Heroines Of History: Free Read | Sophia: Worthier than Koh-i-noor

ENGLAND, 1914
The Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, had been home to the royal families for decades. At the beginning of the First World War, it was converted into a military hospital. Men born and raised on Indian soil sailed across seas to fight in the trenches of Belgium for this War. They were part of the British Indian Army. This was the first overseas journey many of them had ever made and it would also be the last for some of them. They were part of the Allied forces brought in to stop the advance of the Central powers. They fought for weeks from mud-filled trenches to stop Germans on blood-soaked battlefields. They won this battle and marched into Paris to celebrate their victory. There, they were welcomed by cheering crowds on both sides of the streets. Some people even stepped forward to pin flowers on their uniforms.
Over a million Indian soldiers served in the First World War. Over 70,000 of them died. No one could have known, back then, that over 12,000 Indian soldiers would pass through Brighton’s hospitals. These soldiers were evacuated from the Western Front, a stretch of about 400 miles along France and Belgium. Yes, they had emerged as victors but they returned with a scarred legacy filled with loss and a deep longing for home. No amount of grand welcome parades could make them forget what they had witnessed on the frontline.
Far from the warmth of their home country, these soldiers were trying to rebuild themselves in a foreign land. Those who could do so, wrote letters to their families back home. Many of their families had no one who could understand these letters. They had to find a friend or a neighbour who could help them. The soldiers in Brighton had nine kitchens where they would make chapati to feed their fellow Indians. Many of these soldiers would sit out on the grounds of Brighton Pavilion. Turbaned and in uniform, with lathis in hand, they waited for their wounds to heal and fresh orders from their senior officers. Their dreary, slow-moving days were made somewhat better by strangers who volunteered to ensure the well-being of these soldiers. Among these strangers was a slight, well-dressed woman called Sophia. As the horrors of the War continued to grow, more and more soldiers started coming into Brighton. Around this time, Sophia put aside her fine dresses and donned a nurse’s uniform. She started devoting all her time and energy to nurse the wounded soldiers. She gave out signed photographs of herself and gave them ivory mirrors that boasted of fine craftsmanship. These mirrors would have cost a fortune in the soldiers’ home country. Sophia did not speak their language but the soldiers guessed that she had come from Indian ancestry. To most of the British, Sophia was a prominent socialite—a celebrity from Britain’s upper crust. Like some others, she had been volunteering her time and energy towards Britain’s War efforts. This woman was the god-daughter of Queen Victoria, the monarch of Great Britain and the Empress of India. But she was more than that to the Indian soldiers, particularly to the Sikh ones who comprised nearly 20 per cent of the British Indian Army. She belonged to one of the most illustrious families of India. The Princess of Punjab, Sophia, was the daughter of a King without a kingdom.

Sophia’s Story

If not for the diaries Sophia meticulously kept, and a few photographs and letters, her story could have been lost forever. But thanks to the works of scholars like Anita Anand and William Dalrymple, the stories of Sophia and her extended family have been made accessible to readers. Sophia’s grandfather was Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a warrior-king whose empire once encompassed Khyber Pass in the west, Kashmir in the north, Tibet in the east and Sindh in the south. Punjab’s empire flourished under him. Because of the battles he had won, Ranjit Singh was known as ‘Sher-e-Punjab’, or the ‘Lion of Punjab’.
Among the Singh family’s priceless royal treasures was the King’s throne. Carved out of sheets of gold, the throne was crafted in the form of an opening lotus and was a reminder of a popular metaphor in Sikh scriptures that suggests that just like the lotus blooms unmindful of the murky waters around it, so must man remain untouched by worldly affairs. As the lotus that does not lose focus, so must one keep one’s consciousness attuned to the Creator.
The Maharaja had a soft corner for gemstones: he loved diamonds and pearls. These he had in plenty, but there was something that had greater personal significance—the famed Koh-i-Noor, the world’s most celebrated diamond. This stone’s bloody history, among other reasons, made sure that it outshone the gold throne.
