Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary

by Anand, Anita

  All night Sophia felt as if hands were steering her away from guests of any importance. The goddaughter of Queen Victoria had never felt so insulted: ‘I was taken in corners . . . I never spoke to the LG at all that evening except to say howdy and good bye.’28 The worst moment of the whole night was realising the extent of the whispering behind her older sister’s back: ‘I did not ask the question as to what people had been saying about B.’29 Already deeply unhappy at the evening’s events, the final straw came when the guests were led into the banquet. Sophia’s royal status and her relationship with Queen Victoria should have dictated that she was one of the first to go in, escorted by a high-ranking officer. However ‘it was the accountant general I believe who took me into supper but I did not catch his name and do not care’.30 Just one taste of the treatment Bamba received on a regular basis in India sent Sophia into a rage: ‘I was furious about the supper and intend to complain about it. It was very stupid . . . and I should have refused to go into supper.’31

  A few days later Sophia wrote a blistering letter of complaint to the most senior British official on Indian soil,32 the new Viceroy, Lord Minto, who had succeeded Curzon just a year before. Sophia’s letter pulled few punches. Minto wanted to avoid any diplomatic ugliness and assured the princess that he would look into the matter. She was still regarded by the British as ‘a traveller of position’, he reassured her, worthy of all the respect such status demanded.33 In the end nobody from Sir Charles’s office offered an apology; nor did Lady Rivaz attempt to defuse the situation by inviting the princesses for tea. A stern word was had with the Jullunder train conductor, but he too remained in his post. Bitterly disappointed, Sophia was beginning to understand her sister’s constant agitation.

  On 14 January the whole of Lahore was gripped with excitement as a near total eclipse of the sun coincided with a major festival.34 For Hindus, Vasant Panchami was the celebration of Sarasvati, the goddess of wisdom. For Muslims and Sikhs, Basant was the start of spring. People of all faiths dressed in vivid yellow clothes, like the statues of the goddess herself. The air throbbed with the sound of dhol players and their drums; food sellers dragged their carts into the streets, perfuming the air with spices and the smell of molten sugar. The sky was filled with brightly coloured paper kites. Leaving a disappointed Joe at home with the servants, Bamba and Sophia rode out on horseback to the Ravi River, where thousands had congregated to await total darkness.

  The push of humanity stopped the sisters from getting near the water’s edge where the view would have been most dramatic.35 Sophia refused to be turned back and, leaving Bamba behind on the bridle path, rode on stubbornly to a nearby bridge. There she tethered her horse and attempted to walk across the mud to get to the water, a protesting servant in tow. However the tide was turning and as the waters rose the crowds retreated, engulfing Sophia in the process. Before she knew it she was caught in the middle of a throng of ‘dirty people’, splattered with the sludge from the riverbed. Word spread swiftly that Ranjit Singh’s granddaughter walked among them. As Sophia and her servant struggled to make it back to Bamba, a phalanx of worshippers pressed in, murmuring the name of the Maharajah: ‘a crowd began to collect around us as we walked. I heard lots of people saying who we were.’36 Despite the surge and the gathering cries of recognition, Sophia was not afraid.

  On their quest to discover the Sikh kingdom, the princesses met some of their more humble relatives. Different clans had laid claim to Ranjit Singh’s bloodline; the sisters believed their true ancestors were the Sandhawalia family from the village of Raja Sansi, just outside Amritsar.

  After the fall of the Sikh Kingdom, life had not been kind to the Raja Sansi cousins. Unlike their other Lahore relatives, this family were living a far from luxurious existence. Sophia recorded her first meeting with them: ‘We drove into the village with its narrow streets looking much like other villages, only with some high houses . . . I was most delighted to have seen the home of my ancestors . . . we all sat on the veranda on a velvet cushion which B thought they had put out especially for us.’37 Two of the male members of the family, Gurdit Singh and Narinder Singh, the sons of Thakur Singh, had been at Elveden when Sophia was little, acting as retainers to her father: ‘And oh dear how they are changed poor things, but they have been through so much . . . The youngest having been imprisoned for 5 years for a crime which he never committed – oh dear all these horrid injustices – the older one is quite grey and the young one who was so good looking as a boy and who I fell in love with, cannot have grown an inch since then . . . he is an ugly little shrivelled up man.’38

