It was February 1911. One morning Sai Maharaj announced that a royal princess was coming to Shirdi that day. He told Radhakrishna Mai to take care of the food and comforts of the Princess. Since Justice Tatya Saheb Noolkar was ailing and taking treatment at Shirdi, I thought someone might come to wish him a speedy recovery.
By 11:00 am a horse-driven carriage came, and a well-dressed woman came into the mosque. She paid her respects to Sai Maharaj, and they had a brief discussion about her social welfare activities. She was amazed at his clairvoyance.
Later she came to me and reminded me that we have met earlier in England. She was Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh (born 8 August 1876) and was a prominent volunteer in the women’s movement in England. Her father was Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, who had lost his Sikh Empire to the Punjab Province of British India and was subsequently exiled to England. Sophia’s mother was Bamba Müller, who was half German and half Ethiopian, and she was a favorite child of Queen Victoria. She lived in Hampton Court in an apartment in Faraday House, very close to where I lived.
During the early twentieth century, Singh was one of several Indian women who pioneered the cause of women’s rights in Britain. Although she is best remembered for her leading role in the Women’s Tax Resistance League, she also participated in other women’s suffrage groups, including the Women’s Social and Political Union.
Sophia Duleep Singh was the third daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh (the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire) and his first wife, Bamba Müller. The Maharaja and Bamba had ten children, of whom six survived. Singh combined Indian, European, and African ancestry with a British aristocratic upbringing, which her string of names reflected. She dressed fashionably.
In the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, her father had been forced to abdicate his kingdom to the East India Company and give the Koh-i-Noor diamond to Lord Dalhousie. He was exiled from India. In our brief interaction, we recollected all these details. She was a source of inspiration to Radhakrishna Mai.
All of us at the feet of Sai Maharaj happily talked to the Princess. She visited Gurusthan, Lendi Baug. Chavadi, Khandoba temple and Maruti Mandir. In the evening she left for Mumbai by train.
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