The Maharaja’s life was marked by a series of conquests in which he won back lands that had been seized from India. When Nader Shah, the Emperor of Iran, invaded Delhi in 1739, he seized so much treasure from the Mughals that it took 700 elephants, 4,000 camels and 12,000 horses for him to take all the treasure. The Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was till then on the Mughal Peacock Throne, was taken too. It was Ranjit Singh who brought this diamond back to India. After numerous conquests, a series of strokes left Ranjit Singh bedridden and the King passed away in Lahore in 1839.
Much like his life, his funeral was a grand, astounding event. Soldiers carried his body to the pyre in a ship-shaped carriage that had sails made of silk and brocade. They were preceded by melancholic musicians who announced the passage of the Maharaja’s mortal remains. Four of his wives were also carried by soldiers in chairs as they sat dressed in their finest. A few of their female attendants also followed. These Queens and attendants would burn with the Maharaja, who was laid out on sandalwood.
A curious series of events followed his passing. The late Maharaja wanted to give the Koh-i-Noor to the Jagannath Temple in Odisha. However, after his passing, plans were made to pass it onto the British instead. The diamond (supposedly cursed) was hidden away as a fatal political drama played out.
At the end of this tumultuous drama, Punjab lost several maharajas and leaders of the State. One was poisoned with lead and mercury, another was shot. Another successor was supposedly battered to death. The only one left to take the throne of Punjab was Duleep Singh, the late Maharaja’s youngest son. He was only five when he became the King. His mother, Maharani Jind Kaur (popularly known as Rani Jindan), came into prominence as his regent. But young Duleep Singh’s reign was short-lived.
Thanks to a few treacherous men, the British walked into his court in Lahore victorious after the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845–46. At that point, the British felt that they couldn’t just remove the young King. He was a blood heir and his removal could incite a revolt, so instead they made him sign a treaty. The treaty said that they would part as friends and that he had to pay the British.
Duleep Singh was too young to understand what was happening. The child had no say even when his mother was dragged out of the court and imprisoned because she refused to play by the rules of the British. For her defiance, Rani Jindan was sentenced to live out the rest of her days in a fortress far away from her son’s court.
Rani Jindan, a bold and fearless woman, refused to be locked away in a fort. One day, she vanished from the fort. All the British found was a note she left behind. It read: ‘For all your locks and your sentries, I got out by magic.’
A sharp woman, Rani Jindan had enlisted the help of loyalists and friends to escape to Kathmandu. She had travelled across dressed as a pilgrim. As for the escape from the fort itself, according to oral stories, Rani Jindan had convinced a seamstress to trade clothes with her. The seamstress had pretended to be the Queen while Rani Jindan had walked past her captors with ease. She had tricked her guards into thinking she was a commoner and managed to flee her captors.
At that point, she did not know when she could see her son again. After the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848–49, young Duleep Singh was officially removed from the throne. But the British still feared that he could inspire a revolt, if given a chance. Owing to this his movements and meetings were put under strict watch. He could only meet other Indians under uncompromising supervision.
Using religion to divide and conquer people was a common tactic employed by the British. This tactic was used in Duleep Singh’s case too. He had to convert to Christianity like some other Indian nobles. He was subsequently sent to England where he had to completely rebuild himself and try to forget the life he had left behind. Nicknamed the ‘Black Prince of Perthshire’, Duleep then grew up as an English prince. All connection with his past was severed.
Still, he managed to thrive under the affections of Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort. Both these royals were fond of the Lahore-born, turbaned king. They had even picked out a match for him. They hoped he’d marry Princess Victoria Gowramma (whose origins also lay in India). She was the daughter of Chikka Veera Rajendra, the last ruler of Kodagu (Coorg).
