What Punjab’s last Maharaja and an Ethiopian Prince had in common
Maharaja Duleep Singh and Prince Alemayehu did not have an easy time in England despite their royal lineage and “imperial” benefactor. And their remaining there was also a consequence of geopolitics—protecting British commercial and political interests)
The connection between India and Ethiopia—once called Abyssinia—goes back a long way. Thanks to more recent dissemination of information (particularly via social media, not textbooks) many Indians now know not only about Razia Sultan’s Abyssinian lover Jamaluddin Yaqut but about the Ethiopian mercenaries who came to India to fight battles for many kingdoms in the Deccan including Malik Ambar and Ikhlas Khan. But there’s a more recent link.This week there’s news that Britain has turned down yet another request from Ethiopia to return the remains of their young Prince Alemayehu, who lies buried among many British monarchs, aristocrats and clergy inside St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Recently the world got two glimpses of the grand interiors—though not the royal vault—of that church when Prince Philip and then Queen Elizabeth II were interred there in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Buckingham Palace averred that removing the remains of the tragic African prince 144 years later would “disturb” the others interred there, which is a curious reason indeed. Particularly since all the great and the good laid to rest there are in individual coffins inside stone crypts of varying sizes beneath the floor, not actually buried under the soil. And there have been cases of royals being exhumed there (including the beheaded Charles I) for different reasons.
Though Alemayehu was interred at St George’s Chapel at Queen Victoria’s request—with the patently disingenuous epitaph “I was a stranger and ye took me in,”—his remains were apparently placed in the catacombs on the west side of the church among some 40 others. His coffin may not even be marked, which not only makes the identification tedious (though not impossible) it shows disrespect for his royal status. An Ethiopian could not expect more, presumably.
Most Indians upon hearing the story of Prince Alemayehu will utter three words: Maharaja Duleep Singh. But the Ethiopian prince’s life was probably even more poignant and distressful than that of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s son as he died so young—only 18—while Duleep at least lived till 55 and even got a chance to convert back to the Sikh faith from Christianity. Alemayehu lost both his parents in quick succession and died of pleurisy in 1879 in cold England.
Much like Duleep, 7-year-old Alemayehu was sent to England after the death (by suicide) of his father Tewodros II. A huge British force, comprising mainly Indian troops, arrived in Ethiopia in 1868 to ‘rescue’ British missionaries and officials that the Ethiopian king had taken hostage when none of the European empires responded to his call—to fellow Christians!—for military help to fight the Muslim Ottoman and Egyptian advances on his northern border.
Not surprisingly, the British managed to bring some rival Ethiopian rulers to their side and eventually cornered Tewodros II at his fortress Maqdala. Knowing he could not possibly win, the King shot himself. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in a church which, predictably, was looted—as was the rest of Maqdala. The looted items, reportedly carted off on elephants and mules, ended up in (where else?) the British Museum and the British Library.
Echoes of the loot of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s treasury are unmistakable. But the déjà vu does not end there. It was decided that Alemayehu would be sent off to England—but with his mother, unlike Duleep whose mother Maharani Jind Kaur was deemed to be too subversive to remain near her deposed son. Sadly, the Ethiopian queen died even before boarding the ship, leaving Alemayehu to land alone in an alien country surrounded by English speaking strangers.
Photos taken in 1868 of Alemayehu still clad in Ethiopian attire tellingly capture the sadness, the loneliness—indeed the hopelessness—in his eyes as he clutches a doll. Later photos of him in a Victorian suit reveal that his eyes were still sad. Clearly his trauma he could not be assuaged by the “concern” of Queen Victoria, who is said to have been “very fond” of him—as she was of Duleep—but clearly not enough to send either prince back to his home and people.
Some accounts say that Alemayehu also spent a little time in India with Captain Tristram Speedy, who was in the campaign that led to Tewodros’ suicide and was then rather insensitively appointed as the orphaned prince’s guardian. If that is true, then that is yet another Ethiopian link with India. Then Alemayehu was sent off to Rugby School in England and later, to Sandhurst for military training, which he left after a month and died six weeks later of pleurisy.
Duleep, who had arrived in England in 1854 already Christian and Anglicised thanks to his minders and British tutors, forged an Ethiopian link of his own in 1864. He met and married Bamba Muller, a half-German, half-Ethiopian devoutly Christian girl working in a missionary establishment in Cairo. Therefore, six of his eight children (two daughters were later born of an English chambermaid he married after Maharani Bamba’s death) had Ethiopian ancestry!
Interestingly, Duleep Singh’s third son Frederick was born the same year that sad little Alemayehu arrived in England: 1868. After Eton and Cambridge, this part-Ethiopian Indian prince became an officer in the British army and served in World War I. Queen Victoria’s systematic deracination of the princes that she was “fond” of—and their families—is glaringly apparent. They seemed to be little more than exotic toys for the Empress and examples of “civilised” natives.
Little wonder then that neither prince was allowed to go home—even after their deaths. Maybe because Alemayehu died young, Queen Victoria magnanimously let him be buried in the same church as her own ancestors, albeit not in the most exalted vault. Duleep Singh, curiously, was not given that same ‘honour’ though she had been godmother to several of his children. Perhaps because he became rebellious in his later years and even plotted to get Punjab back.
Duleep and Alemayehu would not have had an easy time in England despite their royal lineage and “imperial” benefactress. And their remaining there was also a consequence of geopolitics—protecting British commercial and political interests in Asia and the Middle East was more important than letting some lonely princes go home. The situation has changed now. India’s economy has overtaken Britain’s and Ethiopia is sitting on huge untapped oil and gold fields….
A repatriation of Duleep Singh’s remains is complicated as his father’s samadhi—and those of his older brother and nephew—are in Lahore but Pakistan is unlikely to push for his last rites to be held there though it has staked a claim to the Kohinoor and other jewels from the Sikh treasury! Britain will exploit this dichotomy if a demand is made for Duleep Singh’s remains. But maybe Pakistan and India can come to an understanding and put the onus on the UK.
Alemayehu’s remains do not have any possible rival claimants and Ethiopia has been demanding their return since 2007—when it was turned down by Queen Elizabeth II with no explanation. Buckingham Palace even in the new ‘Carolean Age’ is sticking to that old philosophy and refusing to let Alemayehu return to his people. Maybe new commercial interests should once again weigh in—but this time in a way that will finally bring that little prince back home.
~ Reshmi Dasgupta • Firstpost.com | May 27, 2023, 16:50:34 IST
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