Duleep Singh - The Last Maharaja of Punjab

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The story of how Ranjit Singh - The Lion of Punjab built his empire has already been told in the previous article. Let us now read about how his son, Duleep Singh, became the Maharaja after climbing several blood-soaked rungs of the succession ladder.

One life, many wives

The medieval kings took special pride in harems full of beautiful wives and concubines. Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s colourful bedtime storybook featured twenty wives and twenty-six concubines who he sourced as listed below:

1) First wife Mehtab Kaur in 1796, who gave birth to a son named Ishar Singh (1802-1804). After separation from her first husband, she brought forth the twins Tara Singh (1807-1859) and Sher Singh (1807-1843).

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2) Raj Kaur in 1798. She was later renamed Datar Kaur to avoid confusion with Ranjit’s mother (also named Raj Kaur). Affectionately called Mai Nakain, she bore Kharak Singh (1801-1840).

3) Moraan Sarkar, the nautch girl, in 1802.

4) Rani Ratan Kaur in 1811. This widow gave birth to Multana Singh (1819-1846).

5) Rani Daya Kaur in 1811. This widow gave birth to two sons Kashmira Singh (1821-1844) and Pashaura Singh (1821-1845) from her previous deceased husband. Ranjit named the boys.

6) Rani Roop Kaur in 1815

7) Rani Chaand Kaur in 1815

8) Rani Lakshmi in 1820

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9) Rani Mehatab Kaur in 1822

10) Rani Gulab Kaur

11) Mehtab ‘Guddan’ Devi in 1829 (SATI?)

12) Raj Banso (sister of Mehtab Devi) in 1829

13) Rani Ram Devi in 1830

14) Unknown wife

15) Rani Saman Kaur in 1832

16) Gulbahar Begum, the nautch girl), in 1832. See photos; read HERE.

17) His last wife, Jind Kaur, in 1835. She gave birth to Duleep Singh (04 September 1838 - 22 October 1893).

Young nautch girls make grown men dance for them 

Ranjit Singh also had three Rajput wives who committed ritual sati at his death:

18) Rani Har Devi

19) Rani Raj Devi

20) Rani Rajno Kaur

The favourite wives of the Maharaja were Moraan and Gulbahar (nautch girls), and Jind Kaur (amateur dancer).

Maharaja Kharak Singh and Chet Singh

"The break-up of the Punjab will probably begin with murder".

– A prediction of Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of India

The Maharaja had eight sons but only acknowledged Kharak and Duleep as his own; the rest were either dowries or conjugal ‘mistakes’.

Ranjit Singh’s Prime Minister was Raja Dhian Singh (22 August 1796-1843) who also brought in his Dogra Hindu Rajput brothers, Suchet and Gulab, to handle important departments.

Shortly before his death, Ranjit appointed Kharak Singh as ruler of Kashmir. Dhian set afloat the rumour that Kharak and his childhood teacher, Chet Singh Bajwa, were traitors about to disband the Khalsa army, turn all the sardars out of their command, and ready to pay six annas in every Rupee of revenue to the British for protection.

Kharak, a blockhead, was exceedingly fond of alcohol, opium, and partying with nautch girls. His lack of statecraft, and blind trust on his intimidating teacher angered Dhian and his brothers who felt belittled and mistrusted.

Chet was rash enough to say in durbar to Dhian, "See what will become of you in twenty-four hours." Dhian, a resolute and serene man, smiled politely and replied, "Your humble servant, sir; we shall see."

Dhian had an understanding both with the Sikh sardars of Ranjit Singh’s French Brigade (under General Ventura) and the British. He worked his magic on Nau Nihal Singh (Kharak’s son) and his wife, and Maharani Chand Kaur (Ranjit Singh’s wife). He then recruited two cousins, Sandhawalia sardars Ajit Singh and Lehna Singh.

On the fateful night of 09 October 1839, the army officers were ordered to feign sleep no matter what happened. With Maharaja Kharak held back in the adjoining room, Dhian plunged a danger into Chet Singh’s heart, shouting, "The twenty-four hours you were courteous enough to mention to me have not yet elapsed. Take this in memory of Ranjit Singh."

Stone-hearted son Nau Nihal Singh, aided by court physicians, administered poison which took nine painful months to claim father Kharak’s life on 05 November 1840, aged only thirty-eight.

