In the annals of World War II history, few would have expected a British-born Sikh princess from a dethroned royal family to quietly resist Nazi Germany, and live openly with a female partner long before LGBTQ rights were acknowledged — let alone accepted.

Yet, that is precisely what Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh did.

The daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Catherine blazed her own trail and defied social norms.

The recognition of her legacy is relatively recent. Among those who've brought her acts to the forefront is British biographer Peter Bance, who has spent over two decades researching and writing about the Duleep Singh family, besides piecing together Catherine's extraordinary contributions from scattered records and family documents.

Bance explained to Metro in 2023: "She didn't do these things for self-promotion, so the stories weren't in books or anything. Her stories have survived through the people she saved. Her intervention at that time have seen families across the world thrive."

Born in 1871 in Suffolk, England, Catherine was raised far from the land her father once ruled.

At age 10, Maharaja Duleep Singh was forced to surrender the Sikh Empire — and the (in)famous Koh-i-Noor diamond — after the British annexed Punjab. In return, he received a pension from the British Crown on the condition he "remain obedient to the British Government."

He later married Bamba Müller, a German-Ethiopian woman, with whom he had six children; Catherine was the fourth. The family lived in exile, but under the patronage of Queen Victoria, who was also Catherine's........

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