by Anand, Anita
The date of the event was set for 20 September 1918 and was to take the form of a flag day. Since the outbreak of war, flag days had been a successful method of collecting money from the general public. Little metal badges with pictures of soldiers, or names of causes, were produced in their thousands. Collecting tins were issued to men, women and children, and they were dispatched, often wearing patriotic fancy dress, to rattle metal boxes under the noses of the general public. Vast sums of money had been raised already for specific regiments and for prisoners of war and Sophia hoped to replicate such success with her India Day. In addition to shoes, chocolate and warm clothes, the princess had higher ambitions for her event. She wanted huts for the sepoys to sleep in, for many were still struggling against the elements.
Sophia spent the next few months working with the YMCA committee, happy to be busy in a flurry of planning and preparation. A knock at the door of her home on 8 June threatened to bring everything to a halt.
Since the first days of the war, Sophia had dreaded the telegram that would bring bad news about Catherine. As she opened the envelope she realised with horror that she had been worrying about the wrong sibling. Victor, her eldest brother, was dead, killed by a massive coronary heart attack the previous day in Paris.
Victor and Anne had moved into their apartment at 40 Avenue du Trocadero31 in 1912, when the stigma of bankruptcy had become too much to bear in England. They had been able to enjoy life in France without suffering the ignominy of gossip. War, however, trapped them there and they had spent the last four years waiting for a ceasefire that never came. The telegram informed Sophia that Victor would be buried in three days’ time, at an Anglican cemetery high up on a hillside above his beloved Monte Carlo. With war raging and travel forbidden, none of the family would be able to say a last farewell. The realisation broke his youngest sister’s heart.
There was little opportunity for Sophia to mourn: there were too many preparations to be made and too many soldiers counting on her. India Day may just have saved the princess from months of crippling despair.
A week before the event, just as her little metal flags and badges arrived, Sophia received correspondence so momentous, it made her forget her fury at the police who – churlishly in her view – had refused to grant permission for ‘real live elephants’ to march with her India Day collectors through London.32 The freshly delivered papers not only gave her a great morale boost, but also reduced to tatters the British government’s attempts to untangle her name from the charity.
Field Marshal Lord John French, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, had written an open letter to Sophia thanking her for her efforts. He praised the Indian troops under his command, describing their ‘fine fighting qualities, tenacity and endurance’ during the first battle of Ypres.33 ‘I have no hesitation in saying,’ Lord French continued, ‘that they splendidly upheld the glorious fighting traditions of the Indian Army . . . It will always be a source of pride and happiness to me that I have been associated in the field with these gallant troops.’34
On 14 September, under the headline ‘Gallant Indian Troops’, The Times ran a prominent article which began with the very words that the India Office had not wanted to read: ‘Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who is organising the “India Day” celebrations in London next Friday, September 20, has received a letter from Lord French in which he pays tribute to the services rendered by India’s fighting men on the Western Front during the years 1914 and 1915 . . .’35 The paper then reproduced the field marshal’s praise-laden letter in full. No mention at all was made of the YMCA.
Lord French’s stirring words, printed in Britain’s newspaper of record, created terrific publicity and helped to make Sophia’s fundraiser a resounding success. India Day raised enough money to buy 50,000 huts for sepoys garrisoned all over the world.
Sophia’s was one of the last great wartime fundraising efforts. Armistice Day on 11 November 1918 marked victory for the allies and complete defeat for the Germans. While millions took to the streets to celebrate the end of a four-year nightmare, Sophia pushed her way through the cheering crowds, heavy with anxiety. The reports from vanquished Germany were not good. A successful British naval blockade had stopped food from getting in to the country for some time and there was no sign of a swift re-establishment of supply lines. Thousands were starving to death in the cold, and influenza was sweeping through the weakened population. Sophia needed to get Catherine out before disease or hunger took her.
On the very day that peace broke out, the Dutch legation* in Berlin received an urgent and imperious request for a new passport for one Princess Duleep Singh, an Indian princess trapped in Germany. Struck by Sophia’s royal title on the letter, the Dutch bureaucrat spent a little longer at his desk than he may have wanted to on Armistice Day. He wired his British counterparts asking if there would be any objection if they were to grant Catherine travel documents, ‘with the request that it may be informed whether this lady will be permitted to land in England if she obtains permission from the German authorities to leave Germany’.36
Despite the Dutchman’s urgent action, it took more than a month for the paperwork to reach the relevant desk in Britain. Sophia could not stand the delay and wrote again on 12 December. This time she addressed her letter to the Prisoners of War Department at the Foreign Office. Catherine had finally been in touch and, as Sophia feared, she was facing a desperate situation. Lina Schaeffer was seriously ill and weak from hunger. Catherine wanted to get out of Germany but at the same time could not bear to leave Lina’s side.
