Emerging playwright talks about the life of Sophia Duleep Singh and how her story resonates so strongly today…
By Suman Bhuchar
FROM PRINCESS to revolutionary, the story of Sophia Duleep Singh (August 8 1876-August 22 1948), the daughter of the exiled Indian – Prince Duleep Singh and the granddaughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, known as the Lion of the Punjab, is one that continues to fascinate over the ages.
Now a theatre company, Eastern Angles based in Ipswich, Suffolk has been touring a play, ‘Sophia’ based on her life.
First off, is how to pronounce her name correctly (I am not sure I can write this phonetically but its “So-fy-aa” not So-fi-ya) and the former ‘So-fy-aa’ is the correct upper class English pronunciation of the name.
Kumari told www.asianculturevulture.com that she was contacted by Jake Smith, artistic director and CEO of Eastern Angles, because he had seen her debut play, ‘EN-GER-LAND’.
Written in 2021, it was nominated for Best Stage Production at the Asian Media Awards and is a play about a young Asian girl’s fascination with football and the England football team.(See the link to the review at the bottom).
Speaking to acv about her latest play, ‘Sophia’, Kumari joked: “I felt a strong connection to her, I felt a lot of identification with her, as I started to write the play, but not the part about being a princess, unfortunately.”
Sophia and her five siblings, could be considered to be amongst the earliest British Asian dual heritage children, who grew up at Elveden Hall, a large country house in Elveden, Suffolk.
Sophia’s mother was Bamba Müller (of German and Ethiopian heritage).
Acv went to see the show at the local village hall in Elveden and it was a weird experience.
“So the kids (of Bamba) were half Indian, as I am, so that definitely spoke to me. My mum is Punjabi, while my dad is Scottish.
“There is a tendency for people to remember Sophia as a South Asian woman, because sometimes dual heritage people are not accepted by Indian people,” she explained.
“It’s almost like they want to ‘India-Wash’ her (make her fully Indian) because it’s more celebratory, as she is a woman who did so many amazing things.”
Sophia campaigned for women’s rights as a suffragette and also the case of Indian Independence from Britain.
Sophia did not speak any South Asian languages, like me – Kumari explained – simply because neither were exposed to those languages.
However, Sophia spoke French while Kumari is a Spanish language speaker.
“I just felt so much resonance to her. And growing up straddling these dual ethnicities, growing up in England, where you can’t escape the colour of your skin, being different to everybody around you.
“Obviously this is 100 years ago. I think that experience that she had of often being the only woman of colour in high society places is something that mirrored my own working-class experience.
“One of the many reasons, I am so passionate about this story and why I am so happy with the response is because it celebrates the fact that people of colour, people of different ethnicities. have been part of the fabric of England for a long time.
“I think through celebrating that, maybe, we can embrace more people in the modern day.”
While writing and researching her life, Kumari read Anita Anand’s book ‘Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary’; spoke to historians and archivists; visited Elveden; saw the Museum collections in Thetford (the local town near Elveden) and familiarised herself with private collections, as well as looking at photos of all the siblings.
The family tale is sad and tragic in many ways, but also uplifting and inspiring in others.
They were regularly under surveillance by the British Imperial Government; were given an allowance but constantly threatened it could be taken away if they didn’t behave.
and Bamba Duleep Singh (same as their mother – Moshana Khan)
Sophia and her sisters were considered exotic enough to be attractive at Debutante Balls but not good enough to marry.
“It’s kind of an acknowledged myth that they were forbidden to have children by the monarchy and the East India Company.
“I think this is totally believable – because the chances of six siblings not having a single child in those days when people had six kids each is pretty slim”.
Kumari explained that when you write about a historical figure as Sophia, you can’t just go around inventing major things – she did fictionalise some aspects in her play as well as introducing a love interest.
“The sense that I got from discovering her, was that she was very lonely. And that she really wanted love.”
In the play, ‘Sophia’, the story is told from her perspective and spans the period from 1899 -1928.
The show has been touring the East Anglia area and there are calls for it to be remounted and taken across the UK.
It’s important for our shared imperial histories to be better known, and theatre can play an important role in transmitting our hidden stories, she suggested.
“For someone like me, I grew up in a mixed race household in a white town, I went to a white school, I studied history up to A level but now I reflect back on the history I was being taught at that time – I did do Imperialism and the British Empire – I don’t think we got taught anything about India, or the East India company or if we did it was certainly through that white British lens. And I didn’t question it at the time.
“It’s something I touched on in my other play, ‘EN-GER-LAND’ – I often did feel like a white English person that had brown skin when I was growing up.
“It’s something we all have responsibility for now whatever age we are, to try and bring those stories to light.”
Kumari was born and brought up in Rugby; and is passionate about football and ‘EN-GER-LAND’ is a one-woman personal story set in 1997 and of a mixed race girl experiencing racism on the football stands.
It received much acclaim and Kumari is now a campaign manager for Fans for Diversity.
“Working in football is a total dream,” she stated.
She has also moved away from acting into writing and set up an arts organisation called Coalign, focussing on untold stories, new music and new writing.
Along with her co-creative director, known as PJ – they are producing an original opera, ‘Displaced’, inspired by the history of Arsenal Football Club, which had its roots in the munitions factory of Woolwich and the Suffrage movement.
“I am very interested in how football speaks to social history,” she told acv.
Sophia production pictures: Mike Kwasniak
Listing
Final show – Sophia – Eastern Angles Theatre Company
Links
https://essexcdp.com/sophia-easternangles/
Previously
(‘Eng-er-land’) https://asianculturevulture.com/portfolios/eng-er-land-one-woman-football-play-has-kick-and-verve-play-review/