  Sophia learned that her father had sent the boys back after a few years. He calculated that they would be more use to him in India. As things turned sour with the British, Duleep had named their father, Thakur Singh Sandhawalia, as his ‘prime minister in exile’. He and his sons would be at the very heart of his intrigues, attempting to stir the Punjab in anticipation of the revolt that would never be. As a result the Sandhawalias were forced to flee British territories and settle in the French colony of Pondicherry, where Thakur Singh Sandhawalia eventually died penniless and far away from home. After years of hardship and exile Thakur Singh’s sons were finally allowed to make their way back home to the Punjab, where they had been struggling to make ends meet ever since. Sophia was visibly distressed to see their situation, but Bamba was delighted, determined to persuade Sophia to renounce England, as she had.

  The next day Bamba had an opportunity to build her case against the British further. The Shalimar Gardens were buzzing with excitement. In tribute to the new season and its colours, thousands of people were flying kites in an anarchic aerial combat lasting as long as daylight. It looked as if a rainbow had shattered in the sky, as men, women and children attempted to cut rival kites with the strings of their own. While watching the display, Sophia and Bamba caught sight of Buta Singh, the servant of the Rajah of Kapurthala. He was the same man who had described Sophia as being a ‘first-class’ beauty, and had kept up a correspondence with the princess after she had returned to England, even asking her for money when he faced a difficult personal problem. He had no idea he was being watched: ‘We saw Buta Singh mounted on a police horse, rather odd, what can it mean!!!’39 Bamba had long suspected that he was working as a police informant. When later Buta Singh emerged from the crowds on foot to greet them, ‘B blew his head off, but it served him right. He had no business to come up and talk when he knows B will not see him. She called him a traitor and a bad man.’40

  Bamba suggested that her little sister might want to extend her stay. When Sophia agreed, Bamba was so overjoyed that she decided to throw an enormous ‘purdah party’ in her little sister’s honour. The chosen venue was the Shalimar Gardens and Bamba excitedly wrote to all the most important Indian families in the region. Purdah parties, which took place in the afternoons, were strictly for women only. They were teetotal affairs, where music played in the background, food was served, and distinguished speakers were invited to give improving educational lectures. The absence of men and alcohol made it possible for strictly observant Muslim women to leave their homes with their husbands’ blessings.

  Bamba and Sophia were determined to make their purdah party the talk of Lahore. Great marquees and elaborate screens were erected to shield guests from unwanted gazes. Entertainers were booked, and cooks hired to cater for every creed and caste. Thanks to Sophia’s barracking of a local deputy commissioner on the very morning of the party,41 the magnificent Mughal fountains were turned on just as they would have been when their father, Duleep Singh, had been a boy. The cascading water created an epic and romantic backdrop for a truly successful event.

  There were quieter moments too, when Sophia and Bamba were away from the crowds and only had each other for company. After a long hard ride to Wagah – a village which now lies on the line dividing India and Pakistan – the sisters sat alone by the light of a camp fire: ‘We had taken chocolate to drink and heated it up in a sauce
pan. Just when I had got to the last mugful, B said something which made me laugh and I went into such a choking fit, my mouth quite full of chocolate, I thought I should die. I was laughing all the time I could not breathe.’42

  Moments of such innocent and private joy were about to become much rarer for the pair. Political turbulence was growing in Lahore, and the Duleep Singh sisters found themselves in the middle of an uprising which was both short-lived and doomed. Sophia soon discovered that her worst fears were true: Bamba’s secret friends were fervent nationalists, and her association with them was attracting much unwanted attention for them both.

