Trav­el­ling to Pun­jab on a jour­ney of soul-search­ing and med­i­ta­tion, re­li­giously-in­clined Bhupin­der Singh from Hous­ton em­barked on a jour­ney of the Sikh Em­pire read­ing cel­e­brated au­thor Chi­tra Baner­jee Di­vakuaruni’s re­cently pub­lished his­tor­i­cal novel –The Last Queen, based on the life of the Ma­hara­jan Jind Kaur, also known as Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan. Bhupin­der Singh pre­sents a syn­op­sis of the novel, which is a fas­ci­nat­ing read about the life and strug­gles of Ma­ha­rani Jind Kaur known as Jin­dan, the youngest and the last queen of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, the ruler of the Sikh King­dom, known as the Sarkar, whose king­dom stretch­ing al­most to Kabul in the west and to Delhi on the east with the his­tor­i­cal city of La­hore as the cap­i­tal.

IT IS TRAGIC THAT LIT­TLE IS WRIT­TEN ABOUT MA­HA­RANI JIND KAUR in the books pub­lished in the In­dian sub-con­ti­nent and even lesser is known about her in­domitable courage. This book -The Last Queen, is about the most for­mi­da­ble fe­male of the nine­teenth cen­tury and the nar­ra­tive com­ing from a fe­male au­thor makes a much-needed wel­come change to the lit­er­ary land­scape. In­ter­est­ingly the book is writ­ten as Jin­dan nar­rat­ing her story in the first per­son. It is an in­ter­est­ing read.

This fast-paced and deeply en­gag­ing novel dwells upon the hu­man per­son­al­ity of Jin­dan, who with her dint of tenac­ity faces the chal­lenges of life. Her grit, fear­less­ness, and in­domitable strong will, made the British at­tempt to swal­low the last in­de­pen­dent king­dom in In­dia so for­mi­da­ble that all kinds of char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion were re­sorted to by them to achieve their aim. The book is fast-paced and a rec­om­mended in­ter­est­ing read.

The au­thor has di­vided the book into four sec­tions -Girl, Bride, Queen, and Rebel. Each sec­tion cap­tures a sig­nif­i­cant phase in her life. A beau­ti­ful daugh­ter of the royal ken­nel keeper Manna Singh Aulakh rises from an im­pov­er­ished child­hood to be­come the youngest, trusted, and the favourite queen of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh.

The first chap­ter ti­tled Guavas cap­tures the sim­ple ad­ven­ture of a hun­gry lit­tle vil­lage girl with her older brother Jawa­har, who is de­ter­mined to leave be­hind her im­pov­er­ished child­hood. We are in­tro­duced right in the be­gin­ning to her tenac­ity and strong willpower, an un­re­lent­ing qual­ity that de­fined her char­ac­ter. 

The sec­ond chap­ter ti­tled Manna about her fa­ther, shares her feel­ings of re­sent­ment for him, for not be­ing pre­sent in their lives and how she “can’t think of him as Fa­ther”. It gives a strange feel­ing that in the book Jin­dan refers to him as Manna and not as a fa­ther, on the other hand, while re­fer­ring to her mother she em­ploys the rev­er­ent and en­dear­ing term of “Biji”. 

In the next chap­ter La­hore, the au­thor cap­tures the ex­cite­ment of an awestruck “vil­lage pump­kin” from her maiden “bone-rat­tling travel” to La­hore, in a bul­lock cart squeezed amongst the bas­kets of jack­fruits. 

The last chap­ter of the first sec­tion ti­tled Gur­d­wara de­tails how she cap­tures the heart of the most pow­er­ful ruler, al­most 40 years older as he de­clares “Stand­ing here in the Gur­d­wara Dehra Sahib, I Ran­jit Singh will marry you – If I’m still alive”.

The first chap­ter in the sec­ond sec­tion Bride is Sword de­scribes in de­tail how Jin­dan is mar­ried to the sword of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh, as he could not be phys­i­cally pre­sent for his own wed­ding. The por­trayal of the wed­ding cer­e­mony in the words of Jin­dan is “The sword is heavy, but I carry it proudly around the holy book while the ragi sings the La­van”. 