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Nau Nihal Singh

On 06 November at Kharak’s cremation, two Ranis and eleven slave-girls committed sati. After the funeral, as Nau Nihal Singh was passing under the Roshnai Gate archway at Hazuri Bagh, beams and stones crashed down. Mian Udham Singh Dogra, son of Gulab Singh, died on the spot.

An injured Nau Nihal was quarantined; not even his mother and wives were allowed to see him. A palki-bearer remembered seeing Nau Nihal’s Rupee-sized head-wound but the unusual pool of blood that his corpse was bathed in indicated foul play. He was only nineteen.

An American employed as an artillery Colonel by Ranjit, Alexander Haughton Campbell Gardner, (Gordana Khan) was not allowed to eyewitness the ‘accident’; he was sent on a fool’s errand by Dhian Singh. Gardener later noted that of the five artillery men who carried Nau Nihal to the fort, two were murdered, two escaped somewhere, and the fate of the fifth remained unknown.

Maharani Chand Kaur

Dhian, Suchet, and Gulab now set up Maharani Chand Kaur as a rival claimant to the throne. While Gulab and his nephew Hira Singh pretended to favour the Maharani, Dhian Singh sided with Maharaja Sher Singh.

A futile battle was staged between the rivals and which benefitted Gulab Singh. Soon Chand Kaur was found murdered in bed, her head crushed with a flagstone by slave-girls bribed by Sher Singh.

Maharaja Sher Singh, Pratap, and Dhian Singh

On 18 January 1841, Sher Singh (son of Ranjit Singh and Mehtab Kaur), was pronounced the Maharaja. Curiously, Dhian Singh remained the Prime Minister.

Sher Singh was popular in the army but strongly supported the British due the Afghan war experience. He ignored Dhian’s advice, gave in to drinking and debauchery, and overlooked the murders of army officers.

On 15 September 1843, Ajit Singh, while asking for a jagir (feudal land grant) killed the Maharaja with a double-barrel gun and two blows of the sword. Sher Singh’s last words were: Aa ki dagha? (why this treachery?)

Ajit then beheaded Sher Singh’s handsome 10-year old son, Prince Karivar Pratap Singh, and entered the harem where he butchered all the ladies. On the same day he shot and then hacked to death conspirator, Raja Dhian Singh.

Death for the assassins

Hira Singh and Suchet Singh, the son and brother of Dhian Singh extracted revenge by attacking and brutally executing Ajit Singh and his accomplice cousin, Lehna Singh. At Dhian Singh’s cremation, his ten-year old wife committed sati along with thirteen slave-girls.

Duleep Singh was finally proclaimed the new Maharaja, and Hira Singh became his Prime Minister.

Suchet Singh’s murder

Ranjit Singh’s last wife, Jind Kaur, and her brother Jawahar Singh too desired to get rid of major irritants. They led Suchet Singh into a trap at Lahore. His aide, Pandit Julla cleverly bribed the entire army with gold bracelets before Suchet could fulfil the same promise to them.

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Hira wished to welcome at the city gate his uncle Suchet but Julla warned that the latter would murder him. Suchet and his band of fifty men, trapped inside a mosque, were then ordered by Julla to be killed.

Hira Singh and Pandit Julla

Prime Minister Hira was a mean character, totally under the influence of Pandit Julla whom the army hated. Julla intrigued to create a rift between Hira and his uncles, Gulab and Suchet.

By now, the entire army at Lahore sided with Gulab Singh Dogra (Suchet’s brother and Maharaja of Kashmir) and wanted Hira to give up Julla. Hira refused and escaped beyond Shahdara with Julla and Sohan (son of Gulab Singh) but fate caught up with them; their severed heads were paraded through Lahore for a fortnight.

Kashmira Singh and Peshaura Singh’s murders

Gulab Singh Dogra was furious at the Sikh army for murdering several of his family members. Seeking revenge, especially from Jawahar Singh, he colluded with the British. In turn, Jawahar ill-treated Kashmira Singh and Peshaura Singh (not Ranjit’s real sons).

Kashmira was killed on 07 May 1844 in a battle with the Sandhawalias, and ‘great threat’ Peshaura was strangled to death on 11 September 1845.