  On 13 February 1907, the sisters were out for a drive, when Sophia suspected that they were being watched: ‘followed all the time by a cyclist . . . If it happens again I shall report it . . . we were not out long. I got out and walked with Joe for a little way but the man then followed me.’43 Returning to The Palms, Sophia and Bamba found a woman waiting on the veranda. Those who were spying on the princesses would have classified their unexpected visitor as a ‘person of interest’. In her diary, Sophia described: ‘A Bengali lady who is a great worker for the good of her country. She is very good looking and evidently very clever.’44 Those few lines did their guest little justice. Sophia named the woman only once, calling her ‘Mrs Ram Bhuj Datta’. The authorities knew her by a different name. She was Sarla Devi Choudrani, a known revolutionary, and a very dangerous woman.

  Born to a family of Bengali intellectuals in Calcutta in 1872, Sarla Devi had always been a spirited girl, well read and unafraid to express her opinions. At the age of twenty-three she caused uproar in her family by informing them of her intention to leave home and teach at a school in Mysore. In India, daughters only left their parents to marry but Sarla Devi could see no reason why women should not be permitted to take jobs and work like the men. Her feminist rebellion did not last long though. After she had been teaching in Mysore for some time, and living happily in the staff accommodation, a prowler broke into her bedroom and terrorised her so badly that she felt she had no choice but to return to the safety of her parental home. Sarla Devi may have lost her personal freedom that night, but it signalled the beginning of her struggle for Indian independence.

  Back in Bengal, Sarla Devi took up the editorship of a monthly journal called Bharathi (‘The Indian’). In the publication she wrote firebrand editorials encouraging Indian men to take to the streets in groups to protect women from sexual molestation by British soldiers. The personnel from the military cantonments had long been criticised for their behaviour towards local women: far away from homes and family, many used prostitutes in the seedier quarters of the city, which grew to sate their appetites; others tried their luck with the brightly dressed housewives, who flitted in and out of the market places. The soldiers’ conduct was causing a great deal of disquiet. Sarla named her vigilante group the antaranga dal or ‘intimate army’ and made members swear allegiance to each other and their cause by placing their hands on a map of India. It was not long before members of the antaranga dal were promising to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the country’s freedom.

  No longer satisfied with stirring dissent through her writing alone, in 1902, Sarla Devi began to train people for combat at her father’s house. They were taught to fight with sticks and cudgels. Sarla Devi punctuated the physical exertions with a spiritual element of her own invention. After training was over, the group was required to chant the names of nationalist heroes as if they were reciting a prayer. One of those names repeated over and over again was that of Maharajah Ranjit Singh.45

  Most Bengalis were horrified by her behaviour; one indigenous publication condemned her for ‘conduct unworthy of a Hindu woman’. In 1905, at the age of thirty-three, Sarla Devi finally gave in to relentless family pressure and agreed to marry. Her husband, Ram Bhuj Datta, was also an ardent nationalist, and together they moved to Lahore where they began to train an underground Hindu network of rebels. Sophia wrote nothing of this extraordinary life when she referred to the mysterious Mrs Datta sitting on the veranda of The Palms taking tea. Now aware of the British surveillance, Sophia was being more careful about what she committed to paper.

  Some episodes however were so noteworthy that Sophia could not help herself. Just days after Sarla Devi’s visit to The Palms, on 16 February 1907, the sisters were out riding when ‘we met a shut carriage driving hard and 2 mounted police and 1 behind. B said perhaps it’s the Punjabi case, so we looked as it passed but we could recognise no one. There was an Englishman and 2 policemen inside and 2 other men . . . We were very curious . . . then thought we would follow to the prison but no one would tell us anything . . . we were returning when we met 2 tongas coming at a furious rate, so B rode after . . . we were told it was the Punjabi case and the editor had got 6 months and the proprietor 2 years rigorous imprisonment.’46

  The Punjabi Case was the name given to a controversy that had rocked Lahore. It centred on the publication of articles which were critical of the British. The editor and proprietor were charged with sedition, and everyone was waiting to see how harsh the punishment might be. As the princesses found out, the judge had handed out the most severe sentences he could. He condemned the pair to lengthy terms of ‘rigorous imprisonment’, punishing them with body-breaking hard labour and possible transportation to the dreaded Kala Pani or ‘Black Water’ prison on the remote Andaman Islands. It lit a touch paper in Lahore. Students walked out of their classes and threatened to take over the streets. In some quarters violent retribution was promised unless there was an immediate release. Tension escalated within a matter of hours and Sophia and Bamba were caught right in the middle of it.

