The au­thor re­views the movie The Black Prince and bring out its salient fea­tures which should prompt every Sikh and friends of Sikhs to see the movie, be­ing screened world­wide in Eng­lish, Pun­jabi and Hindi. The au­thor gives it a 5-star rat­ing.

For two en­gross­ing hours, I was in the com­pany of Ma­haraja Duleep Singh and Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan. The jour­ney of Ma­haraja Duleep Singh from Sikhism to Chris­tian­ity, his slow, tena­cious and se­ri­ous re-con­ver­sion back to Sikhism held me in rapt at­ten­tion. Ma­haraja Duleep Singh’s jour­ney as a child from La­hore -the cap­i­tal of the Sikh king­dom to the por­tals of the Buck­ing­ham Palace. Af­ter this movie, every Sikh worth his salt can look straight into an Eng­lish eye and men­tion the story of British chi­canery.

As a Sikh, I wept through the movie wit­ness­ing the fall of Duleep Singh from the rich­ness and grandeur of Eng­lish aris­toc­racy un­der which he spent his youth and adult­hood till his death in Paris when the British ashamedly re­lin­quished him. Nev­er­the­less, it was not “with­out a fight”.

The di­a­logue be­tween the mother and the son, be­tween Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan and the Prince are nos­tal­gic of the meet­ing that took place be­tween the two -away from their king­dom and af­ter the death of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh. Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan’s gen­tle emo­tional out­burst that “she not only lost a king­dom, but a son too” has been ren­dered so adorably that you feel the sit­u­a­tion. His quick re­sponse to his con­fi­dante Rur Singh that “he is not the Prince but the King” is clas­sic trans­for­ma­tion.

I felt proud at The Black Prince’s at­tempts to rope in the French and the Rus­sians to rebel. The fact that he got ad­mirable sup­port from the French and he went all the way to Rus­sia to meet the Czar seek­ing sup­port for his re­bel­lion against the British is in it­self a re­mark­able feat for the il­le­gally de­throned Ma­haraja.

Can you imag­ine an Am­rit Par­char (Sikh ini­ti­a­tion and re-ini­ti­a­tion rites) in France for one per­son? Per­haps the first one on that soil? Ma­haraja Duleep Singh gets ini­ti­ated at a pri­vate Am­rit Par­char cer­e­mony to be­come a Sikh. The Black Prince im­bibes Sikhism as the words of his mother to live and die as a Sikh res­onate in his mind.

“Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan’s gen­tle emo­tional out­burst that “she not only lost a king­dom, but a son too” has been ren­dered so adorably that you feel the sit­u­a­tion. His quick re­sponse to his con­fi­dante Rur Singh that “he is not the Prince but the King” is clas­sic trans­for­ma­tion.“

The ela­tion on the faces of the Kuka Sikhs in their im­mac­u­late white dresses (the pre­de­ces­sors of mod­ern-day Namd­haris) af­ter learn­ing that Ma­haraja Duleep Singh was re­turn­ing to Pun­jab to re­gain back the Sikh rule led me to ad­mire their spirit. 

Would you not want to know and see that Ma­haraja Duleep Singh was not al­lowed to go to Pun­jab and had to cre­mate her mother on the banks of river Saraswati near Nashik in Ma­ha­rash­tra?

How many Sikh lead­ers would have the courage like Ma­haraja Duleep Singh, who en­joy­ing the huge lux­u­ri­ous lifestyle of the aris­toc­racy had the temer­ity to leak and pub­lish doc­u­ments in the British me­dia about his Sikh roots and em­bar­rass the Queen, who loved his eyes and per­sona.

How scared were the British of the Sikhs? They poi­soned Thakur Singh Sand­han­walia in Pondicherry so that he could not es­tab­lish live con­tact with Ma­haraja Duleep Singh and the French had the good sense and courage to pro­tect him de­spite re­peated re­quests by the British to al­low them to ar­rest him in the then French colony.