Jawahar Singh’s murder

Jawahar and Jind Kaur were the children of Ranjit Singh’s dog-keeper named Manna Singh Aulakh who would run along the palki of Ranjit and beg for his ten-year old daughter Jind Kaur to be admitted to the harem. By age thirteen, through a chadar dalna (throwing the sheet) ceremony, Jind Kaur was married to Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Under most dramatic conditions and in accordance with the decision of the Panch (military council), Jawahar Singh was publicly bayoneted and hacked to pieces as his sister Jind Kaur and young nephew Duleep Singh cried in despair.

Maharani Jind Kaur (aka Jindan)

Jind Kaur's mind-games

When Jind Kaur became the regent in September 1843, her advisors were Diwan Dina Nath, Bhai Ram Singh, and Misr Lal Singh (the last being her lover). They resolved to ‘throw the snake into the enemy’s bosom’, meaning, destroy the fearsome Sikh army by pitting it against the conspirators and their British supporters.

“Ajj Raniit Singh marr gaya (Today Ranjit Singh has died).”
– Sikh soldiers, with tears in their eyes, kissing their swords, laying them down never to see them again, and exclaiming with choked throats on 14 March 1849 at Rawalpindi (Maharaja Duleep Singh Correspondence Volume III (p.67, Dr. Ganda Singh)

The deadly family feud and the Anglo Sikh War I (1845-46) and II (1848-49) wreaked havoc on Sikh power. Misr Lal Singh ran and hid himself in the tandoor (oven) of an old bakeress in Ludhiana. General Tej Singh too, under the pretext of getting more ‘help’, took to his heels.

Maharani Jind Kaur, corresponding with the British, was actively hunting with the lion and running with the Khalsa hare. To secure the boy Maharaja and herself against the Khalsa army, she surrounded herself with not Sikh soldiers but Muslims who had previously mutinied against the Sikhs in Peshawar in 1841.

The Sikh army sought Gulab Singh’s aid against their deserter Generals and promised to make him a bigger Maharaja. Due to his past experience and Jind Kaur’s request, he maintained his distance in Jammu.

Jindan then conspired to have the British Resident at Lahore, Lt. Col. Henry Lawrence, murdered but the plan failed because of leaked information.

A peace treaty between the British and the Lahore durbar was ratified on 08 March 1849. The British gained overall supremacy with the signing of the The Treaty of Lahore on 29 March. Through the Khalsa army’s defeat, Jind Kaur opened the British Pandora’s Box of annexation of the Punjab on 02 April 1849.

Early Akali Sikh warriors of the Khalsa

A large British force was stationed at Lahore where Colonel Sir John Lawrence was Resident. Gulab Singh was declared an independent Maharaja of Kashmir and Jammu. In all the despair, the Maharani fancied marrying a high-ranking British officer to secure her own and Duleep’s future.

The British East India Company officials spun for Duleep a bedtime story according to which his 'mother had rebelled against him'. He and his courtiers were expected to unhesitatingly sign away the kingdom or face much harsher consequences. The Company effectively evicted the young Prince from the Darbar of Lahore and turned his mother into a powerless Rani (queen). The Treaty stated:

‘His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh shall resign for himself, his heirs, and his successors all right, title, and claim to the sovereignty of the Punjab, or to any sovereign power whatever […] All the property of the State […] shall be confiscated to the Honourable East India Company, in part payment of the debt due by the State of Lahore to the British Government.’

Jind Kaur’s punishment

At age nine Duleep was separated from his queen mother for thirteen years. The Company granted Duleep a life pension of Rupees 400,000-500,000 per annum but later twice reduced the amount agreed upon.

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Jindaan (or Mai Jee), the 'Messalina of the Punjab' was a seductress too rebellious to be controlled, and ‘regarded as a dangerous influence on the young boy’. The Company clipped her wings by reducing the annual pension from Rupees 150,000 to 80,000, confiscation of jewellery, and confinement at Sheikhupura Fort.

The British blamed on Jind Kaur the rebellions they themselves stoked in Multan and Hazara, further reduced the pension to Rupees 48,000, and exiled the Maharani with two maid-servants to Chinnar Fort by river Ganges in Varanasi.

When her ferocious letters, exhorting the Khalsa sardars to mutiny, were intercepted by the British, she escaped from captivity disguised as a servant. She begged for food along the way, and traversed eight hundred miles of forest along river Gomti to reach Nepal. Local spies recognised her but she succeeded in seeking asylum from Maharana Jung Bahadur (GCSI).

British agents kept a watchful eye on Jind Kaur for eleven years and intercepted all her mail. It was intelligence gathering that made Britain ‘great’ and an ‘empire’ which ruled over colonies full of slave labour and raw materials.

