Books: Intriguing tale of rise of society feminist

Anita Anand brings the fascinating life of Sophia Duleep Singh to the limelight.

The most popular biographies are those that embrace the subject's life while assuming little prior historical knowledge on the part of the reader. The author weaves into the narrative details of the period so the experience of reading the book is akin to that of reading a good novel. Anita Anand's brightly told, fascinating life of Sophia Duleep Singh is such an account.

The book begins conventionally enough, with Sophia's grandfather, Maharajah Ranjit Singh, known with love and awe as the Lion of the Punjab. He ruled over vast regions of northern India, much of it verdant country rich in minerals and coveted by the British and Afghanistan. After he died peacefully in his sleep in 1839, the imperial hawks began to circle.

Sophia's father Maharajah Duleep Singh came to the throne at the age of 3, with his determined mother, Jindan, as regent. In 1847, when he was only 9, Duleep was torn from his mother, when she was sent to prison. Two years later, after the second Anglo-Sikh War, he was tricked into signing the Treaty of Lahore. He "signed away his kingdom, his fortune and his family's future". A further loss was the enormous, famous diamond Koh-I-Noor, which his father had worn strapped to his arm as an amulet. When Duleep was next to see it, years later, it had been cut and faceted and was in the possession of Queen Victoria, who was to play a large part in his life and that of his children.

Sent as a boy to England, Duleep was supported by the India Office and raised as an English gentleman, with little understanding of what he had lost.

Handsome and profligate, he married unhappily and had many progeny on both sides of the blanket. Sophia was one of his legitimate children, born in England in 1876, with Queen Victoria as her attentive godmother.

Sophia was to lead an eventful and mostly principled life. She played an active part not only in the suffragette movement but also in the independence movement in India and pre-partition Lahore. She knew many of the major players in both struggles, including Emmeline Pankhurst and Mahatma Gandhi. An intriguing detail is the motivation Pankhurst suffragette Annie Cobden Sanderson gave to Gandhi, who came to England in 1906 to protest discriminatory laws against Indians in South Africa. Gandhi noted her speech from the dock: "I shall never obey any law in the making of which I have not had a hand." She was sent to Holloway Prison and Gandhi was inspired to go on to the early days of his legendary leadership.

Sophia's politicisation put an end to her previously self-indulgent life style. It's worth noting that she and her siblings, although they complained often, were financially supported by the India Office. Sister Catherine, who formed an enduring relationship with Lina, their one-time nanny, spent most of her life with her in Germany. Brother Victor was as louche and lazy as his father had been, and Bamba and Sophia horrified the British establishment by their passionate involvement in various causes.

Anita Anand is well known in Britain as a radio and television host and a journalist. If she is occasionally a little over-enthusiastic in her descriptions, e.g, "Despite her smiling features and soft, bosomy body, Sanderson was one of the most hardened suffragettes who walked with Sophia", it is only a minor irritation.

Sophia is a colourful, entertaining and informative read.

Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary
by Anita Anand
(Bloomsbury $36.99)

Stephanie Johnson is an Auckland writer