However, this match did not come to be. Duleep, whom Queen Victoria would refer to as her ‘beautiful boy’, married Bamba Müller instead. She was of German and Abyssinian ancestry and was raised by missionaries in Cairo. The couple had six children together. The Queen was so fond of Duleep’s family that his eldest son, Victor, was christened twice since the Queen wasn’t present at the first christening. Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh was Duleep Singh’s fifth child. The Queen was fond of Sophia and readily became her godmother. Princess Sophia came into a world filled with the finest luxury imaginable. Her home, a property called Elveden Hall, stretched out on 17,000 acres. Duleep Singh had left India, but the style of things that once marked his father’s courts had journeyed with him to England. That’s why Sophia’s early days were spent playing on an estate that was fitted out in the Rajput style. The English home resembled a Mughal palace with its marble floors and decorative mirrors.
Duleep Singh kept cheetahs, baboons, leopards, hawks, ducks, parrots and many more animals to add to the magnificence of this home. Many of these animals, purely serving as decorative additions, weren’t meant to survive the brutal winter of Britain. Much like how his birds found their lives slipping away every winter, so did Duleep Singh’s wealth. The opulent and extravagant life he had grown accustomed to started disappearing. His was a life of exorbitant excesses, destined to run out sooner or later.
When the lures of youth and wealth began to fade, it’s likely that Duleep Singh began to wonder how much he had lost. Separated from his mother and his people, he was dependent solely on what the Crown gave him. It’s very likely that if things had gone another way, he could have had a kingdom of his own. In an attempt to claim his birthright, Duleep (along with his wife and six children) tried to move back to Punjab. They were stopped at the port of Aden, Yemen, and were unceremoniously turned away. They were told they would be arrested if they didn’t go back to Britain. Sophia was only 10 at the time of this incident. Her family was displaced and mistreated and things were about to get much worse.
Her father was against the idea, but her mother brought the family back to London. The India Office sent some amount of pension for the family, as was customary. But those allowances were never enough to pacify Duleep Singh. The money allotted to take care of their needs was not enough to keep them together either.
Still enraged with the British Empire, Duleep Singh is said to have left his family and moved away. He managed to meet his mother and even re-converted to Sikhism, the faith of his forefathers. But, most likely, the feeling of being cheated consumed him. After he left, Sophia and her siblings had to watch their mother give in to despair and alcoholism. Their family was still the talk of the town, as it always had been, but now their downfall was the source of gossip.
As mentioned in Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, it was at this juncture that Queen Victoria intervened to ensure Sophia’s family had a place to stay. They moved from Sophia’s birth home, Elveden Hall in Suffolk, to Faraway House at the Hampton Court Palace. This was a ‘grace and favour’ residence—it belonged to the monarch but Sophia was allowed to stay there rent-free under the Queen’s guardianship.
Though all their material needs were taken care of, the family continued to have a hard time. Alienated from her husband, Sophia’s mother passed away. One of her brothers, Edward, also passed away. He was the youngest among Sophia’s siblings, and his death hit her hard.
Her estranged father was living in Paris at that time. He was trying to organize a revolt against the British in India. Duleep Singh had also remarried and had other children. Sophia was 17 when she heard that her father was no more—he had died alone and in poverty in a hotel room in Paris.
Many believed that Sophia, a quiet girl, would give in to grief in light of these tragedies, but she emerged stronger from her trials. Sophia was well-educated. She had studied chemistry at Cambridge University but her first and foremost role, like other women born into high British society, was to be a socialite. And the Princess had excelled in that role. She would regularly be the toast of society columns.
A fashion icon often seen in the latest of European designs, Sophia also had a great collection of dogs. She had French Poodles and other toy dog breeds that she would take for walks in the royal gardens. She was also an expert horse rider and a competitive hockey player. Newspaper columns also described her as a ‘first-rate cyclist’.
Sophia and her siblings, by virtue of their birth and family status, had front-row seats to the affairs of the British court. They were anglicized aristocrats and their education and upbringing resembled the one their father had.
When they came of age, Sophia and her sisters (Bamba and Catherine) made their debut in the British court in May 1885. They were dressed in exquisite white gowns, fine pearls and lace veils for this event. This was a big day. It was their formal introduction to English society—an induction of sorts.
