In this column last week, we discussed the ‘gurdwaras’ of the first three Sikh maharajahs and how their wives and dancing girls were cremated together. In an earlier piece we had mentioned the ‘gurdwaras’ of the three maharanis located at Islamia College. In this column we will examine the very last direct descendant of this ruling family.

Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s eldest son was Maharajah Kharrak Singh, while his only son was Maharajah Nau Nihal Singh, who was killed in an accident on the day of his father’s cremation. Thus, the throne, after considerable family infighting and power shifts, went to Ranjit Singh’s youngest son Maharajah Duleep Singh, who was born on the 4thof September 1838, approximately a year before his father died. In September 1843 at the age of five he was crowned the maharajah, with his mother ruling over affairs. By the time the British took over in 1849, Duleep Singh was just nine years old and recognised by the East India Company (EIC) as the legitimate ruler of Punjab.

On the 29thof March 1849 the EIC took over and young Duleep was put in the care of Dr John Login, who immediately shifted him to Fatehgarh, from where he was shifted to Mysore, now called Mussorie. In 1853, the young maharajah converted to Christianity, an event Sikh scholars’ dispute. The following year he was sent to London and introduced to Queen Victoria. So it was that he lived his life shielded from his heritage.

He learnt of his true heritage when he was allowed to return to India for the cremation of his mother Jind Kaur in 1863, who had died in England. Sadly, the British did not allow the cremation to take place in Lahore with a planned ‘samadhi’ near that of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, as was those of his other wives. Her ashes were temporarily put in a memorial in Mumbai. On his way back to London he met a beautiful German-Abyssinian lady in Cairo working in a missionary school there.

Back in London Queen Victoria welcomed the couple and there on the 29thof September 1869 was born Bamba Sofia Jindan Duleep Singh, the eldest daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh and his first wife Bamba Muller. The couple had four children, two girls and two sons. Duleep Singh died in Paris in 1893 and was buried as a Christian in Elveden Church in Suffolk, England, where his wife, the maharani, and their son Prince Albert Edward Duleep Singh are also buried.

So it was that the last surviving member of the ruling family of Punjab’s Sikh Empire started life in Elveden Hall. She completed her schooling and went on to Somerville College, Oxford. On graduating she went to a medical college in Chicago, USA. Her wish to visit India saw her come to Lahore with a companion maid by the name of Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, an Austro-Hungarian Catholic of Budapest. Marie Antoinette married Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia and their daughter was the famous painter Amrita Sher-Gil, a pioneer of avant-garde painting in the sub-continent.

On the other hand, Princess Bamba decided to settle alone in Lahore and in 1915 decided to marry Dr David Waters Sutherland, the principal of King Edward Medical College, Lahore. Dr Sutherland retired and returned to Scotland in 1926. It is unclear whether Princess Bamba also returned with him. He died in 1939. However, what is known is that when Sutherland died, she was in Lahore, living at 104-A, Model Town Lahore, a place she had purchased and lived in till her death on the 10thof March, 1957. Her house had one of the finest rose gardens of Lahore and was called ‘Gulzar’, which till recently was the name at the gate of her old house.

She was buried in the Christian graveyard on Jail Road, just behind the Lahore Gymkhana Club’s golf course opposite Zafar Ali Road. So it was that the very last survivor of Lahore’s royal family passed away. Princess Bamba’s house was passed on to her ‘munshi’ named Karim Bakhsh Sapra after a change of her will in the presence of two witnesses. In 2020 much after Karim Bakhsh’s death the house was demolished, but the name ‘Gulzar’ remained written on the main gate - at least it was till recently.

In 1960, the Pakistan government paid UK £14,000 to Karim Bakhsh as payment for her rare articles, which consisted of 18 rare paintings, 14 water-colour paintings, 22 ivory idols, 10 metallic items, and seven other precious pieces. Also in the lot were included 17 other rare paintings she had purchased in Europe. Recently, these paintings were restored and placed in the Sikh Museum inside the Lahore Fort and is titled ‘The Bamba Collection’.

The old residents of Model Town remember Princess Bamba as a unique resident, for when she boarded the Model Town bus to come to the city, she would refuse to pay her fare. One resident who often travelled on the same bus recollects her saying: “I am the last of the surviving ruling family of the Punjab, how dare you ask me to pay for something in my realm”.

However, another resident living just three houses away recollects her as walking to a nearby shop and would sometimes pay many times more for a simple product. The shopkeeper in fear never sought a payment and would recall: “She was a nice person and we called her Maharani Gee. Once she left a gold coin for a little sugar. But we never asked as she was Ranjit Singh’s granddaughter”.

A distinguished resident of Lahore who knew her well recalls that she always arrived slightly late for every function, and expected to be welcomed by everyone. He recalls that she wore her striking gold-laced ‘saris’ at an angle where she stood out.

On her death her neighbours wanted to pay for her burial and had a heated discussion with her ‘munshi’ Karim Sapra. But then the British Deputy High Commissioner in Lahore stepped in with the claim that as she was from the ruling family of the Punjab as recognised by the British government, all expenses and arrangements would be borne by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, because her father was adopted by Queen Victoria after the collapse of the Punjab Empire.

It was a very moving gesture by the Queen. During a visit to Lahore much later her procession stopped outside the graveyard and she got out and paid her respects as one royal lady to another. But do we in Lahore care about our recent past and our royal Punjabi family? Communal considerations colour the past. Times have changed since the days of tolerance. On her tombstone the last line reads: “If you open this grave you will just not know who is rich and who is poor”.

NOTE:Last week the location of Lahore Fort and the ‘Samadhi’ were reversed. Also, the dates of Kharak Singh’s cremation and his wife’s murder was wrongly given as 1940 and 1942 instead of 1840 and 1842. The errors are regretted.