Against Imperial Misrepresentation: Review Of Sakoon Singh’s ‘Fourteen Springs of Separation’

Richard Temple, during his stay in Punjab in the late 19th century, and while engaging with the mirasis and the dhadhis (Punjabi bards), described the province as a ‘living museum’ of folklore. From his vantage point as a folklorist, he believed that the folk tales constitute an unparalleled scholarly opportunity. Yet, till date, folk narratives have been only sparingly sourced for history writing.

Sakoon Singh, in her new novel ‘Fourteen Springs of Separation’ (Rupa Publications), does so for fiction and ventriloquises oral traditions while delineating the life of Rani Jind Kaur, the last Queen of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and famously, the mother of Duleep Singh. Through the prism of folk memory, Jind Kaur emerges not as a figure shaped in the colonial archives but one who occupies an affective space in the collective cultural memory. The novel unearths this aspect of Punjab history through alternate oral traditions and hints at how historical facts can thus be discovered, rewritten and also be erased.

Dismantling the stereotypical image created by the patriarchal and colonial gaze that portrays Jind Kaur as promiscuous, selfish and overly ambitious, Singh reconstructs her not as a fallen queen but as a formidable figure defined by political acumen, grit and resistance. And at the same time, a complex woman equally capable of desire, love and a fierce maternal instinct. Jind Kaur, as a 19th-century Punjabi woman, can be read in the novel as a proto-feminist because of her assertiveness to stand up against colonial authority and also to challenge patriarchal structures, both as regent of Lahore Durbar and later as an adversary of imperial politics.

The decade that followed Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839 and the years after the formal annexation of Punjab, remain among the most important, and yet, these are condensed into a fleeting chapter in the mainstream history of the province. Singh’s novel captures the profound impact of British rule when faultlines appeared not only politically but also across the cultural and social fabric of Punjab. Singh evokes the era through two parallel narratives, a historical one and the other, contemporary. Oscillating between two time-frames, the novel moves through the period that saw the advent of the British rule in Punjab and the current times, where the author positions fictional characters along with historical figures to trace the trajectory of Jind Kaur and the tragic separation of her nine-year-old son, Maharaja Duleep Singh through collective memory, flashes of insight and conversations. The ripples of the tragic separation, lasting for ‘fourteen springs' between mother and son resonate throughout the book. Intermittently, the peculiar feeling of loss appears in the lives of the contemporary characters, too. 

The novel deftly portrays the tragedy of Jind Kaur exiled to Fort Chunar and her escape to Nepal; the ‘adoption’ of Maharaja Duleep Singh by a British couple, the Logins; followed by his exile to London, where he is godmothered by Queen Victoria. Not only does the story unravel the years after the fall of the Lahore Durbar but also foregrounds the reality of manipulation tactics as official policy embedded within imperial rule.

The novel is far from linear and moves in timelines that engage the reader with character-driven narratives. The responsibility of a writer is evident in the way Singh positions both, fictional and historical figures side by side, without diluting the veracity of the historical aspect.

Mehr is the central character who leads the quest for Jind Kaur. Much intrigued by Jind Kaur and the paucity of historical sources surrounding her, Mehr’s inquisitiveness deepens into an overwhelming need to know the truth. She encounters characters who in one way or another relate to the search for Jind Kaur’s unrecorded story. Angad Sandhawalia, a scientist, who outwardly dismisses the thought of giving any importance to lineage, is drawn into the loop of finding his Sandhawalia roots. On the onset of this chase, Angad meets Samarjit, a London-based maverick Sikh, an amateur historian, who is a collector of memorabilia belonging to the Sikh empire and Jind Kaur. These three characters connect to piece together the fragmented narrative of Jind Kaur as a contemporary whodunnit. Suchet Singh is another important character: a member of the Dhadhi community who is the guardian and practitioner of folk music that valourises Jind Kaur. He is instrumental in preserving collective memory and brings forth Jind Kaur through sung poetry known as ‘vaars’. Through each encounter, the novel not only exposes historical findings but also mediates on issues of diaspora, gender, class and caste.

Singh uses cities as organic entities that become repositories of memory, identity and history. The novel opens with a newlywed Jind Kaur entering the big bad city of Lahore. This part explores 19th-century Lahore through its historic and cultural vibrancy—its traders, soldiers, bhishties and prostitutes—allowing the city to stand out more as a character within the narrative. Similarly, Fatehgarh, the cantonment town in the then United Provinces, holds a poignant position as a symbol of the eventual defeat of the Sikh Empire. Singh subtly mentions conversions taking place in the town and its surroundings as a prelude to the strategic baptism of Duleep Singh as a Christian. London is presented through instances of the multiple challenges of the diaspora and the evident racism, both as a part of the colonial past and its continuance in contemporary times. In contrast, Chandigarh appears briefly yet cheerfully, carrying the childhood memories of Mehr and Angad. The novel fittingly ends with Pondicherry as a site for resistance, where an excited Angad discovers the town’s connection with his forefathers who had once planned to install a government-in-exile for Duleep Singh.

The novel glides through timelines, conjoining the intricacies of zenana politics of the 19th-century Lahore Durbar and the antics of a maverick activist in a contemporary postcolonial conference at London, the adventures of the ousted Rani Jind outsmarting British spies, and two young lovers in London plotting the heist of Durbar jewels. It is an intriguing narrative woven with minute details that opens up contemporary readers to the possibility of examining the underbelly of imperial politics.

Manpreet Kaur is a Chandigarh-based historian with a specialisation on Christian missionaries in Colonial Punjab