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In
1839, Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, one of
India
’s greatest rulers, died and his empire was plunged into
chaos. A decade later, weakened by internecine rivalry and
intrigue,
Punjab
fell into the waiting hands of the British. The ruler who signed
away the kingdom and its treasures, including the famed
Koh-i-noor diamond, was an eleven-year-old boy, Duleep Singh,
the youngest of Ranjit Singh's acknowledged sons.
In this nuanced and poignant novel that draws upon true events, Navtej Sarna tells the unusual story of the last Maharaja of Punjab. As the British annexed his kingdom, Duleep was separated from his mother and his people, taken under British guardianship and converted to Christianity. At sixteen, he was transported to England to live the life of a country squire—an exile that he had been schooled to seek himself. But disillusionment with the treatment meted out to him and a late realization of his lost legacy turned Duleep into a rebel. He became a Sikh again and sought unsuccessfully to return to India and lead his people. Dragged into the murky politics of nineteenth-century Europe, depleted and vulnerable to deceit and ridicule, he died a lonely man in a cheap hotel room in Paris.
Told
in Duleep Singh’s own voice, and the voices of four characters
based on his contemporaries, The Exile is a compelling and
deeply moving portrait of one of the most tragic figures of Sikh
and Indian history. It is, equally, an unsparing examination of
British imperialism, and the greed of the Indian princes that
fed it.
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