Dr Priya Atwal: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire (1837)

02/01/22 • 50 min

In this episode of Travels Through Time we attend a magnificent Sikh royal wedding which was as much carefully orchestrated political theatre as it was the union of two people before god.

Indian weddings are famous for their exuberance and that of Prince Nau Nihal Singh, who married Bibi Nanaki Kaur Atariwala in 1837, may well have been the most extravagant of all time.

This lavish month-long celebration was an emotional moment for the young Prince’s grandparents, Ranjit Singh, ‘the lion of Punjab’, Maharajah and founder of the splendid Sikh dynasty that ruled northern India from 1799-1849, and his beloved wife, Maharani Datar Kaur. They oversaw the wedding preparations and presided over the whole extravaganza.

But while the guests feasted and the dancing girls performed, Ranjit Singh and his advisors were busy negotiating with representatives of the East India Company over the division of power in the Punjab and beyond.

Click here to order Dr Priya Atwal’s book Royals and Rebels, the Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire from an independent bookshop near you.

Show Notes

Scene One: March 6th, 1837. The 'vatna' ceremony performed by his family (particularly his grandmother and the senior queens) where the couple are smeared with a paste made of turmeric as part of his pre-wedding celebrations.

Scene Two: Early April, 1837. The wedding ceremony at the home of Sham Singh Attariwala, local warlord and father of the bride.

Scene Three: End of March, 1837. The military parade performed by the groom in front of Maharajah Ranjit Singh's British guests at the end of the month-long celebrations.

Memento: One of the Maharani’s incredible outfits, including the jewels!

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Dr Priya Atwal

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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In this episode of Travels Through Time we attend a magnificent Sikh royal wedding which was as much carefully orchestrated political theatre as it was the union of two people before god.

Indian weddings are famous for their exuberance and that of Prince Nau Nihal Singh, who married Bibi Nanaki Kaur Atariwala in 1837, may well have been the most extravagant of all time.

Click here to order Dr Priya Atwal’s book Royals and Rebels, the Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire from an independent bookshop near you.

Show Notes

Scene Two: Early April, 1837. The wedding ceremony at the home of Sham Singh Attariwala, local warlord and father of the bride.

Scene Three: End of March, 1837. The military parade performed by the groom in front of Maharajah Ranjit Singh's British guests at the end of the month-long celebrations.

Memento: One of the Maharani’s incredible outfits, including the jewels!

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: Dr Priya Atwal

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

Or on Facebook

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Previous Episode

David Bosco: The Struggle to Rule the Ocean (1982)

In this delightfully modern episode of Travels Through Time we are setting sail for an adventure on the high seas.

Our guest is David Bosco, author of The Poseidon Project, The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans , in which he charts the efforts of international organisations to create consensus and establish a structure of globally recognised rules for the oceans.

In this episode David takes us back to 1982, a fraught year on the high seas when Britain was battling Argentina in the South Atlantic for control of the Falkland Islands and the waters around them. In the Arctic, a British adventurer had just completed the famous Northwest Passage. He did so just as disagreement between Canada and the United States over the legal status of the Passage became acute. Meanwhile, final preparations were underway for the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. But there was a cloud over the celebrations—the world’s leading maritime power, the United States, had decided not to sign.

Click here to order David Bosco's book The Poseidon Project, The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans from an independent bookseller.

Show Notes

Scene One: January 1, 1982, The North Pole. Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his wife Virginia Fiennes celebrated the New Year with the rest of their expedition at a snow-covered base camp.

Scene Two: June 8, 1982, the South Atlantic Ocean, approximately 500 miles northeast of the Falkland Islands. An aircraft bombs the tanker Hercules during the war between Argentina and the United Kingdom for control of the Falklands.

Scene Three: December 10, 1982: Rose Hall Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica. The site for the signing of the new United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Memento: The signed treaty from the convention in Montego Bay.

People/Social

Presenter: Violet Moller

Guest: David Bosco

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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Next Episode

Ronen Steinke: The Arab Doctor and the Jewish Girl (1943)

In this episode of Travels Through Time we meet two extraordinarily brave people who formed an unlikely friendship in Hitler's Berlin.

Their names were Dr Mohammed Helmy – a Muslim Egyptian doctor who had been living in Berlin since coming to study there in 1922 – and Anna Boros, a sixteen year old Jewish girl. When the Nazi regime's persecution of Jewish people started to escalate, Anna's mother approached Dr Helmy to ask for his help. His solution was to form a unique and daring plan that would fool the Gestapo just enough times to save Anna's life.

Anna and Dr Helmy's story is the subject of a new book by our guest today, the journalist and author Ronen Steinke. Ronen is also a political commentator for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany's leading broadsheet newspaper and has published a number of works in Germany on the Nazi period. His most recent book Anna & Dr Helmy: How an Arab Doctor Saved a Jewish Girl in Hitler's Berlin is published by Oxford University Press.

Show Notes

Scene One: 1943. The Berlin mosque. A place that had fascinated Berliners and inspired the imagination of intellectuals and artists, a place that had been open to visitors and had attracted visitors like Albert Einstein - and a place where a particular friendship with the city's Jews had been visible since the mid-1920s. Now in 1943, this mosque was forcibly placed under the control of the Nazi-friendly Mufti of Jerusalem, a guest of honour of the SS.

Scene Two: 1943. The doctor's practice of Dr Mohammed Helmy in the well-to-do Charlottenburg district of Berlin. The Gestapo barge in, they are looking for a Jewish girl who has gone to ground in order to escape deportation: Anna. They don't find her however, they are met only by the doctor and his Arab assistant, and so they leave empty-handed. The beauty of this scene is: They have been duped.

Scene Three: 10 June 1943. The appartment of Dr Mohammed Helmy in the rough Moabit neighbourhood of Berlin. Nighttime. A secret meeting. Along with a fellow Egyptian, Dr Helmy helps the Jewish girl Anna whom he is hiding to convert to Islam. The idea is to save her life.

Momento: An instrument from one of Berlin’s jazz clubs.

People/Social

Presenter: Artemis Irvine

Guest: Ronen Steinke

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Unseen Histories

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