THE daughter of the last Sikh ruler is among historical figures whose name is being considered under a campaign that calls for more diversity in new commemorative monuments across the UK.
Maharaja Duleep Singh’s daughter Sophia Duleep Singh, also the goddaughter of Queen Victoria, was among the leading suffragettes who fought for women’s right to vote in 1900s Britain.
Now, Britain's first Sikh female parliamentarian, Preet Kaur Gill, has nominated her as a candidate for a new memorial to better represent the diversity of the country.
“The last few years we have seen our country more polarised. As an MP, I want to use my voice to bring people together and to build cohesion in the UK,” said Gill.
“I am backing the Hidden Heroes campaign because we have so many of our achievements to celebrate and the stories of more under-represented groups can help build pride and a shared narrative of what Britain is today,” she added.
The Hidden Heroes campaign has been created to build on the diversity of public monuments, statues and art, because fewer than three per cent of the statues in the UK are of non-royal women, with other categories hardly represented.
“We need more statues, not less. Let’s celebrate people whose values we can all be inspired by and who tell the story of this wonderfully diverse nation,” said Zehra Zaidi, campaigner and founder of the Hidden Heroes campaign as part of her wider We Too Built Britain initiative.
“Symbolism in representation has a role to play in cohesion and bringing people together under shared values,” she said.
The initiative, to coincide with the ongoing South Asian Heritage Month in the UK, calls on members of Parliament from every constituency to ask local people to nominate their “Hidden Heroes”.
Tom Tugendhat, parliamentarian and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has supported the campaign to better recognise the women spies of the Second World War Special Operations Executive (SOE), including Asian SOE agent Noor Inayat Khan.
“Britain has always brought together people from different cultures and backgrounds. It’s what has made us strong and adaptable over centuries. We need to celebrate our community with all its differences,” said Tugendhat.
Damian Talbot