To the memory of the Maharani of the Punjab; Jind Kaur (1817-1863) Kensal Green Cemetery

 

It’s nice to see that, at the Dissenter’s Chapel in Kensal Green Cemetery, someone has left flowers for Maharani Jind Kaur (1817-1863) and draped her wall plaque in fairy lights.

Jind Kaur was the youngest of the wives of Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), the founder and first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. She bore Ranjit one son, Duleep Singh who inherited his father’s throne at the age of 5 after his three predecessors all died early and violent deaths at the hands of rivals for the throne. Jind ruled as regent for her son and, determined that he would not meet the fate of her husband’s three successors, was fiercely protective of him. Inevitably perhaps it was not internecine disputes that ended Duleep’s reign and her regency, but the British East India Company which declared war on the Sikh empire in the Punjab in 1845. Jind and her army commanders put up a spirited defence but defeat in the Second Anglo-Sikh war deposed the 10-year-old Duleep, who was sent to England where he could be ‘properly educated’ and a close eye kept on him. Jind was separated from her son and imprisoned first in Lahore, then at Sheikhupura and finally at the Chunar Fort in Uttar Pradesh. The doughty Maharani managed to escape, not only from her prison, but from India, travelling through 800 kilometres of forest, to seek sanctuary in Kathmandu in Nepal. Jind remained in political exile in Nepal for almost 12 years until she was allowed to reunite with her son in Calcutta in 1861. Their reunion was the cause of great joy amongst the Sikhs and the jittery British insisted that the pair leave for England.

Within two years of arriving in London, the Maharani was dead, dying in her sleep on the 1^st August 1863 at Abingdon House in Kensington. Her son, rather controversially, had converted to Christianity at the age of 15, almost certainly under pressure from his British guardian. Two of the Maharaja’s servants claimed, in a letter to the Times, that the Maharaja was to be buried with Christian rites. One of the officers attached to the Maharaja’s household wrote to the Times to rebut the charge:

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. attention has been directed to a letter in the Times of to-day, written. by Utchell Singh and Kishen Singh, in which they would have it believed that it was the intention of his Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh that his mother, her Highness the Maharanee Jenden Kour, should receive the rights of Christian burial. His Highness never had any such intention. Yesterday at ten o’clock the remains of the Maharanee were removed from Abingdon House to be deposited temporarily ina vault at Kensal-green Cemetery, following the course which was adopted in the case of his Highness the late Rajah of Coorg. The remains of the Maharanee were attended by his Highness, myself, several of his personal friends, and by all the retinue of her late Highness, . No Christian rite was attempted, his Highness Duleep Singh, when the coffin was placed in the mausoleum, merely addressing the people in their own language with affectionate earnestness on the uncertainty of human life. Had the writers of the letter (two discharged servants) been present they would have seen that there was a scrupulous care on the part of the Maharajah to avoid offending the prejudices of his countrymen. As his Highness left London last night for Scot- land, and the letter may not, therefore, meet his eye, I lost no time in sending you this communication. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, J. Oliphant, Lieutenant-Colonel. Hatherop Castle, August 6.

Jind Kaur’s body was kept in the catacombs at the Dissenters Chapel until 1864 when her son received permission to take it to India. She was cremated at Bombay (permission to cremate her at Lahore, in accordance with her last wishes, having being refused) where a small samadhi in her memory was erected by Duleep on the Godavari River.

Portrait of Jind Kaur by George Richmond