From Never Have I Ever and Ms Marvel to Wedding Season, there’s been an exciting shift. The world’s first brown female superhero and stories that centre Indian characters are hugely important steps for South Asian kids the world over to feel seen and to know that the opportunities afforded their white counterparts are within their reach too. As Marian Wright Edelman said, “you can’t be what you can’t see”. Even if some of these shows are for audiences that the navigation system would flag as “American”, I feel hopeful that the waves will lap the industry here too. Let’s pole-vault our way into the reality we’re hungry for: game-changing South Asian women at the fore and cue the lights up on the incredible Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Anand was privately educated at Bancroft's School in Woodford Green in Redbridge, east London. [4] Anand then entered King's College, London, in 1990, graduating with a BA in English in 1993. Anand’s skill is to bring to life a character whose name does not figure in the annals of the suffragette movement. “Despite her best and repeated efforts, Sophia never managed to be sent to prison, and therefore was denied her chance to go on hunger strike and her place in the pantheon,” she writes. In the strangest twist of all, she concludes: “Not even when she threw herself at the prime minister’s car would the police and courts punish her as they punished others of lower rank.” Such were the intolerable burdens of class. This story is told with a ton of context, starting with Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab, and filling in Gandhi's activities and the struggle for Indian independence. I needed this because despite studying British history up to the age of 18, I had precisely no (that's zero) lessons covering India, an entire continent that the British stole which had a gigantic influence on economics, history, immigration. Amazing, isn't it. Her involvement with the Indian independence movement was limited by her life in England, but she still knew and supported prominent pre-war campaigners for political reform. The accounts of her visits to India give really interesting insight into colonial India. She never lived there, although one of her older sisters settled in Lahore. Throughout her life Sophia’s relationships with her five siblings were deeply important to her, something conveyed very well in this biography. She also loved animals and bred dogs, with a particular fondness for pomeranians. I appreciated the unconventional lives of all three sisters: Sophia never married, Catherine settled in Germany with a female life partner, and Bamba attempted to become a doctor in American before moving to India. The British colonial authorities were so concerned about the destabilising effect the family’s influence could have on the Punjab that for decades they were forbidden from going to India at all. When they did, their activities were closely (and clumsily) monitored by the colonial authorities. During WWI Sophia became a volunteer nurse and fundraiser for Indian troops; during WWII she sheltered evacuees. Delightfully, Anand was able to speak to the evacuees themselves for this book. The detail that Sophia made a little girl promise to always use her vote is very moving.

Vivid and compelling … Anand writes with the vigour and imaginative reach of a novelist. The many horrors of her enthralling narrative are lightened with judicious flashes of dry wit and a fine eye for detail … A gripping, emotionally powerful story Biography of Sophia Duleep Singh, granddaughter of Ranjit Singh the legendary Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, her father Duleep (Ranjit’s youngest son and the last Maharajah) was effectively the puppet ruler of the Kingdom under British governance before being deposed (having signed over the Empire and the Koh-i-Noor diamond to Queen Victoria), Anglicised and then exiled to England where he became a favourite of Queen Victoria and where Sophia was born (with Victoria as her godmother). She later became a prominent and controversial (given her links to the Royal Family and the sensitivity of the British Rule in the Raj) campaigner both for Indian rights in England (campaigning both for Lascars and later for injured WWI Sepoys) and for woman’s rights (becoming an increasingly prominent and militant Suffragette, particularly in the Women’s Tax Resistance League). Until October 2007, Anand presented in the 10:00pm till 1:00am slot on Monday to Thursdays on BBC Radio 5 Live. She went on to co-present the station's weekday Drive (4:00–7:00pm) slot with Peter Allen, having replaced Jane Garvey in 2007. Aasmah Mir replaced her when she left for maternity leave. [6]

