but she is not having it. She wants to bring this man to justice, so she keeps following him through the crowd. She is getting tossed around like a rag dollar and getting battered from all sides, but she won't stop. And she manages to get this policeman's number, V700. V700. She repeats it and repeats it and repeats it. And finally, after six hours, these women are arrested. Sophia is one of them. I've seen the arrest record. But none of them are charged because the Home Secretary cannot afford to let these women tell their story of Black Friday in front of the general public.
- [44:58]
William Dalrymple
So how is this covered, Anita?
- [44:59]
Anita Anand
Well, I mean, it leads to a real sea change in public opinion because there are press, like I said, everybody was expecting a spectacle that day. So there are photographers and they see what is happening. There's one picture on the front page of the Daily Mirror of a suffragette called Ada Wright, who's curled up on the ground with policemen looming over her and one man trying to protect her. And there are others of, you know, sort of these sticks. It's sort of very reminiscent of the latte charges I described in India. You know, the policemen are sort of taking these long sticks and hitting these women. And these pictures are now public. So the mood, the tide, starts to change a bit. They're still frightened of these annoying harridan women, but they have some sympathy. So when Sophia starts to complain about V700, because she does, let me tell you, she won't let it go. She escalates and escalates and escalates, and because she is someone, people are even entertaining her complaints. It gets to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, it goes higher. It finally ends up with the Home Secretary. And I have seen a little note that he writes because he is so fed up with this woman. Send no more reply to her wsc, Winston Spencer Churchill. You can see where his pen angrily dug into the paper. It's fabulous, a fabulous piece of historical ephemera.
- [46:22]
William Dalrymple
So she now has a taste for this. She, she, in our modern terms, we probably call her the beginnings of an activist. And her next thing is the tax resistance. In 1909. An organization called the Women's Tax Resistance League has been founded. And of course, Sophia joins it immediately. She refuses to pay the tax on her servants. She refuses to pay the dog license on her famous Pomeranians that she takes to crafts. She refuses to pay the carriage license. So she writes her to the tax office. She tears up their demands. She tells them, I shall pay no taxes until I'm allowed to vote. No taxation without representation. Quite right so far.
- [47:00]
Anita Anand
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and when they then come for her, they basically, the bailiffs aren't going to let this go. You know, the tax office isn't going to let this go. They come in and they take her jewels.
- [47:12]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Jewels.
- [47:12]
Anita Anand
They turn up, they seize her jewels, which is really such an echo of the seizure of the Koh I Noor from her father. All of these things will be completely, you know, sort of provocative to her. There's a wonderful thing that happens. Bailiffs turn up one day at the, you know, Faraday house. They've got this warrant. The housekeeper's opening the door, doesn't want to let them in, but they go sort of charging past her. They go upstairs, they take the ladies and gentlemen jewelry out, and it's going to. All this. This ring in particular is going to be auctioned off in Ashford. And what happens is that the suffragettes know this when this happens, and they fill all of the seats with suffragettes and any man who is there, they sit on them. They sit on the men, or they sit behind them, growling in their ears,
- [47:58]
William Dalrymple
going, don't get in the way of a suffragette.
- [48:00]
Anita Anand
You better not. And this amazing woman, she's an artist. If you are an artist, you will know Louise Jopling Rowe, celebrated Victorian painter, friend of Oscar Wilde. She buys the ring and she. She goes across the room at the end and she hands it back to Sophia. And of course, the crowd goes mad, and the suffragettes unfurl their banners and it's a movie.
- [48:20]
William Dalrymple
It's amazing.
- [48:20]
Anita Anand
They hold this rally in the auction. I mean, you know, it's. It's fabulous. So, yeah, she does that. She refuses to sign her census papers.
- [48:30]
William Dalrymple
She.
- [48:30]
Anita Anand
She scrawls across it. You can go to prison for that as well, you know, as women do not count. I refuse to be counted. She's just a pain. And this is all escalating. The bombing campaign of the suffragettes, when they're setting fire to things and destroying the contents of letterboxes, that's stepping up as well. People are worried that they are actually going to kill People because they're ratcheting up their campaign. And then suddenly it all ends with the war and the suffragettes, including Sophia, put down their demands. Sophia throws herself into the war effort. She becomes a nurse for those broken Indian soldiers coming back in the Brighton
- [49:06]
William Dalrymple
pavilion of all places, in this Indian looking domed construction in Brighton and that's now filled with wounded Indian soldiers from the trenches. And she goes and nurses them. She's a quieter and more and more gentle and loving side of things.
