The story of Queen Victoria’s forgotten goddaughter

125 years ago this month, the queen who had lorded over the British empire for almost 64 years passed away at the age of 81. At her death in 1901, the “Empress of India”— Queen Victoria— had held sway over the destinies of close to a quarter of the earth’s population and a fifth of its surface. Her death marked the end of the so-called Victorian Era, a glorious period in British history which saw the invention of the telegraph, the bicycle and the internal combustion engine, alongside antiseptics and anaesthetics (the Queen herself requested chloroform at the birth of her eighth child in 1853, instantly making obstetric anaesthesia acceptable and bringing relief to countless expectant mothers), and the Empire expanded rapidly to the point where “the sun never set” on it.

In the Empire’s “jewel in the Crown”, India, Victoria’s passing saw a slew of her statues being installed as a tribute, both in British-ruled provinces and princely states. The latter had reason to be particularly grateful to the Queen – personally overseeing the drafting of the Government of India Act of 1858, which placed India under Crown Rule following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, she had insisted that a provision be included about being respectful to Indian rulers, honouring their religions, territorial boundaries, and chosen heirs. One of the biggest beneficiaries was Mysore – Maharaja Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, who did not have a son, adopted his grandson, Chamarajendra Wadiyar X, as his heir; the adoption was legitimized in 1866 via royal order, Chamarajendra crowned king, and Mysore, ruled by the East India Company since 1831, restored to the Wadiyars in 1881.

Tragically, the visionary Chamarajendra died of diphtheria in 1894, at only 31. When Queen Victoria died,his son, Nalvadi Krishnaraja, commissioned Thomas Brock, one of London’s most celebrated sculptors, who also designed and executed the Victoria Memorial outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, to create a marble likeness of the monarch. That beautifully crafted sculpture, inaugurated in 1906 by the queen’s grandson, George (later King George V), stands at the MG Road entrance of Cubbon Park.

Although the Queen never visited India, leave alone Mysore, the posthumous statue is not her only connection to our neck of the woods. A confirmed anti-racist, slave trade abolitionist, and humanitarian, the queen was wont to “adopt” the children of deposed Indian kings, bringing them to England, converting them to Christianity, and showering them with love. Unfortunately for the adoptees, this effectively took away their agency and independence, and alienated them from their land, language, religion and people.

The most famous of Victoria’s Indian godchildren was Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of the Sikh empire, who was forced to “gift” the Koh-i-Noor to the queen after the second Anglo-Sikh war in 1849. Lesser known is Gowramma, a daughter of the last king of Kodagu (then known as Coorg), Chikaveera Rajendra (a cruel, licentious, complex despot whose story was immortalised in the Kannada novel of the same name by Jnanpith awardee Masti Venkatesh Iyengar), who was deposed in 1834. In 1852, Chikaveera travelled to London with 11-year-old Gowramma, both to deliver her to the queen’s care and to parley for the return of his kingdom.

Victoria took an instant fancy to the “poor little princess”, formally admitted her into the British aristocracy as her goddaughter, “Victoria Gowramma of Coorg”, and even tried to orchestrate a marriage between Duleep Singh and Gowramma. That did not work out, but the two Indian royals did end up sharing a warm friendship. Eventually, Duleep Singh arranged Gowramma’s marriage – to a British colonel 30 years older to her.

In 1864, just two years after she had given birth to her daughter, Edith, Gowramma succumbed to TB and was buried in London’s Brompton Cemetery. She was 22.