You clearly feel strongly enough about this point to have committed it to writing.
(It’s obviously a cause that you’re committed to.)
I’m being sarcastic, of course, but there’s a point. While (like most mental health services) I’m not a fan of describing the act of suicide as “committing” suicide today, for exactly the reasons you describe, it might be appropriate for a historical case.
That’s all I meant to say in a comment… but then I ended up going down a rabbithole.
Let’s sidestep into an example: I said “John William Gott committed blasphemy in 1921” that would be fair. His actions would not be considered criminal today: he was initially arrested for selling pamphlets containing information on birth control but prosecutors tacked on a blasphemy charge because they figured they could get it to stick too, based on the ways his literature was presented. But legally-speaking, Gott committed a crime; a crime that doesn’t exist today.
It’s not a coincidence I’ve lumped jumped from suicide to blasphemy: both were formerly criminalised in Britain and her empire (among many other places) as a direct result of Christian religious tradition: you can probably blame Thomas Aquinas!
Language about the criminality of past offences gets very complicated, very quickly. Some contemporary values seem to be considered so fundamental that it feels wrong to describe historical convictions as criminal. In some of these cases, we see pardons issued or other admissions of fault by the state. Take for example in recent years the payment of compensation to former military personnel who were dishonourably discharged on account of their sexuality. But I’m not aware of anything like that happening related to past convictions of suicide (or, indeed, blasphemy).
With that grounding: let’s take a deeper dive into Irene Duleep Singh, to decide whether or not her suicide would have been considered criminal at the time (it was certainly considered shameful and taboo, even within societies that would not have considered it illegal, but that’s not what I’m interested in right now). Irene died by suicide in the Principality f Monaco in 1926. At that time, Monaco was a protectorate of France with less independence than it is today, and for the most part its legal system seems to have paralleled that in France. I can’t find a specific provision for suicide in Monaco, so it would probably not have been illegal (suicide was illegal under the Ancien Régime but was effectively decriminalised by its omission from the Napoleonic Penal Codes). So: no crime.
Buuuut… Irene could also be considered a citizen of Britain, or of India, or of British India. Suicide was illegal in the UK prior to 1961 and in India until 2024 (wait, what? yeah, really… well… kinda; it’s complicated, especially after 2018). So in her capacity as a citizen or subject of the British Empire, her suicide was criminal.
Both John William Gott and Irene Duleep Singh may well both have committed crimes that would not be considered crimes today. In both cases, their crimes were things that, in my opinion, should never have been criminalised in the first place. But that doesn’t make the historical fact any less-true.
And that’s why I picked up on this one line for my comment.
I absolutely agree that it’s inappropriate and unhelpful to talk about somebody have “committed suicide” today. The language creates a barrier to help and support, which is what should be offered to people experiencing suicidal thoughts! But I don’t see the harm in using it when discussing a historical case from a century ago, at a time at which suicide was seen very differently.
So long as it’s appropriately contextualised for the audience, it seems to me to be harmless. By which I mean to say: not worthy of being called-out by your one-liner… and even-less worthy of my having gone down this long and complicated rabbithole which, somehow, has involved translating old French legislation, digging through the history of Monaco, and learning about the courts of the British Raj.
I guess what I mean to say is that if your intention was to nerdsnipe me with this line… then well played, Sundeep, well played.
Dan, I didn’t expect that one line to send anyone down a rabbit hole quite this deep – so thank you.
But I’d push back on the jurisdictional argument. Irene was born in France to an English mother, which points to a dual nationality that complicates the picture considerably. Monaco operated under French legal principles, and you’ve already conceded that suicide wasn’t criminal there. Her legal domicile at death isn’t as straightforwardly ‘British subject’ as the argument requires – and the tension is illustrated by the fact that she is buried in Monaco, yet her probate case was heard in the English courts.
The deeper point, though, is this. Since I published this piece, the exhibition’s own terminology consultant has said publicly that ‘died by suicide’ and ‘took their own life’ are – and I’m quoting him directly – ‘far better ways to discuss Irene Duleep Singh’s death in 2026.’ He applies that standard in his own editorial work.
That same exhibition, ‘The Last Princesses of Punjab’ goes to considerable lengths to correct the colonial language of ‘Sikhism’ to ‘Sikhi’ – a deliberate choice to evolve language for a modern audience. That’s an act of dignity toward a living tradition. So why does that courtesy extend to religious terminology but not to the last-born Duleep Singh princess herself?
There’s a distinction worth making between quoting a historical source – which can and should be done, with contextualisation – and offering 2026 commentary that unreflectively uses 1920s framing. The first is scholarship. The second reproduces the stigma that associated suicide with crime, rather than educating a modern audience about how both law and language have evolved.
If we correct ‘Sikhism’ to ‘Sikhi’ as an act of dignity, why does the last-born Princess of Punjab not deserve the same?
Thank you for the Aquinas trail, the Napoleonic Penal Codes, and the detour through the courts of the British Raj. This is exactly the quality of attention her story rewards.
Would it be alright if I reproduced this exchange on my Substack to show the dialogue?