England had given them a lot but it wasn’t enough. The three Singh sisters longed to see India—the country their father had deeply longed to return to when he was alive. When the Delhi Durbar of 1903 was announced, the Singh sisters saw it as an opportunity to visit the shores of their ancestors.
The Durbar was an exceedingly grand spectacle meant to mark the coronation of Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, and his wife Queen Alexandra as the Emperor and Empress of India. According to Anita Anand, at one point, Edward VII was among Sophia’s father’s closest friends. Duleep Singh would regularly invite Edward VII to his estate. The two would go out on grand hunting parties together.
When Sophia’s eldest brother Victor married Anne Coventry, the daughter of the ninth Earl of Coventry, the union kicked up a storm. This was the first time that an Indian prince had married an English noblewoman. It was only due to Edward VII’s support that things remained under control.
Affairs of the Crown were sometimes nasty. Here was Edward VII, being crowned as the Emperor of India—a land, a part of which the Singh family once had a stronghold on. All the sisters wanted was to visit the country of their forefathers and witness their father’s friend being crowned. But when they expressed their desire to travel to India, their request was denied.
Like in their father’s case, the British felt that the presence of the Singh sisters could kindle a rebellion. They were, after all, symbolic of the lost Sikh Empire. Even though they were not invited, the Singh sisters still went ahead and boarded a ship to India.
And it was there, in the land of her forefathers, that Sophia found herself facing racism for the first time. Officers of the EIC treated her like they treated other brown-skinned Indians, as second-class citizens in their own country. While the sisters all saw the same things, it affected them differently. The coronation was designed to showcase the pomp and power of the British Empire. But the racism that Sophia experienced was a thoroughly shocking backdrop for one of the greatest celebrations in the world.
The officers of the EIC—men who came from the land she was born in and had identified with for so long—completely shunned and mistreated her. In stark contrast, the Sikhs, with whom she had never had any contact, welcomed her with open arms. This was despite her not knowing their language or customs.
All of this was an eye-opener for someone like her, who had previously only known the privilege and protection her high-born status gave her. This experience changed Sophia forever, making her painfully aware of the bubble she had been in as the Queen’s god-daughter.
Perhaps the young woman thought this was her only chance to see India. Perhaps she hoped to return again. We shall never know… But while she was in India, she grabbed the opportunity to travel across the country. From Lahore to the rest of undivided India, Sophia saw poverty and famine everywhere she went. She also saw how the British mistreated the people of India.
Those who recognized the Princess as Ranjit Singh’s granddaughter in Lahore reminded her of her family’s heritage and reputation. She was in a land where the streets were alive with tales of how her grandfather had consolidated the Sikh Empire; how he had kept the Afghans out; and how he first went to battle when he was only 10.
As mentioned in the book Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand, all of Sophia’s riches and comfort paled in comparison when she realized what her family had been forced to leave. No amount of wealth compared to what she felt when walked the lands of her father’s birth nation. It was like she had found a missing piece of herself—a piece of a puzzle she didn’t even know she was missing.
Knowing where you come from has immense power; it can change you. As Sophia came to terms with her family’s legacy, she noticed that the nationalist leaders were gaining popularity. Across India, the call to rise up against the British was gaining momentum.
The British were right in their precaution to keep Sophia’s family from returning. Now that they were in India, their loyalties towards the Empire were fading.
The easiest way to write a new history is to erase the old one. Disconnect enough people from their roots and culture and half the battle is won. The British had perfected this tool—to divide and rule—and it almost never failed them. Disconnecting the Singh family from their roots was also in line with this plan. In the case of the Singh sisters, though, it didn’t go as well as planned.
Filled with a newfound sense of belonging, Sophia spent more and more time in the company of Indian freedom fighters. Even after she returned home, she continued to exchange letters with Indian revolutionaries like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sarla Devi and Lala Lajpat Rai. Sophia looked up to Rai in particular.
After Sophia left India, she learnt that Rai had been charged with sedition. This act, in some ways, was a tipping point for the young woman. It cemented in her a hatred for the officials of the British Empire who had wronged her people. ‘Oh, you wicked English, how I long for your downfall. How I loathe you all,’ she wrote in her diary.