  Digging their heels into already glistening flanks, the sisters raced their horses towards the city centre where the crowds were massing: ‘As we got into the Mall we heard shouts . . . the students were marching up the Mall to the house of the Prisoners . . . and all along they were shouting Shame Shame to the Europeans they met.’47 Two Englishmen had stopped alongside Sophia and Bamba, and watched the scene unfold. Sophia overheard one of them: ‘he said he would like to get a whip and thank them’.48

  The comment provoked fury in Sophia: ‘My blood was up and I said quite loud, “Yes Shame on the British”. I don’t know and don’t care if they heard. It is such a disgraceful case that no one can quite understand. It is an awful shame on the British.’49

  Later that same day, while Sophia and her sister attempted to gather their thoughts at home, Rajah Harnam Singh of Kapurthala, and their friend, Gurcharan Singh, came by to make sure the sisters were safe. The day’s events hung heavy in the air and Bamba was less cautious than she should have been. Sophia could do nothing to stem her sister’s anti-British tirade. After the Rajah had politely taken his leave of them, their friend lingered. His mood was grave. He apologised to the sisters for exposing them to the Rajah, a man he firmly believed was a British informant. Every word they had uttered that afternoon, the Sardar-ji said, would be reported back to the authorities. Sophia struggled to comprehend the allegation, but the Sardar-ji was adamant: ‘Harnam Singh spared no one with the British Officials.’50 The news upset Sophia greatly: ‘After all he was an Indian . . . how could he betray them? I cannot believe this of him . . .’51

  When recording the episode in her diary later that evening, she tried desperately to remember if Bamba had uttered anything that might be considered seditious, reassuring herself that, ‘B was rather bitter . . . but nothing serious was said.’52 Yet even if Harnam Singh did report their unguarded conversation, it would hardly have registered against the backdrop of growing civil disorder.

  Students were dragging Englishmen out of tongas and beating them in the street. Dirt had been thrown into the eyes of the district commissioner’s horse in an effort to unseat him from his saddle. Gangs of youths were turning on the police all over the city, and the violence threatened to spiral out of control. To make matters worse, rumours were swirling round Lahore that an Indian nat
ionalist leader, whose mere presence could stir cities, was arriving later that very evening.

  13

  India Awake!

  With his plump cheeks, round body and drooping moustache, Gopal Krishna Gokhale looked like a benign, bespectacled clerk; but, despite his appearance, he caused trouble wherever he went. Born in Maharashtra in 1866 to a high-caste yet poor Hindu family, Gokhale had taken minor secretarial jobs in his youth, working for the British. Earning a much-needed wage during the day, his nights were spent devouring works of philosophy and political theory. He became a devotee of the British social reformers, John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke. As one of the first generation of Indians allowed to attend university under the Raj, Gokhale was frustrated that educated young Indians could play no part in the governance of their own country. Looking for somewhere to vent his disaffection, he joined the Indian National Congress (INC). At the time, it was a modest society founded by Theosophists, but in a matter of years the group grew and became a vociferous political movement. Gokhale was elected chairman in 1905.

  It was a meteoric rise for such a softly spoken and unlikely leader. In a different life, Gokhale would have been better suited to the world of academia rather than revolutionary politics, but despite his understated and ponderous delivery, vast crowds would turn up to hear him speak. The sheer numbers caused policing difficulties for the authorities, who would have preferred to have thrown him into prison. However, Gokhale always stopped short of sedition, giving them no excuse. As a passionate moderate, he believed it was possible for the chains to be loosened and for the British and Indians to work together.