DAKNO, RANI,

DAKNO, RANI, who came of a Rajput family of Kangra district, was married to Maharaja Sher Singh in 1842. Reputed to be a most beautiful woman of her time, she was tall and slender, graceful and very fair, with a peculiarly gentle and winning expression of countenance. In the words of Lady Login, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh, “She might have passed for a living representation of the traditional conception of the Madonna, so often to be seen depicted by the old Italian masters.” In 1843, she gave birth to a son who was named Sahdev Singh. 

Both mother and son accompanied in November 1849 Maharaja Duleep Singh to Fatehgarh to which place he (the Maharaja) had been exiled after being deprived of the throne of Lahore. Rani Dakno and Sahdev Singh died at Rai Bareilly as prisoners of the British.

References :

1. Login, Lady, Sir John Login and Duleep Singh [Reprint]. Patiala, 1970
2. Ganda Singh, ed.. History of the Freedom Movement in the Punjab (Maharaja Duleep Singh Correspondence). Patiala, 1977