Sophia’s friends, back in Britain, probably expected her to return with tales of great riches and exotic delights from her visit to India. All these minor royals in the British court had expected Sophia to join their bridge clubs and crochet circles, but they were in for a surprise.
By the time Sophia returned to the shores of England in 1909, she was a changed person. She had seen the world for how it truly was and nothing could make her turn away from life’s harsher realities.
Mulling over all that she had seen and learnt in India, Sophia could no longer go back to the life of excess she lived before. She needed to do more than just breed prized dogs and promulgate fashion trends. It was during this time of introspection that Sophia also must have realized Britain’s shoddy treatment of lascars. The lascars were Indian seamen—a majority of them from Bengal and Punjab (in undivided India) and some from parts of modern-day Pakistan. When ships laden with spices and supplies left India for Britain, they were often in need of men to work on the ships. The men who had come with them from Britain would either be dead or would look for employment elsewhere. Hence, there was a need for fresh manpower. In fact, by the early 1900s, the empire of Great Britain and the EIC had become extremely dependent on India for manpower.
Once they reached Britain, these lascars were left to fend for themselves. They had to wait for weeks, sometimes months, before they could find employment on another ship headed towards India.
While they lived in London, waiting for a chance to see their families again, many were treated miserably by their British employers. Some of these seamen were physically tortured; some were even forced to eat meat forbidden by their religious beliefs; and some lived as slaves in the hovels of London.
Stuck in a strange place, these men had shocking stories of what they had experienced. The horrible scenes and accounts she saw and heard caused Sophia to become actively involved in the betterment of their lives. She put in the effort and used her access to high society to raise funds and create a safe house for these men—a place where they could be fed and sheltered.
Besides working for the welfare of these men, Sophia continued her campaigns for the release of Lala Lajpat Rai. This course of social activism led her to find kindred spirits and like-minded people, who believed in the principles of equality and justice and fought for them.
The turn of the twentieth century was a crucial point in Britain’s history as the cause of women’s suffrage was gaining great momentum. Suffrage—the right to vote—was something that women in those times did not have, and Sophia easily became an ally of the movement. In fact, much of Sophia’s life is known to the world only because of her reputation as a prominent suffragette.
In April 1913, a picture in the Daily Mail created something of a scandal in the British court. The picture was of Sophia. She had been photographed standing with a large satchel swung across her fur coat holding up copies of the newspaper, The Suffragette. Right next to her was a placard that read ‘Suffragette Revolution’. ‘Votes for Women,’ she would shout while standing outside the Hampton Court Palace and her own place of residence.
To see the Queen’s god-daughter selling newspapers on the street was utterly shocking for British sensibilities. But this was Sophia’s way of drawing attention to a cause she strongly believed in. She knew well enough that her background would help publicize the cause, but it was not safe for her to take a political stand. After all, one of Sophia’s mentors, prominent political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, had just been sentenced to three years of imprisonment with hard labour. Emmeline’s crime was leading suffragette activities and fighting for women’s right to vote.
Sophia could easily connect with this movement. Her father and sister (Bamba) had spent much of their adult life in the quest of an impossible dream. And no matter how much they wanted to claim their rightful place in history, the world had changed too much for that to happen. When his people last saw him, Duleep Singh was a young boy who signed away his throne and gave one of the largest cut diamonds in the world—the Koh-i-Noor—to the British.
Instead of grappling for a lost cause, Sophia must have realized that she had to choose her battles. She saw how the women around her were fighting for equal rights. In them was the same fire that she had seen burning in the hearts of those fighting for India’s freedom. In their cause, Sophia found a reason worthy enough to go to battle. She saw the similarities between how women in Britain and Indians in India were denied a say in how their government functioned. These became overlapping concerns for her. Sophia, a radical firebrand, joined a highly political organization—the Women’s Social and Political Union. She also became friends with activists such as Una Dugdale and the Pankhurst sisters—the other leaders of the Suffragette movement alongside Emmeline Pankhurst.