Although her sister was vacillating about the best course of action, Sophia was in no doubt about what she should do. Without a passport, Catherine was trapped, so Sophia decided to escalate matters. Writing directly to Lord Newton, one of the most senior men at the Foreign Office with special responsibility for Prisoners of War, Sophia’s letter was blunt and to the point. He simply had to help her sister: get her a Dutch passport or a British one, Sophia did not care. The princess could not countenance continued delay. Whether Newton knew Sophia personally or not, he took the letter seriously. Passing it on to the India Office immediately, he dictated an accompanying memo which strongly suggested that the India Office might want to get on with it: ‘I am directed by Lord Newton to transmit herewith, for the information of Mr Secretary Montagu, a copy of a note from the Netherland Legation at Berlin regarding the issue of a British passport to enable the Princess Catherine Duleep Singh to return to this country. I am also to enclose a copy of a letter from Princess Sophia Duleep Singh in regard to the same matter, and am to request that Lord Newton may be favoured at as early a date as possible with an expression of Mr Montagu’s opinion as to whether a passport or other facilities to leave Germany may be granted to Princess Catherine Duleep Singh.’37
On Christmas Eve a bundle of papers marked urgent made it on to the desks of the War Office. The timing was bad, for most government ministries were winding up for the first peacetime Christmas in years. However by now, Sophia’s letter had garnered some important attention. Seeing the names tagged to the file, the War Office immediately hand-delivered the papers to Sir Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India. He read them and noted Lord Newton’s suggestion that they give him an answer ‘at as early a date as possible’. Despite the nudge, the Secretary of State was in no mood to let Duleep Singh’s offspring hold him back from Christmas with his family. He left the papers where they lay with a view to returning to them after Boxing Day.
On 27 December, full of Christmas cheer, Montagu dictated a secret memo to colleagues. He had decided that Catherine could be granted a British passport, observing dryly: ‘I hardly think that we are in a position to make difficulties. Quite early in the war (Sept 1914) we intercepted a foolish pro-German letter from Princess Catherine; but so far as I know, nothing has been heard of her since. It may be hoped that she has found occasion to modify her views. In any case, there seems to be no sufficient evidence for
treating her as an “enemy”.’38
Catherine was coming home. The war was over at last, and despite the government’s best efforts, Sophia had managed to help her Indian soldiers and get the credit. She could not have hoped for a better start to 1919.
* The Dutch were charged with taking care of the interests of British subjects during the war.
20
Such Troublesome Times
The turmoil of the Great War had repercussions far beyond the battlefields of Europe. Although the British had worried about the impact, news of Sophia’s charity work was entirely lost on India. The general noise of dissent had grown deafening. Nationalist politicians did not need to use dispossessed monarchs to stir up anti-British feelings. The Great War had taken a visible toll on India’s young men and the same question was being asked all over the country: ‘Why have we sent our sons to die for those who oppress us?’ Rebellion spread from the ranks and into the civilian population as episodes of lawlessness increased. In an effort to restore order, in 1919 the Raj passed a set of draconian laws.
Under the aegis of the Rowlatt Act, Indians could be arrested without warrant. They could be detained without trial for an indefinite period of time and political prisoners would be tried in camera. They could be denied the right to know what evidence was held against them, or indeed who was accusing them. Public meetings were made illegal, and any journalist writing critical articles could be charged with sedition and incarcerated for long terms with hard labour. The Rowlatt laws were so extreme that they managed to offend even moderate nationalists.
Gandhi had made the ocean crossing from Cape Town to Bombay just before the start of the war. In July 1914 he had decided to make India his home once again, after successfully defying the government of South Africa. Through a series of strikes and marches between 1906 and 1914, he had forced the legislators to overturn many of the country’s worst anti-Indian laws. The victory was all the more impressive when one considered who his main adversary had been. The Minister of the Interior, General Jan Christiaan Smuts, was a dedicated believer in racial segregation and the natural superiority of whites. He was also a battle-hardened Afrikaner soldier. Nevertheless Smuts had not come across an opponent like Gandhi.
Refusing to carry the pass papers,* when arrested, Gandhi never lifted a hand to fend off the inevitable blows from the police. When he appeared before magistrates, he always asked for the most severe sentences, even though sometimes the judge was minded to be lenient. When they sent him to prison, he said he was enjoying ‘free hospitality’ at ‘His Majesty’s hotel’.1 He told prison governors that he looked forward to coming back and always broke the law as soon as he was released.
The man drove Smuts to distraction, publicly burning his identity papers and those of hundreds of other Indians. Every time he spoke hundreds more would follow him. At one point, over 2,000 people defied the Black Act in the Transvaal and went to prison en masse. Despite increasingly severe sentences, harsh prison conditions, confiscation of property and deportations, Gandhi’s popularity and power grew. Inspired by the suffragettes, he invited women to join him in his dissent. His wife Kasturba had been among the first to go to prison, leading hundreds of other women to do the same. Gandhi’s ambitions grew, as he led more than 2,000 people over forty miles in a protest march. Ultimately, the little Indian lawyer would call a nationwide strike, crippling plantations, factories and mines. The South African government was running out of officers to enforce the law and prison places for those who broke it.
