Jind: Sonnets for a Queen — Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson's book JIND: is about the life of the last Empress of India, Queen of the Iconic Maharajah Ranjit Singh. She explains how Jind, his successor was the most polarising regent of the land, who came to preminence in the world political arena on the death of her Husband and King. Her prominence is unique in her time, settling in a rarefied place never before populated by a woman Regent in India. She writes in this instance about Jind's path to power, her personal power, about the formation of her character and values and about the experiences she encountered after the death of the King. Her Book is an ever more gripping account of a Regent who faces extreme turbulence after Ranjit leaves the world political scene. The degree to which Jind imbibed Ranjit's virtues of self-reliance, thrift and respectful diplomacy are revealed in her character. Amy Johnson does a brilliant exposition of a woman Regent at a time when women in Indian Politics never held a dominant role, leave alone as a Leader to combat invading forces. She writes explicitly about how Jind sat uncomfortably in various positions, about her rethinking of the traditional Royal Sikh conservatism. In her book she points out with candour which the detractors of Jind even today, may find alarming, occasion on which she was wrong or performed at less than her best, about her winter of discontent, the fall of the Sikh Empire and the country which she unwillingly inherited and the power that was thrust upon her. The crisis of the Sikhs was a crisis of the Spirit of the Nation of India.Great leaders male or female, have always been marked by the consistency of their core beliefs, their strength of character in advocacy and she was no exception.