Though the Sikhs can­not ever for­give the British for their de­ceit, it was com­fort­ing to know that it was Colonel Hubron who saved the life of the child Ma­haraja Duleep Singh. It was re­mark­ably West­ern to lis­ten to the dy­ing words of re­gret of his care­taker John Lo­gin, who gave him the nomen­cla­ture -The Black Prince and the re­grets ex­pressed by the Queen dur­ing her visit to the ail­ing Ma­haraja Duleep Singh some­where in the south of France.

“I felt proud at The Black Prince’s at­tempts to rope in the French and the Rus­sians to rebel. The fact that he got ad­mirable sup­port from the French and he went all the way to Rus­sia to meet the Czar seek­ing sup­port for his re­bel­lion against the British is in it­self a re­mark­able feat for the il­le­gally de­throned Ma­haraja.“

You can­not miss the val­our of the scion of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh when he is prac­tic­ing his sword skills or when he is con­spir­ing in an un­der­ground meet­ing to over­throw the British em­pire. His zeal was rem­i­nis­cent of the spirit of Hari Singh Nalwa who cap­tured Afghanistan and Baba Baghel Singh who con­quered Delhi.

I en­joyed, rel­ished and cher­ished the moth­erly com­fort of Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan, her chaste Pun­jabi -how many to­day say pyaali for a cup? Sip­ping tea, she says, “eh pyaalian pehlan dekhian hann. Eh ho hi nahi ne jo tusi chori kar ke lyaye ho.” -mean­ing, “I have seen these cups be­fore, are they not the ones you have stolen?” The metaphoric ref­er­ence to the Sikh Raaj an­nex­a­tion by the British is em­i­nently brought out in this small di­a­logue which evokes laugh­ter when The Prince de­lib­er­ately wrongly trans­lates it for his fos­ter mother the Queen.

For a very long time, af­ter watch­ing Mach­his of Gulzar a few times, Tabu the wife of the Sikh mil­i­tant in the movie was never the ac­tress Tabu, she was the wife of the Sikh mil­i­tant who dies a mar­tyr to the Sikh cause of rights of the peo­ple of Pun­jab. She en­tered the Sikh mind that way. Sim­i­larly, Sha­bana Azmi will re­main em­bed­ded in the Sikh mind as Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan for a very long time.

The Black Prince is an hon­est and sin­cere por­trayal of a chap­ter of An­glo-Sikh his­tory and as­pects of Indo-Sikh his­tory in the right per­spec­tive. Some years back, I at­tended a con­fer­ence on Ris­ing In­tol­er­ance in Eu­rope in Cor­doba, Spain. I en­coun­tered a Jew­ish artiste who was hold­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion in the city, who told me, “Mr Singh, hold a video cam­era and record the story of your par­ents’ gen­er­a­tion and pre­serve that for pos­ter­ity. That would be the first step the Sikhs need to take to tell their chil­dren about their past glory.” The Black Prince does ex­actly that. It tells the Sikhs to look back, re­flect and pon­der.

“I en­joyed, rel­ished and cher­ished the moth­erly com­fort of Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan, her chaste Pun­jabi -how many to­day say pyaali for a cup? Sip­ping tea, she says, “eh pyaalian pehlan dekhian hann. Eh ho hi nahi ne jo tusi chori kar ke lyaye ho.” -mean­ing, “I have seen these cups be­fore, are they not the ones you have stolen?”“

As I lis­tened to the Queen and Sir Lo­gin, I have now de­vel­oped the habit of re­fer­ring to Pun­jab as the Pun­jab. 

As for Sikh con­scious­ness, I re­peat the most pro­found words of the movie. Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan tells Ma­haraja Duleep Singh, “Apni tal­war utha te aapna Raaz va­pas lai -Raise your sword and re­claim your king­dom”. She is telling this not to her son, she is telling this to me, ac­tu­ally, she is telling this to every Sikh.

Keep your senses awake and see the movie to en­liven your Sikh life -to be true Sikhs, rebels and sov­er­eigns. The Black Prince has rekin­dled in­ter­est in my faith, my his­tory, my legacy and my sov­er­eignty. It is your turn now, don’t miss it.