In June 1914, Smuts was forced to repeal his Black Act, and found that even though Gandhi had got the better of him, he had grown fond of his irritating rebel. The two men could never be friends but Gandhi’s charming guile had earned grudging respect. Personal feelings notwithstanding, Smuts was very glad when he found out the Indian troublemaker was planning to leave South Africa for India. The Raj was welcome to him, and Smuts wondered if the British had any idea what was in store for them. Before setting sail, Gandhi presented Smuts with a leaving present: a pair of sandals made by his own hands. It was a strange gift to give, and it took a lifetime for Smuts to understand its value. Twenty-five years later, Smuts would return the sandals to Gandhi with a note: ‘I have worn these sandals for many a summer, even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man.’
Gandhi returned to India in 1914 a hero. Princess Sophia’s friend Gokhale was particularly excited by his return. He urged Congress to make him their new and unifying leader. The popularity of the extreme wing of ‘Lal-Bal-Pal’ terrified him and only Gandhi had the power to provide nationalists with an alternative. Gokhale was convinced of this after travelling to South Africa in 1912. He had admired his wily understanding of the law and his non-violent methods of breaking it. Despite Gokhale’s enthusiasm, Gandhi seemed reluctant to throw his lot in with the nationalists at first. He explained that he needed time to reacquaint himself with India, a home he had left when just a fresh-faced young man in his early twenties. More than two decades had passed and Gandhi insisted that he needed time to think and learn before he would lift a finger to help.
Gandhi’s political epiphany took place on the railway tracks laid by the British. They spread like a spider’s web across the country and on them he travelled the length and breadth of India. From Lahore to Madras and Karachi to Calcutta, Gandhi chose the foetid and overcrowded compartments of third class. Sitting with the poorest, he shared food and stories with India’s most downtrodden people. From the grimy windows, he saw with his own eyes the rampant poverty among India’s peasants and the obscene prosperity of the Raj. It made him angry. It also made him change his mind about joining the nationalists.
When Gandhi returned from his long pilgrimage he was transformed. He now insisted on dressing like a peasant, wearing only the rough white khadi, or homespun cotton which was the uniform of the poor. He shaved his head, leaving just a lock of black hair high on the back of his skull, a sign of orthodox Hinduism, which also informed the world of his vow of celibacy or Brahmacharya. Gandhi believed that a man’s potency was wasted when he spilled his seed, and he wanted to have all his human strength for the fight ahead.
His appearance and odd manner made many feel uncomfortable. Like him, other leading nationalists had studied at the bar in London. They could not understand his desire to look like a beggar rather than a barrister and worried that the British would never take such a man seriously. Gandhi was unperturbed. From the top of his stubbled head, down to the cheap sandals on his feet, when he beat the British he wanted to do so as an Indian. At first he tried quiet diplomacy, writing letters and requesting meetings with government officials. When the British failed to respond he decided to employ other means of persuasion.
In 1917 farmers in the north Indian state of Bihar were being forced by the Raj to grow indigo instead of edible crops. The blue pigment was vital for British textile production but useless to the families producing it. It leached the soil and could fill nobody’s belly. Bihar teetered on the brink of famine and to make matters worse, when harvested, the indigo was purchased for a fraction of its value by British buyers, the only people who wanted it. Struggling to make ends meet, the peasant farmers were being crushed both by their forced harvests and by ever-increasing government land taxes. Desperate for help, they sent word for the one man who they thought might understand.
When Gandhi made his way to the rural district of Champeran in April 1917, large parts of Bihar were already gripped by starvation. He had intended to stay only for a couple of days, to get a feel for the farmers’ problems and return to the capital to lobby on their behalf, but from the moment his train pulled in on the platform he felt his commitment to the people and the place galvanise.
The excitement his anticipated visit had caused alarmed the authorities. The station platform and surrounding area were filled with Indians bristling with enthusiasm hours before his arrival. They waited in the blistering sun, carrying garlands that wilt
ed in their hands. When the train finally wheezed its way to a halt at the station, the place erupted. Hundreds rushed to greet Gandhi as he descended from the third-class compartment, hands pressed together in humble greeting. The senior policeman, sent to watch his arrival that day, was alarmed. Never had he seen such upheaval in his district and he knew there were too few police stationed at Champeran to subdue the crowds if things got out of hand. He had no choice but to let Gandhi go on his way.
What was meant to be a two-day visit ended up lasting more than six months. During that time Gandhi collected dossiers of evidence against the British and set up an ashram to feed and care for the most destitute. He also led marches against the worst tenant landlords, calling for strikes until the Raj saw sense. Such coordinated, mass civil disobedience forced the British to re-negotiate contracts and end revenue collections until the famine had passed. Gandhi had won his first victory and not one single shot had been fired. It was around this time that the people of Champeran began to refer to Gandhi as Mahatma, the great soul, and as Bapu, father.
In 1919, Rowlatt’s threat to political and personal freedom outraged Gandhi more than anything that had gone before. It was perhaps the Raj’s willingness to subvert their own system of jurisprudence that most offended the lawyer in him. Others in his movement were talking of armed struggle but Gandhi begged them to wait. He was sure he could kill Rowlatt without incurring any loss of human life.
