Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary

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My first major role on an award-winning, crowd-rousing, primetime British television show, Bodyguard, as the suicide-bomber Nadia, became a national talking point on the portrayal of South Asian women on screen. To be the poster person of this timely moment of discourse felt terrifying. It made me question my internal GPS: what was my own position in this global conversation on representation?

From the debris of her father’s defalcated dynasty (a Game of Thrones-esque story in itself), Sophia channelled her fury into becoming the patron saint of the underdog. She built shelters for neglected migrant workers, treated wounded Indian soldiers (more than a million of whom fought for Britain in the First World War), and battled for the advancement of women both British and Indian. My father proudly worked for the British army as a budget manager in the UK and Germany, but years later was held at gunpoint in an attempted robbery. “Go home” was spat at him. The injustice of my dad spending decades working for his country only to be told he didn’t belong, boiled my blood. It’s been on something of a gentle simmer since. Princess Sophia’s father went through the wringer himself. His former kingdom brought a chunk of wealth to the British empire, yet in Britain, a country he was kept in against his will, he was labelled an ineligible bachelor. Though women defied convention to flirt with him, no noble family would accept his proposal of marriage – he was regarded as coming from an inferior race. This is an exceptional book highlighting parts of British social, political and economic history through the life of Sophia Duleep Singh. The book very much tells the story on its own terms and historical context. There is no attempt made to try and link events to current events and themes. Overall this is refreshing (such comparisons are frequently over-bearing, presumptuous – the reader can choose to draw her/his own links and anachronistic).

Anita Anand's gripping book is a sad story of dispossession and dislocation ... The story is fast-paced and thrilling ... A noble book **** * Daily Telegraph * 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. 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 * William Dalrymple *

We'd be walking, and she'd be telling me about the world and elections and how important they were. And then she would kneel down in front of me, looking me right in the eye and say 'I want a solemn promise from you' even though I don't think I knew what a solemn promise was at that stage. She would say 'You are never, ever not to vote. You must promise me. When you are allowed to vote you are never, ever to fail to do so. You don't realise how far we've come. Promise me.' For the next three years, Sophia made Drovna promise again and again." 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 July 2011 Anand left the Daily Politics to present a new show called Double Take on Radio 5 Live on Sunday mornings. [7] In June 2012, Anand took over from Jonathan Dimbleby as the presenter of Radio 4's Any Answers? Saturday current affairs phone-in programme between 2:00 and 2:45pm. [8] Biographies – Anita Anand: Presenter, Radio 5 Live and The Daily Politics". BBC Press Office. Archived from the original on 11 December 2010 . Retrieved 6 November 2016. Dale, Iain (21 September 2009). "Iain Dale's Diary: Daily Politics: Who Will Cover For Anita Anand?" . Retrieved 6 November 2016. Wow, I really loved this book. All the way through, except for the very beginning, which now in retrospect I think was good. I was going to give the book four stars. By the end, I realized I had come to know Sophia so very well and I liked her so very much that I simply had to give the book five stars. I was happy that the author focused on Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876 – 1948), even though any of the siblings could have been the focus of a book. 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

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. Then the real story begins with Sophia's famed grandfather, who was King of the Punjab, proceeds to discuss her deposed father and mother and finally focuses on Sophia and her surviving five siblings who grew up at the estate Elveden in Suffolk. Here her father recreated a Moghul palace with gardens, leopards, monkeys and exotic birds! Queen Victoria was godmother to both Sophia and her oldest brother Victor. The fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond was in fact her family's. The first half of the book follows all of the siblings, not just Sophia, so the title is a bit deceptive. Eager to tell more South Asian stories, I began screenwriting a few years ago and am working on my first series. Trying to repurpose obstacles into vaulting poles has become my new strategy, and this is exactly what the subject of my upcoming writing project, Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, did 100 years ago. As the daughter of the last Maharajah of Punjab, and goddaughter of Queen Victoria, Sophia’s life was nothing short of extraordinary: her actions so bold and anarchic that the press were urged to keep them under wraps lest it cause a royal scandal and tarnish the British crown.It was an appropriate place to begin, because Anand, an experienced political journalist, knows the parliamentary scene well. There may also be a degree of identification between author and subject. Both were born in London but with family history from the same part of India; as Anand remarked in an online interview with Gargi Gupta, "she was Punjabi, as am I". She further explained that her own interest in Sophia originated in a 1913 photograph of her selling The Suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court (where the princess lived in a royal grace-and-favour house, much to the chagrin of the authorities as her activism increased). In researching the book, Anand drew upon the papers of Sophia’s father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, as well as intelligence and police records detailing links with suffragettes and Indian nationalist leaders. By a nice irony, she pointed out, it was the very thoroughness of British bureaucracy that enabled Sophia’s story to be fully told for the first time (www.dnaindia.com 18 January 2015). Gethin says: I think it's a book that everyone should have. It's a brutally honest account of how David Nott steps away from his day-to-day life as a general and vascular surgeon and goes to work in the heart of war zones around the world. It does go into quite graphic detail about situations, but also talks about the impact of his experiences and what he's learned. 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.

Manages to relate the complicated, fascinating and historically significant story of this woman’s life whilst being as easy to read as any novel. Well done! 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 Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2017). Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond. Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 978-1-63557-076-2. Sophia’s letters are gone, but the author has found people who lived with her during the Second World War, evacuees and children and the housemaid. What they have to say is revealing. The book covers the entire lives of all the family members.The biography is well written. It is readable and engrossing. Most importantly it includes just the right level of historical detail (on the operation of the Raj, the burgeoning Indian independence movement and the Suffragette movement) alongside the biographical detail to keep the account hugely informative (the book would for example serve as an inside account of each of those areas in its own right) while not detracting from the central story.