The chap­ter Zenana poignantly cap­tures the cold re­cep­tion that she re­ceived from other wives and how the first din­ner was a cov­ered dish set on top of the chest and the old woman whis­per­ing in her ears “Maybe you should­n’t eat the food”. Jin­dan’s feel­ings of be­ing im­pris­oned in the royal palace are haunt­ingly cov­ered. 

Sud­denly, she finds her­self in the midst of ri­val­ries from other queens in the Zenana. In the next chap­ter, Sheesh Ma­hal de­scribes Jin­dan’s in­ti­mate feel­ing of be­ing the bride in the gen­tle em­brace of her hus­band, the most pow­er­ful king of “this en­tire land”. 

The other chap­ters cover the facets of royal life and how Jin­dan is cat­a­pulted to be­come “Sarkar’s favourite queen”. 

The Royal Game shares the promise the Ma­haraja made to Jin­dan that “you will be my last: The one who has filled my heart to­tally.” as well as the news of her preg­nancy. The next chap­ter Birth cov­ers the hap­pi­est day of Jin­dan’s life with the birth of her son named Dalip Singh. 

The chap­ter De­ci­sion paints the pic­ture of the tragic demise of the most pow­er­ful man and her hus­band, cast­ing its gloom on Jin­dan and the in­fant Dalip. At min­is­ter Dhian Singh’’s in­struc­tions, she along with her son are di­rected to move to Jammu for their own safety.

The third sec­tion Queen dwells on Jin­dan’s trou­bles af­ter she lost her hus­band with the to­tal dis­ar­ray in the king­dom built by her late hus­band, the vi­sion­ary king. The tragic death of the heir Kharak, Ran­jit’s el­dest son due to health de­te­ri­o­ra­tion casts its first pale on the king­dom. Nau­ni­hal, Kharak son’s suc­ces­sion is short-lived as while re­turn­ing from the Kharak’s fu­neral a por­tion of Roshni Dar­waza col­lapsed on him killing him. These tu­mul­tuous events were tak­ing place in La­hore and a note from Dhian Singh ar­rived in Jammu di­rect­ing Jin­dan “you must bring Prince Dalip back to La­hore at once.”

Af­ter a short stay in La­hore, soon we find Jin­dan liv­ing in Am­rit­sar in the chap­ter with the same ti­tle. More in­trigue and blood­shed with Ran­jit’s son Sher Singh, Sher’s son Par­tap, Dhian dead and his wife Pathani throw­ing her­self in his fu­neral pyre thus be­com­ing Sati. Even the Sand­hawalias – Ajit and Lehna were cap­tured in a re­venge killing and their heads sev­ered. 

Two days af­ter the fu­neral, Jin­dan and Dalip at age 6 are moved to Sheesh Ma­hal, and Dalip was de­clared as the King with Hira be­com­ing Wazir. Rani Jin­dan was ap­pointed as the Re­gent to the child king. Al­though fear­less, and de­fi­ant of con­ven­tional norms, she tried to es­tab­lish her­self as the power be­hind the throne. Look­ing for al­lies, her eyes fall on Lal Singh, with her de­sires over­tak­ing her, cas­cad­ing her into a dan­ger­ous li­ai­son with him. Then Jin­dan finds her­self los­ing her stand­ing in the dur­bar, which she had fought very hard for. Still, she even tears her­self away from her cry­ing only child of 8 to be with her amour. In a fi­nal des­per­ate act, Jin­dan un­veils her pox-marked face to the courtiers to es­tab­lish her fi­delity to her king­dom.

The British in their ef­forts to ma­lign Jin­dan la­belled her “Mes­salina of Pun­jab” and started spread­ing the ru­mours. 

She again puts the un­veil­ing of the face to ef­fec­tive use with the Khalsa army by woo­ing them to her side with these words; “I’m en­trust­ing you with my ho­n­our. Why then should I hide my face from you?” Soon the Khalsa army was on the hot chase of Hira and Jalla, who es­caped to­wards Jammu with cart­loads of state trea­sures. They were caught be­fore they could reach Jammu and quickly put to death by the army. 

The British in their ef­forts to ma­lign Jin­dan la­belled her “Mes­salina of Pun­jab” and started spread­ing the ru­mours. 

