By the mid-19th century Britain, through the East India Company, had almost total dominion over India. Only the Sikh Empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh stood defiantly unbowed.

Punjab's strategic importance would prove irresistible to the British, as would its most valuable treasure - the Koh-i-Noor. The history of this diamond is many faceted, and among these tales lies the story of two women; the White Queen and the Black Queen; Queen Victoria and Maharani Jindan.

Volumes have been written about the White Queen, though the same cannot be said of Jindan. Two years older than Victoria, Jindan was born in 1817. Her father was kennel keeper to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, so Jindan was raised among hunting dogs on the periphery of the palace. Jindan's father, an ambitious man, flaunted his pretty daughter before his master, tempting him to use her to rejuvenate his battle-weary body.

At first Ranjit Singh shrugged off the impertinence, having no shortage of beautiful women in his harem. However there was something special about Jindan, because in 1835, when she was barely 18 and he was 55, Ranjit Singh confounded expectation and married her.

Beautiful Jindan, with her oval face, aquiline nose, and large, intense, almond- shaped eyes moved with the grace of a dancer. Her innate sensuality unnerved many, and she attracted admirers and detractors in equal measure. In contrast, Ranjit Singh's long hair and beard were snowy white, and his pockmarked face deeply wrinkled. Paralysis had frozen his left side, and one of his eyes was missing. When Jindan fell pregnant two years later, the court gossips could barely contain themselves.

How could the gnarled Maharaja father a baby at his age and with his infirmities? Jindan must have slept with one of her servants. In an unusual move, Maharaja Ranjit Singh took the step of officially and publicly declaring Jindan's baby, Duleep Singh, as his legitimate child, quashing any notion that he had been cuckolded. Grudgingly, the court made room for Jindan and Duleep.

A year later, in 1839, Ranjit Singh died and left behind him a power vacuum. In four years, Punjab lost three maharajas, one maharani, and numerous aristocrats to murderous intrigue. By December 1843, the last man standing was no man at all, but Jindan's five-year-old, doe-eyed boy.

In Duleep Singh, the nobles of the Punjab court hoped for a puppet, but Jindan had other plans. She threw off her veil and chose to rule as regent, with her son in her lap. The idea of taking orders from such a low born woman did not sit well with some.

Watching their discomfort, the British decided to make a move against Punjab. A largely manufactured conflict with the Sikh Empire followed, and thanks to the treachery of men who ought to have been most loyal to Duleep, the Punjab army lost the first Anglo Sikh War. Officers of the East India Company marched into Lahore, promising the Punjabis that they had come as friends, and vowing to leave when Duleep reached 16. Unlike her gullible courtiers, Maharani Jindan refused to believe them.

Jindan threw her bangles at her generals, accusing them of being weaker than women. Could they not see that this was annexation by stealth? The British, realising that Jindan was a major threat to their ambitions, decided to remove her from the scene. The governor general, Henry Hardinge, declared that "her general misconduct and habits of intrigue are sufficient to justify her separation from her son... The British Government [has] the right to separate the Maharaja from the contagion of her evil practice..."

In December 1847, with the Maharaja barely nine, Jindan was torn screaming from his side. For two years, she found herself moved ever further away from her son, from one prison cell to another. At first she wrote to the British, promising never to speak against them as long as they returned her only child to her. Eventually her letters, like her tears, dried up.

Duleep was entirely at the mercy of the British, and their new governor general, James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, the Earl of Dalhousie. Dalhousie was determined to take all of Punjab and its riches for his queen, and a second Anglo Sikh War was engineered. The victorious British forced Duleep to sign over his kingdom and his Koh-i-Noor. He was eleven and all alone.

Locked up and powerless to help her son, Jindan managed to escape, but not before she could taunt her captors. Leaving money on the floor of her cell, she scrawled a note: "You put me in a cage and locked me up. For all your locks and your sentries, I got out by magic... I had told you plainly not to push me too hard..."

Though she sounded defiant, Jindan was, in fact, physically and mentally exhausted. Nevertheless she fled hundreds of miles on foot to Nepal, where she claimed asylum. There, in miserable exile, she pined for her son, slowly going blind as she waited.

Duleep was entrusted to the care of a British couple and banished from Punjab. Under their gaze, he learned to become an Englishman, reciting Shakespeare and reading his Bible. Before his 15th birthday, Duleep converted to Christianity. Jubilant, Queen Victoria longed to meet the Maharaja. When he showed an interest in visiting her, Victoria immediately gave her consent. Jindan's son sailed to the land of her enemies. India would never be his home again.

From the moment he arrived, Victoria was captivated: "He is extremely handsome and speaks English perfectly, and has a pretty, graceful and dignified manner. He was beautifully dressed and covered with diamonds... I always feel so much for these poor deposed Indian Princes..."

Duleep became like a son to Victoria. The two sketched each other for hours, and she showered him with gifts. Victoria was particularly touched by the kindness Duleep showed her youngest son, an ailing child named Leopold.

When he turned 21, Duleep's thoughts eventually turned to his real mother. He had heard worrying reports of her declining health, and in 1860 he tried to contact Jindan in secret. The British intercepted his letter and though they felt they could not prevent a reunion, they thought they might control it.

A place far from Punjab was chosen for the meeting. The Spence Hotel in Calcutta was one of the finest hotels in the world and it was there that Duleep, flanked by representatives of the British Raj, waited for his mother on January 16, 1861.

According to Punjabi folklore, when the Rani was brought in she said not one word, but instead ran her hands all over her son's face and body. Robbed of her sight she relied on her fingertips. It was only when Jindan reached the hair on Duleep's head that she let out a howl of grief and rage. He had shorn away his long hair along with his old faith. When Jindan finally calmed down, she declared she would never again be parted from her boy.

If the British needed a reminder of how potent Jindan was, they got it just hours later. A troopship filled with Sikh soldiers happened to be sailing up Calcutta's Hooghly river. Rumours spread that Duleep had returned to India, with Jindan by his side. Hundreds of exhausted, emotional soldiers gathered around the Spence Hotel. Their bellowing salute shook the walls: " Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!" After that, the British could not get the pair out of India on a boat fast enough.

From the moment she was back with him, Jindan filled Duleep's ears with tales of his "stolen" Koh-i-Noor. Under her influence, Duleep began to change, turning from a favourite pet of Queen Victoria's court into a man who dared to defy its wishes.

The Maharaja began to question the terms of the settlement he had been forced to sign as a boy. He sent awkward missives: "I very much wish to have a conversation with you about my private property in the Punjab and the Koh-i-Noor diamond".

Queen Victoria, crippled by grief after the death of her husband Prince Albert, was in no position to counter the moves of the Black Queen. Her advisers were left to deal with the situation: "I am very sorry to hear what you say about the Maharaja - nothing could be so destructive to him as that he should succumb to his mother's, or any other native influence," wrote Sir Charles Phipps, in response to reports of Jindan's remoulding of her son.

The British considered locking up Jindan again, but on August 1, 1863, the Maharani died peacefully at her home in Lon-don. Though only 46, she looked considerably older.

Even after her death Jindan, like a slow poison, continued to kill her son's love for Victoria. He began to resent the British Queen, calling her "Mrs Fagin", the receiver of stolen goods. Eventually Duleep would embark on a doomed mission to reclaim Punjab. Rani Jindan may not have been able to win back the Koh-i-Noor or the Kingdom for her son, but she did win back her son from the White Queen.