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Chapter 1: Who was Bamba Duleep Singh and what makes her significant?
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Chapter 2: How did Bamba navigate her identity in British high society?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Bamba face in her pursuit of becoming a doctor?
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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
And me, William Drumple. So this is now part three of the four we're going to be doing on the daughters of the last Maharaja of the Punjab. We've met Sophia, now famous from Anita's fantastic book, Unknown Ten Years Ago, now one of the most celebrated figures of British Indian history, it's fair to say, I think. We met last week the far less well-known and far more private Catherine Arnand,
with her friend living in prussia and fleeing away from england and today anita you are going to introduce us to the one who went home to india to the punjab yeah this week we're going to meet i think she's going to be your favorite bamba the queen you like a difficult woman She sounds pretty stroppy to me.
Chapter 4: How did Bamba's experiences shape her views on British colonialism?
Yeah, I think you're like a stroppy woman.
Testament to that is this podcast. But look.
I would say so. I wasn't going to say anything. No, I'll say it for you.
It's okay. Self-styled queen of the Punjab. Bamba Duleep Singh, later Bamba Sutherland.
I like the fact that she has a good Scottish connection.
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Chapter 5: What role did Bamba play in the Indian independence movement?
The Scots and the Punjabis, both good whiskey drinkers, both great dancers. There's a good essay to be written on Scots-Punjabi connections. But anyway, we won't go there quite yet.
Well, this is the episode for you then. Bamba is the eldest of the Duleep Singh sisters. She's born in London in 1869. She dies in Lahore in Pakistan in 1957. 57! Yeah, not that long ago.
Within living memory.
Chapter 6: How did Partition impact Bamba's life and her community in Lahore?
Not that long ago at all.
So I should clarify, you know, there are two Bambas in this story. There is Maharani Bamba, her mother, the one who Dilip Singh married.
Half German, half Ethiopian.
Indeed. And the one who he finds in the Cairo mission. And then there is Princess Bamba, who we're talking about today.
Who is a beauty, as we discovered last time. She's the most beautiful of the sisters.
See, I think she's ferociously beautiful, but she wasn't deemed to be beautiful in her day because she was darker skinned.
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Chapter 7: What were Bamba's later years like in Pakistan?
I mean, you know, terrible, but true.
That's still not just then. Today in India, the same prejudice is very much around.
Yeah. I mean, look, the story of Bamba in a nutshell is this is a woman who refused to ever accept what the British did to her father. And eventually she will go and try and reclaim her father's stolen kingdom. Like, honestly, it's very quixotic, though, you know, like a tilting in the wind.
She buys a house five minutes walk from Lahore Fort and she will stay there throughout the rise and the fall of the British in India through partition, through the creation of Pakistan. And that is where she dies. And that is where she is buried.
Chapter 8: How is Bamba remembered today, and what legacy did she leave behind?
Buried.
It's another fantastic story. And again, quite different from the others. I think you've got to do a new edition of your book, Anita.
Do you think? Three volume.
Excavate all this new material.
I finished the book that I've been commissioned to write first. It's only five years late. Oh, dear. So Bamba was born on the 29th of September, 1869. And she's born in Knightsbridge and the third child of Maharaja Dilip Singh and Bamba Moola, the mother. after whom she's named.
What does it mean, Bamba? Arabic for pink?
Pink, that's right, yeah. Because the reason that Bamba the mother was given the nickname is because she was so shy and so retiring that she blushed whenever she was noticed. And that's why people called her Bamba. But this is a Bamba who's going to spend the whole of her life trying to be noticed and kicking up merry hell. Let me tell you what kind of child she is, okay?
So she is, you know, when I told you in the last couple of episodes that the children were constantly under surveillance and you have reports that are being sent to Queen Victoria about how they're getting along because Queen Victoria stepped into the vacuum left by mother and father. And you've got Victor Imperius will become a terrible, incurable gambler. Freddie, obstinate.
Catherine, secretive. Princess Bamba described as having the worst temper in the nursery. Noted from the age of three. And, you know, you can understand that as well, Willie, because, you know, the father spends so many months away from his family. When he comes home, he ignores his wife, barely plays with his children.
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