Over 300 women marched to the British Parliament on 18 November 1910. The march was to garner support for the suffragette cause but it was halted when cops came out in large numbers. What followed was excessive police brutality, with many of the women being assaulted. Sophia had marched with them. Her name appears among the hundreds who were arrested on that fateful day. The date has gone down in history as ‘Black Friday’. Sophia is remembered as one of the youngest leaders of the movement. Her fighting spirit echoed the strength of her ancestors.
During the march, when Sophia saw a policeman hitting a woman, she physically put herself between them. The policeman recognized Sophia. He fled the scene but Sophia made note of his badge number. She complained to the authorities about him. Her complaints climbed up all the way to Winston Churchill, the then home secretary of Britain. Churchill, who once referred to Gandhi as ‘a half-naked fakir’, was a crafty man and he gave his staff explicit instructions to ignore Sophia. However, she was not one to be ignored. In 1911, she waited outside 10 Downing Street for Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. As he appeared in his car, she flung herself in front of the moving vehicle. One can only imagine his shock to see someone suddenly appear in front of his car. Determined to not be ignored this time, Sophia thrust a poster forward that read ‘Votes for Women’.
Sophia’s acts of defiance against the government continued in many ways. When there was a census survey, for instance, some had a straightforward reason for not wanting to participate in it. The thinking was that if they wouldn’t be treated as citizens whose voice was equal to that of men, why should they be counted as citizens at all?
This line of thinking seemed extreme to the lawmakers. They even allotted police officers in plainclothes to monitor movements of people around a few houses in London, which they thought housed people with these pro-women’s rights beliefs. The officers stood there all night long, from 10.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m., just keeping watch and making notes.
Like many others silently supporting the Suffragette Movement, Sophia could have chosen not to actively participate in it. But passive protest was not in this firebrand’s nature. Not only did she boycott the survey, she also defaced the census document. ‘No Vote, No Census. As women do not count, they refuse to be counted,’ she scrawled across the form.
In 1838, Queen Victoria opened the Hampton Palace so that the public could enjoy its architecture and splendid art collection. It attracted millions of people. When the suffragette movement started seeing traction, for the first time in 70 years those galleries were closed. The government feared that the suffragettes would undertake violent means to voice their protest. It would have been splendid for the movement for equal rights to have a champion as noteworthy as the Queen’s god-daughter.
On 30 December 1913, the Daily Mail published a picture of Sophia wrapped up in fine black furs and wearing an elaborate feather hat.16 She wasn’t leaving a social gathering but the police court in Feltham. She had been arrested before but this was the first time she was facing prosecution. The charge against Sophia—who had become involved with the Tax Resistance League and wore a medal and pin announcing the same—was unpaid taxes for her dogs, carriage and the help.
Sophia had already been fined twice for not paying taxes. She turned up in court with all the grace expected of a woman of her social standing. In court, Sophia’s lawyer, Leon Castello informed the jury that his client would speak for herself. She did and what a scandal it created! Her speech was splashed across almost all newspapers. It read:

I am unable conscientiously to pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control over its expenditure, neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of members of Parliament, whose salaries I have to help to pay. This is very unjustified. When the women of England are enfranchised and the State acknowledges me as a citizen, I shall, of course, pay my share willingly towards its upkeep, if I am not a fit person for the purposes of representation, why should I be a fit person for taxation?

Sophia still had friends in high places. Every time the government tried to auction off her belongings for unpaid taxes, her friends would buy them back. It’s likely that Sophia understood her societal status afforded her great privilege and security. But she seemed willing to push the boundaries of this security and risk it all.