Read: The Imperial Gazetteer of India

Coat of arms of the East India Company (circa 1700s)

The cost of wars

In case, you have always wondered where our own elites come from, consider this: The British East India Company (BEIC), or ‘Company’, was soon being referred to as ‘Company Bahadur’ (valiant). It ran the East India Company College (‘Haileybury’), nineteen miles north of London, where the finest minds from Oxford and Cambridge tutored future ’writers’ (administrators).

Duleep signed the punitive 1849 Treaty of Lahore to compensate the Company for 'losses suffered during wars' which she curiously fought to usurp the Sikh empire. The Company was pleased to take over Punjab and the famous Koh-i-Noor (mountain of light) diamond through a distinct clause in the Treaty.

“The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk by Maharajah Runjeet Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.”

Just one man, Dr. John Spencer Logan, Governor of the Lahore Citadel, was in-charge of cataloguing and evaluating the ‘Toshakhana’ (treasury), harem and war prisoners. The thugs of the Company added more carats to the Victorian treasury, and sent to England shiploads of gold, jewels, books and other curiosities. It took two years to ransack Punjab and sell the booty off in eleven separate auctions.

Dr Logan's inventory listing Koh-i-Noor as an armband

Current estimates of the treasury’s value exceed US$ 100 billion. In 1850, the Company celebrated 250 years of colonisation and enrichment through plunder. As a befitting gift, Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of India, presented to a powdered Queen Victoria the huge Koh-i-Noor.

In the clutches of the British vampire 

"One European with a small native escort, by moral influence, inducing hundreds to lay down their arms!"

– Lady Login praising the magical Englishness of her husband while judging the native Indian instinct as ‘duplicity and intrigue’

Punjab in 1880

There was illegitimate Lawrence of Arabia and there were other Lawrences within Punjab. In 1862, Lahore’s Lawrence Road and the adjoining Lawrence Gardens were named after Sir John Lawrence (Sir Henry Lawrence’s older brother, and the Viceroy of India). His older brother Sir Henry ‘gunpowder’ Montgomery Lawrence was also Haileybury alumni, Agent, Resident, and later Governor-General. He recommended to Lord Dalhousie that Dr. Logan be assigned as a guardian to take 'care' of young Duleep Singh.

The expanded British empire in 1909

In 1850, the Company moved young Duleep Singh to the remote Fatehgarh (Uttar Pradesh). The doctor severely restricted the visitors, anglicised the youth in every way, chose Christian missionaries to be his closest friends, and ensured that instead of reciting the Guru Granth Sahib, Duleep focussed on the Holy Bible. Classic brain-washing techniques were used on the Prince: criticism, social proof and peer pressure, isolation, fear of alienation, repetition, fatigue, and forming a new identity (replacement of old memories with new ones).

Duleep’s future exile in England depended on whether he obediently converted to Christianity. Lady Lena Campbell Login reported that ‘he was most enthusiastic and adhered to his Bible studies with a passion’.

By 1852, Prince Albert had the Koh-i-Noor diamond trimmed from 186 to 105 carats. It took thirty-eight days and 8,000 Pounds worth of expert work—today's equivalent of 960,000 Pounds.

Queen Victoria and family

On 08 March, 1853, Duleep’s Punjabi Singh-ness was finally trimmed with baptism. Although Singh (derived from the Sanskrit word simha) meant ‘lion’, our lion-cub was now a pet pussycat.

Across the English Channel

With Duleep cut off from Jind Kaur, brain surgeon Queen Victoria stepped in to play his far-off mother and showered him with position, £40,000 per annum pension, and protocol.

Although by 1854 this ‘Sikh curiosity’ had recovered from poor health, the Empire still considered him a ‘threat’. Lord Dalhousie exiled the fifteen-year old human 'war trophy' to England via Egypt. At Malta and Gibraltar, Duleep received a twenty-one gun-salute.

In England, Duleep freely mingled with the Royal household at Osborne, played with Royal children, and holidayed at Royal homes. His regal bearing, native ways, handsomeness, and dark intelligent eyes drove the Queen to draw his sketches and watercolours. Prince Albert photographed him and court artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter Winterhalter (1805-1873) painted his portraits.