“I am Rani Jin­dan. mother of Ma­haraja Dalip Singh, Mother of the Khalsa, That is my iden­tity and my fate. “

The Last Queen, page 267

The chap­ter Treach­ery makes for a painful read­ing as it shares de­tails of be­trayal of the army lead­er­ship –Jin­dan’s amour Lal, and even Tej who sold their al­le­giances to the British in hopes of re­wards and ja­girs. The treach­er­ous Gu­lab be­comes king of Jammu and Kash­mir while keep­ing all the wealth of Suchet which be­longed to the Sikh Raj. 

More dam­ag­ing news ar­rived from Gov­er­nor-gen­eral Dal­housie to Jin­dan de­clar­ing that be­cause of her harm­ful in­flu­ence on her son Dalip, she will be sep­a­rated from him. The ruse given by Dal­housie was Jin­dan has suf­fered “at­tacks of mad­ness”. Jin­dan is fur­ther framed for plot­ting a re­bel­lion and is ban­ished to Chu­nar Fort in dis­tant Be­naras. Jin­dan feels in her heart that these are all at­tempts to break her spirit. Dal­housie pro­claims Pun­jab be­longs to the British, and Dalip ten years old signs away the king­dom, be­com­ing a pris­oner in his own palace. He is ban­ished to Eng­land, far away from Pun­jab. 

A mother and a son’s meet­ing took place at Spence’s Ho­tel af­ter a sep­a­ra­tion of four­teen years. Jin­dan is shocked to dis­cover his cropped hair in­stead of the pa­gri that Sikh men wear over un­shorn hair. 

Re­mark­ably, Jin­dan dressed as her own seam­stress Maahi, makes a suc­cess­ful es­cape from Chu­nar fort and heads to Nepal on foot alone via Patna and seeks asy­lum there. 

The fourth and fi­nal sec­tion ti­tled Rebel (1860-1863) makes for sad read­ing. In­di­a’s war of In­de­pen­dence against the British raged all around, while Nepal’s ruler Jung Ba­hadur sup­ported the British by send­ing his army to Awadh for use by the British Com­man­der-in-chief Camp­bell. 

Jin­dan had seen a spate of tragic news all these years, so sud­denly when she re­ceived a let­ter in Eng­lish from her only son Dalip, about the per­mis­sion he re­ceived to visit In­dia for tiger-hunt­ing. She is elated. There is a spark of new hope in her dwin­dling eye­sight, and she an­nounces her plan to go to Cal­cutta to meet Dalip. Nepal’s king Jung Ba­hadur im­presses her that if she leaves, she can­not be let back in Nepal. 

A mother and a son’s meet­ing took place at Spence’s Ho­tel af­ter a sep­a­ra­tion of four­teen years. Jin­dan is shocked to dis­cover his cropped hair in­stead of the pa­gri that Sikh men wear over un­shorn hair. The prince along with his mother de­cide to live a quiet life in In­dia, but the British fear their pres­ence in In­dia and had other plans for them to re­turn to Eng­land. In the mean­time, the Sikh Reg­i­ment re­turn­ing to the port of Cal­cutta from the China War finds out about Dalip pres­ence there, and they come to pay their re­spects to the ex­iled Ma­haraja at the Spence’s ho­tel.  How­ever, this in­ci­dent only serves to fur­ther un­nerve the British, has­ten­ing the de­par­ture of both -mother and son to Eng­land. 

Jin­dan’s re­mains were not al­lowed to be brought back to Pun­jab and placed next to her hus­band Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh. How­ever, Dilip is al­lowed to cre­mate the re­mains at Nasik, Ma­ha­rash­tra.

The chap­ter ti­tled Eng­land has a vivid de­scrip­tion of how Jin­dan copes and ad­justs in the strange new coun­try for a vil­lage girl from Gu­jaran­valla while feel­ing “the fist of the British gov­ern­ment tight­en­ing around me”. Her only joy is that she is re­united with his son and “grow­ing closer” to him. 

The book ends with the tragic end of Jin­dan’s life and how even her re­mains were not al­lowed to be brought back to Pun­jab and placed next to her hus­band Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh. How­ever, Dilip is al­lowed to cre­mate the re­mains at Nasik, Ma­ha­rash­tra on the banks of river Go­davari and re­turn to Eng­land from Bom­bay.