Sophia is so well researched that this is likely to remain a definitive account ... Anand's passion shines * Daily Express * Anita Anand has definitively restored to history one of the most important and charismatic figures in the suffragette movement. This thoroughly absorbing and deftly informative account instantly pulled me into the irresistible adventure and vitality of Sophia Duleep Singh's defiant and innovative existence. Anand's timely biography is a wonderful testament to Sophia's lifetime of commitment to Indian independence and the advancement of women, and to the range and courage of her achievements * Rachel Holmes, author of Eleanor Marx * Sophia's contributions to the Suffrage movement were extensive, part of Emmeline Pankhurst's inner circle - and she used her elevated status to work towards the cause. I knew literally nothing about the Maharaja Duleep Singh, Sophia and her siblings, and this book was an absorbing biographical insight into their lives. Sophia is the sort of remarkable, almost unbelievable untold true story that every writer dreams of chancing upon. A wonderful debut, written with real spirit and gusto. Anita Anand has produced a winner This book is a masterpiece and a master record of one of the most influential figures in history and her family. As someone very interested not only in history and women’s history but India and their history this book could have been made in a lab for me.

The older Sophia becomes a political radical, joining forces with the suffragettes. Here the book eschews the exoticism and becomes a more standard depiction of the movement. The author describes the violence meted out by the police, and the lengths to which the state sought to exonerate the police. In a telling passage, Anand shows how the young home secretary, a certain Winston Churchill, dismissed all attempts to investigate after two women died of their injuries. Within the women’s movement, argument raged about direct action, particularly as war with Germany neared. Journalism and history are curious cousins, because it means that the mind has to ask similar questions such as: What happened? Why did it happen? And in some cases: How can one stop this from happening again?” Anand married science writer Simon Singh in 2007. The couple have two sons and live in Richmond, London. [17] [18] Jonathan Dimbleby hands Any Answers? baton to Anita Anand on Radio 4". BBC Media Centre. 23 May 2012 . Retrieved 11 August 2012. Sometimes you hear biographers complain that all the great figures have gone ... In this book, her confident and compelling debut, the BBC journalist and presenter Anita Anand leaves that argument in shreds ... Anand has triumphantly rescued Sophia from the pampered oblivion in which a fearful Raj sought to bury her. In doing so, she traces the excruciating double binds, emotional as much as political, that tied imperial Britain to the jewel in its crown * Boyd Tonkin, Independent Book of the Week *In 2022, Anand collaborated with historian William Dalrymple to create the podcast Empire, which examines the British East India Company and British involvement and influence on India. [9] The pair had previously worked together on the book Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond.

In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, a realm that stretched from the lush Kashmir Valley to the craggy foothills of the Khyber Pass and included the mighty cities of Lahore and Peshawar. It was a territory irresistible to the British, who plundered everything, including the fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond. One might have understood their need for positive optics after refusing to return the north Indian kingdom to its Punjabi king. The East India Company had been circling Punjab for decades, and, on the death of Sophia’s grandfather, King Ranjit, it had seized its opportunity. It posed as a friend, offering to help protect the young King Duleep from external threats, and then forced him and his mother, the formidable Jindan Kaur, into exile in Britain, separating him from everything he knew. I can't stop won't stop talking about this. A truly remarkable life, one that passed into so many significant parts of the 19th and 20th centuries. I know precious little about Indian history, but Sophia has inspired me to learn more. John Kampfner is author of The Rich, From Slaves to Super Yachts, a 2,000-Year History, published by Little Brown.

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As a keen student of Indian history, I have always been appalled by much British conduct towards India and Indians. The treatment meted out to the descendants of Duleep Singh was particularly obnoxious. Initially Sophia was well received but was never viewed as being "one of us"to be able to marry, or have children here, a country which she viewed as home. As a result, she threw herself into a number of causes, plainly looking for the fulfilment denied her in her personal life. The part of the book I found the most touching was a memory of the daughter of the elderly Princess' housekeeper. Broadcaster, journalist and biographer Anita Anand was born in 1972 and educated at King’s College, London. This is fiction, but it's loosely based on things that have happened in the past. It's about this woman whose body is found after this big party on a little fictional island in West Cork. It's uncomfortable to read but compulsive - you can't put it down. I absolutely devoured it. This young girl's body is found and no one's ever arrested, but there's this understanding that the small community know who did it. And then 10 years later, this film crew comes along to make a documentary about the murder and it all kind of unravels.