UK honours exiled Indian princess who fought for women's right to vote in UK elections

In a celebratory news,Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s granddaughter, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was honoured with a Royal Mail stamp Tuesday for her women's rights activism that led to women getting right to vote in UK parliamentary elections.

The stamp features a photograph of Sophia -- daughter of Bamba Mueller and Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last ruler of the Sikh empire -- selling copies of the Suffragette newspaper in 1913 outside Hampton Court Palace.

She is now celebrated as a symbol and unsung heroine ofthe British movement to get equal voting rights for women.

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The £1.57 stamp is one of the eight stamps issued by the Royal Mailto “mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act (in the UK) where for the first time women won the right to vote in parliamentary elections.” The stamps will be released for public use on February 15.

With this stamp, it will be the first time aperson of Sikh background has been featured on a Royal Mail stamp.

Sophia and her Indian connection

Sophia was the youngest of Maharaja Duleep Singh’s five surviving children. She was born in the UK in 1876 during her father’s lifelong exile -- had Queen Victoria for godmother and was brought up as “a thoroughly anglicized aristocrat,” till she swapped the English high society for the Suffragettes, much against the likingof the royal family and the British government of that time.

She transformed from a British aristocrat to a conscientious woman of her age after she started travelling to India. Her visits to India in1902 and 1906 made her aware of India’s freedom struggle and her own heritage.

She was inspired by the story of freedom fighterLala Lajpat Rai. His death after being lathi-charged by the British played a significant role in her change of heart.

Sophia initially served as a nurse in WWI focusing on the welfare of Indian soldiers. She started with serving mainly the Punjabis who were fighting on the Western front. Subsequently, she became a prominent member of the women’s rights group, the Suffragettes.On 18 November 1910, known as ‘Black Friday’, she led a 400-strong demonstration to UK Parliament together with Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the British suffragette movement. As clashes broke out, over 150 women were physically assaulted.

Sophia was not the only Indian suffragette, just the most prominent one, according to the British Library. An Indian women’s group took part in the 1911 coronation procession of 60,000 suffragettes.

It is said that King George V hated her guts. He wanted her thrown out of Hampton Court where she and her siblings had been given “grace and favour” rooms by Queen Victoria. She was arrested several times and charged, but never jailed.

Sophia also belonged to the Women’s Tax Resistance League, whose slogan was ‘No Vote, No Tax’.

She died in August 1948, a year after India gained independence, but she was crematedin India.