- [49:21]
Anita Anand
Well, it's who. She's maternal, you know, she is the same woman who wanted to look after Eddie and look after her sisters and take care of everybody, but who's been forced into this situation of having to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. After the war in 1918, the Representation of the People act kicks in. Now that means women over 30 with a property qualification will get the vote. Not full equality, not by any means, that won't come until 1928, but quite a step forward. Yeah, it's a breaking of a dam. You could definitely say that. And it is, you know, and Sophia carries on sort of being prominent in the suffragette movement. Actually, if you go to the Parliament square, there is a suffragette statue and her name is on it. So that's a recent addition. Just sort of paying homage to what the women of this country and elsewhere owe. Women like Sophia. She lives a quiet life in Buckinghamshire.
- [50:17]
William Dalrymple
I can't imagine anything that she does is completely quiet, but yeah, no, she does.
- [50:21]
Anita Anand
I mean, she, she does sort of taken refugees during the Second World War. She looks after them.
- [50:28]
William Dalrymple
She's alive as late as the Second World War.
- [50:30]
Anita Anand
She absolutely is. And I have met two of them that she looked after.
- [50:35]
William Dalrymple
God, this is such an extraordinary thing. So she vaults from the world of Ranjit Singh, which seems so very long ago in the mid 19th century, right up to 1948. Is it when she finally dies?
- [50:46]
Anita Anand
She dies 22nd of August 1948. So, yeah. And you know, she sees the country that she loves, India ripped in half, her father's kingdom torn asunder. She's 72 years of age. She dies and leaves instructions for her funeral, which I think are very beautiful. I mean, the band is to play a full Wagner funeral march. It's a Christian funeral, but she is to be cremated afterwards and her ashes are to be taken back to India.
- [51:15]
William Dalrymple
Are they taken back to India?
- [51:16]
Anita Anand
Yes, they are, by Bamba, but we'll get to that in her sister Bamba's story. But one thing I just wanted to add in her will, even though partition has unleashed the very worst of communal hatred among the Punjabis of India and what is now Pakistan, she leaves. In her will, she divides between three girls schools, a Hindu one, a Muslim one and a Sikh one. And when in her life she was asked to give her entry for who's who, people bang on for ages about how clever and wonderful they are, she writes nothing at all. Which is why she disappeared from history so comprehensively, because she was useless at blowing her own trumpet. She just gave one line under interest. She said, the advancement of women. That's it. That's her entry, her name. And that. And that, in a nutshell, is Sophia, who's the most well known of the sisters now, but was completely unknown not so long ago.
- [52:20]
William Dalrymple
And you've all got to go out and buy Anita's wonderful biography.
- [52:23]
Anita Anand
Well, there's lots of stuff in there, if you'd like to.
- [52:26]
William Dalrymple
There's also an exhibition now at Kensington palace with an illustrated book full of extraordinary photographs. But we will be continuing this story into territory we haven't gone before with the story of Sophia's sister. So who we gonna do next, Anita?
- [52:44]
Anita Anand
Well, we've got Bamba Catherine, so, you know, one is a hellraiser, one is seriously beautiful, but living the most alternative lifestyle of the time. Falls in love with her German governess, lives in Kassel for the best part of 30 years, right through the First World War, right into the rise of Nazi Germany, and who in the middle of the 1930s, and I will give complete credit to Peter Bance, who did the book that you were talking about, the beautiful book, because he's uncovered a lot of this stuff, quite literally. An Indian Schindler is a story that has now sort of developed, rescuing Jewish families from concentration camps. Her name is Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh, and her story has never properly been told. So if you want to hear that and you don't want to wait, join Empire Club to access the entire series and you can just follow the link in the description till the next time we meet. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan, and
- [53:42]
William Dalrymple
goodbye from me, William Duranpool.