Duleep the country gentleman wore no Sikh turban, shaved off his traditional beard, and indulged in arts, shooting and coursing, and became a part of the English landscape. In Scotland he wore the Highlander dress and was nicknamed the ‘Black Prince of Perthshire’. Queen Victoria called him ‘my beautiful boy’. There were whispers of him being Her Majesty's platonic lover.

Jind Kaur’s comeback

In 1859, Duleep wished to see his mother and wrote to the British Resident Officer at Kathmandu. Under the pretext of a tiger-hunt in Bengal, he also wrote to his mother asking her to come to Kolkata (Calcutta).

Famine in India (1876-1878)

While staying in a Calcutta hotel, Sikh soldiers gathered outside to have a look at their ex-Maharaja. The authorities were alarmed to note how his countrymen still considered him as their ruler.

Jind Kaur begged the Maharana to let her go but he allowed on the condition that she would not return to Nepal. Already robbed of her kingdom, exiled from Punjab to Varanasi, and forced to seek asylum in Nepal, she was now ready to sacrifice more to see her twenty-two years old son.

In 1861 in Kolkata, Jind Kaur laid her eyes on a long-lost son and cried rivers of tears noticing that he had lost his Sikh faith. She asked him to travel to Punjab but he refused because the Company restricted his movement for obvious reasons. When the Maharani insisted on going to England with him, he arranged for this in secret. In England, Duleep presented his mother with jewellery he had salvaged or purchased in India. The famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was obviously missing.

For the next two years, the mother would tell the son everything about his royal Sikh heritage and lost inheritance. Duleep began to spend time in the library of the British Museum learning more about Punjab, Ranjit Singh - The Lion of Punjab, and the English who robbed his family clean.

The Koh-i-Noor in the cross of Queen Mary's Crown

Watch the video: Maharani Jind Kaur, Last Queen of Punjab 

Duleep is shown the Koh-i-Noor

Maharaja Ranjit was never the original owner of the famous diamond. Lady Login, the wife of Dr. Logan, mentioned in her memoirs that the subject of the Koh-i-Noor was never mentioned in Duleep’s presence because it was a painful reminder of the loss of his dynasty’s imperial sovereignty.

The Queen, after her first meeting with Duleep Singh, asked Lady Login whether ‘the Maharajah ever spoke of the Koh-i-Noor, and if so, did he seem to regret it?’

Once assured that showing the Koh-i-Noor would not provoke Duleep, the Queen showed him the diamond during her portrait sitting at the palace.

Lady Login feared he would hurl the diamond out of the window in a fit of rage, but instead, Duleep remained speechless for several minutes. He trembled as he took the precious stone in his hand, gazing at it intensely and noting how the re-shaped diamond sparkled much more than before.

Koh-i-Noor cutting cartoon (Punch, 31 July 1852)

He reportedly turned and bowed low before the Queen, ‘expressing in a few gracious words the pleasure it afforded him to have this opportunity of himself placing it in her hands.’ One may suppose that in his Sikh heart Duleep said what the Queen often said: "We are not amused".

Although Ranjit Singh wore the Koh-i-Noor as an arm-band, the Queen wore it as a brooch. Much later in 1937, it was crafted into the Queen Mother's crown for the Coronation of George VI.

A guilty conscience kept Queen Victoria uneasy about the way in which the diamond had been snatched. Writing to her eldest daughter, Princess Alice, she confided:

"No one feels more strongly than I do about India or how much I opposed our taking those countries and I think no more will be taken, for it is very wrong and no advantage to us. You know also how I dislike wearing the Koh-i-Noor".

Maharani Bamba Duleep Singh (1886)

The girl from Cairo

Facing the reality of a lost Kingdom and the Koh-i-Noor, Duleep could only dream of Cinderella. Victoria had placed a severe restriction on him: ‘have a Christian wife of Eastern origin or marry an Indian princess educated in England'.

The Queen and her husband encouraged Duleep to court their godchild, Indian ‘convert’ Princess Gouramma of Coorg. While he showed little interest in this unsuitable promiscuous Princess, European aristocratic families had no intention of having him as a son-in-law.

Maharani Jind Kaur, passed away on 01 August 1863 in England, and grief-stricken Duleep sailed to India to cremate her. When permission to cremate her in Punjab was denied, he scattered her ashes at Godavri river at Nashik (Maharashtra) in February 1864.