Officers of the British court had always kept a close eye on members of the Singh family, especially after Duleep Singh had moved to Paris. They had kept his children under watch even after his passing. His eldest, Victor, had become a British Army officer. The second-born, Frederick, was a staunch monarchist and was loyal to the British Crown. Sophia’s sister Catherine was also involved with the suffrage campaign but after spending some time in England, Catherine moved away to Germany to start a new life and even helped a Jewish family flee Nazi Germany and settle in England. However, their sister Bamba had always felt India’s pull quite strongly. She moved to Lahore. When borders were drawn up between India and Pakistan, she was furious as those demarcations split Punjab into two halves. With siblings like hers, the British could not have known that it was Sophia that they had to watch out for.
When the First World War was announced, Sophia joined a protest march of 10,000 women for not allowing women to be a part of the war effort. When wounded soldiers started filling up Britain’s hospitals, Sophia paused her suffragette work and turned her attention to helping those soldiers.
She became a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), a unit of the Red Cross. This was a section of civilians who cared for soldiers evacuated from battle. Sophia was also involved with the Soldier’s Welfare Fund. She devoted a significant amount of her time to raise funds for Indian soldiers fighting as part of the British Indian Army. They had been posted all over—from the trenches of Belgium to the riverbanks of Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia.
From warm clothes and sturdy shoes to chocolates and cigarettes, Sophia arranged whatever she could for the soldiers. She even organized ‘Flag Days’ to raise money for those wounded in the War, the first of which was on 19 October 1916. British and Indian women came together on these days to sell flags decorated with elephants and stars. Sophia also entertained Indian soldiers who were part of a peace contingent at her home in Hampton Court in September 1919.
After the First World War finally came to an end, Sophia was invited to join the select group of women who comprised the Suffragette Fellowship. This was a great honour and recognized her contribution for the cause. By the Second World War, Sophia had left her Hampton home to move to a village called Penn in Buckinghamshire, into a bungalow named ‘Rathenrae’.
This time, the war was much closer to home. Germany sent planes to drop bombs on Britain’s cities. Whenever an enemy plane was sighted, loud sirens pierced the air. People were instructed to turn off their lights, shrouding entire cities in darkness to ensure these planes didn’t find a target to hit.
To further avoid casualties during these bombings, children were separated from their parents and sent away from London. They were handed over to those in the countryside to wait out the War. Sophia took in three children to save them from the bombing that went on for 11 weeks. Sophia, a woman caught in between different worlds, never married. Instead, she became a godmother to her housekeeper Bosie’s daughter, Drovna. According to Anita Anand’s book, she would tell Drovna about how women like her had marched and fought tooth and nail for women’s rights.
It is very possible that if not for the diaries Sophia meticulously kept—and a few photographs and letters—her story could have been lost forever. This would have been a real shame considering how Sophia and her family’s story is a significant chapter in the intricately linked histories of India and Britain. No one could have predicted that the shy Sophia, who grew up in favour of the British court, would one day become a formidable revolutionary. It took only one visit to India to shape Sophia into the person she was meant to be.
In 1918, the British Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act, which gave women the right to vote. In 2018, when the British government marked the centenary of this law, a stamp was issued in Sophia’s honour. The once-controversial photo of Sophia selling The Suffragette outside the Hampton Court Palace is now on this stamp.
India is yet to recognize the many ways in which Sophia, a life-long warrior like her ancestors, battled for the cause of human rights. She passed away in 1948 at the age of 72 in Buckinghamshire. Sophia was cremated in accordance with Sikh rites, as per her wishes.
Despite spending almost all her life in Britain and having much of her family buried there, Sophia wanted her ashes to be brought to India and scattered there. Her father had also wished for the same but his wishes were never granted.
Sophia’s wishes were honoured. The Princess of Punjab was finally home. She became one with the land of her forefathers. In May 2023, Sophia’s contribution was formally recognized when the UK installed a blue plaque in front of her residence. (Buildings of historical importance are marked by blue plaques in the UK.) If her family had continued to hold on to her grandfather’s legacy, Sophia could have been one of the few caretakers of the precious Koh-i-Noor.

Every time India and England talk of that diamond, dear reader, think of what Sophia did for the two nations. And every time the question of nationality comes up, dear reader, think about Sophia—who was born and raised elsewhere but found a calling in both India and Britain as a way to navigate different identities.