On his way back to England, feeling lonesome and frustrated, Duleep fell for a commoner and wedded her at the British Consulate (Alexandria) on 07 June 1864. This was Bamba Müller (BUMBA, meaning ‘pink’ in Arabic) who taught at the American Presbyterian Mission school at Cairo. She was born out of wedlock in 1848 to an Abyssinian (Ethiopia or Habash) slave and an already married German merchant banker named Ludwig Müller from Todd Müller and Company.

British grooming effectively damaged Duleep’s childhood. Because he ignored the  British monarchy’s obsession with maintaining a bloodline, he married beneath him, first to Bamba Müller, and then to his Cockney chambermaid, Ada Douglas Wetherill, on 20 May 1889 at La Madeleine, Paris.

Duleep had six children from Bamba Müller (later known as Maharani Bamba Duleep Singh): 

1) Prince Victor Albert Jay Duleep Singh (10 Jan 1866 - 07 Jun 1918)

2) Prince Frederick Victor Duleep Singh (23 Jan 1868 - 15 Aug 1926)

3) Princess Bamba Sophia Jindaan Duleep Singh (29 Sep 1869 - 10 Mar 1957)

4) Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh (27 Oct 1871 - 08 Nov 1942)

5) Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (08 Aug 1876 - 22 Aug 1948)

6) Prince Albert Edward Duleep Singh (1879 - 01 May 1893)

Duleep also had two children from his marriage to Ada Douglas Wetherill (15 January 1869- 6 August 1930)

Elveden Hall (Suffolk, England)

7) Princess Pauline Alexandra Duleep Singh (26 Dec 1887-10 Apr 1941)

8) Princess Ada Irene Beryl Duleep Singh (25 Oct 1889-14 Sep 1926)

Duleep's decadent lifestyle 

The wild-spending Duleep threw extravagant parties, was an amazing sportsmanship, and possessed royal charm that lit up large halls. This helped him become a serial playboy for society beauties. Since England was without nautch girls, he resorted to chasing after female servants. Prince of Wales became a close friend and his frequent visits to Duleep's 17,407 acres £50,000 estate, Elveden Hall, created plenty of excess associated with Victorian aristocracy.

By the 1880s, Duleep Singh was tired playing an English country squire, overweight and depressed, less sociable, and very bitter about his treatment at the hands of the British. He was also running out of money.

A knight in dull armour 

The British noted how the Indian masses obediently prostrated at the feet of their elites, hence the Queen gave away Knighthoods, mantles, badges, sashes, chivalric titles, social rankings, and gun salutes as 'conspicuous merit and loyalty rewards'.

The Queen made Duleep Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (GCSI), and whose motto was "Heaven's light our guide". This Order was created in 1864 after the Indian Mutiny of 1857; it was the fifth most senior British order of chivalry.

GCSI badge

Correspondence between British officials shows that they wanted the Indians to obey the British and refrain from mutinying. Sustained attacks on the uniting force of faith and social coherence turned the Indians into self-loathing Anglophiles who adored English culture, education, and science.

In the next article on Duleep Singh, we shall read about how this outwardly English Prince became fully Indian, mutinied and declared war on his royal tormentors.

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2019

Articles linked to this story

1) Duleep Singh - The Fall Of The Rebel Prince
2) Ranjit Singh - The Lion of Punjab

Photo credits

1) Sir Duleep Singh (1860s)

2) Franz Xaver Winterhalter (jewel-framed miniature of Victoria  around neck by Emily Eden)

3) The Golden Throne of Ranjit Singh

6) Duleep in ceremonial dress - 1852 (by George Duncan Beechey)

8) Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh in ceremonial dress, 1861

11) Subedar of the 21st Bengal Native Infantry (1819)

Referenced work

Soldier and traveller (Colonel Alexander Gardener)

Acknowledgement
If I were to list all the references the old-fashioned away right here, this article would be twice its current size. If I were to list all the references the old-fashioned away right here, this article would be twice its current size. Included in the text are some web links (URLs). Just click on the words in blue colour and you will reach those other pages that contain either the text used (after laborious editing) or more information. I visited hundreds of web sites while researching for material on Maharaja Duleep Singh. Omissions, if any, were unintentional. I thank those from whom obtaining permission to use some images was either impossible or who did not respond to my requests.

DISCLAIMER

No one must misconstrue the information presented here about any character as disinformation or insults. The information here was meticulously-collected and cross-checked from numerous sources on the internet (without the use of proxy servers in Pakistan). Please email your suggestions (with believable references) if you feel something requires correction.