Key Points:

On February 11, 1992, Princess Diana sat alone on a bench and made history.

Years earlier, in 1980, Prince Charles had travelled across India for the first time. On his journey he stopped at Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. Then single, the young Prince of Wales was struck by the beautiful significance of the monument. Sitting for a photo in front of the mausoleum, Charles remarked to his photographer, Kent Gavin, “One day, because this monument is about a man who loved this woman so much that he built this, I'm going to bring my wife back here.”

Charles and Diana married in 1981. It was February 1992 before they finally made their trip to India as a couple. Diana sat where Charles had sat all those years ago, in front of that monument dedicated to eternal love, while he attended a business meeting in Bangalore. Kent Gavin, who had captured Chares’s declaration in 1980, stood where he had stood once again, capturing Diana’s wistful loneliness.

The photo became a sensation, plastered across tabloids and editorials. For the public, which had been speculating a rift in the royal relationship, this iconic photo was the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. Ten months after it was taken, Charles and Diana announced their formal separation.

Charles and Diana

Charles and Diana met in 1977, when Charles was involved with her older sister, Sarah McCorquodale. Their relationship began in 1980 while staying with a mutual friend. By February 1981, they were engaged and by July they were married. This was when the rift between them first appeared.

In her autobiography, Diana admitted that the engagement was rushed. She said both were too immature to understand that the love between them was not genuine. By the time of the wedding, the couple had met only 13 times. Diana was suspicious of Charles’s affection for his former girlfriend, Camilla, and wanted to call off the wedding, but it was too late.

A year later, Diana gave birth to Prince William, then to Prince Harry in 1984. Later, she recalled, “the six weeks before Harry was born, [was] the closest we’ve ever, ever been and ever will be.” But here began the spiral. According to Diana, Charles had always wanted a girl. When Harry was born, she remembers him saying “Oh God, it’s a boy… And he’s even got red hair.” “Something inside me closed off,” she recalls.

In 1986, Charles and Camilla began their affair, according to Charles' autobiography. Diana soon finds out and, in 1989, confronts Camilla, saying, “I know what’s going on between you and Charles, and I just want you to know that.” Somewhere in the middle of all this she began seeing Army Major James Hewitt. By this time the couple was spending a lot of time living apart.

In May 1992, three months after Diana was photographed in front of the Taj Mahal, biographer Andrew Morton published Diana: Her True Story, causing the biggest scandal the royal couple had seen yet. Based on interviews given by Diana, the autobiography told all: her struggles with mental health, Charles’ horrible treatment of her, and the truth behind their marriage and extra-marital affairs. With everything out in the open, the couple separated soon after.

What followed was four years of drama filled with exposé interviews, leaked phone calls, paparazzi photos, and rumours. Diana memorably said, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” Diana and Charles officially divorced in 1996.

For a moment after the divorce, the two nearly reconciled. But it was not to be. On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris.

See Also: Dress Worn by Princess Diana Fetches Record Amount at Auction

The People’s Princess

During her short time as Princess, Diana captured the hearts of an entire generation. Following her death, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called her ‘The People’s Princess.’ In his words, “people felt a kinship to her” – she was both someone you could relate to and someone you would aspire to be, thanks to her humility, her candidacy, her style, her frequent bouts with the royal family, and, most importantly, her altruism.

She is best known for using her platform to advocate for issues around mental health, domestic violence, poverty and leprosy. Her most famous photograph – and there are lots – is from 1987, when she shook hands with an AIDS patient at the height of the HIV epidemic to dispel the myth that the disease was contagious. This gesture helped quell the hysteria that surrounded the disease and the discrimination suffered by those suffering from it. Before her death, she went on her last humanitarian tour to Bosnia to deal with landmines that littered warzones across Africa and Yugoslavia.

She spent a lot of her time at hospitals as well, cheering up patients and children. Once after her divorce, when asked how she felt about never becoming the queen of England, she replied, “I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts."

Her funeral was watched by 2.5 billion people.

Diana in India

During her lifetime, Diana was the most photographed woman in the world – but a few have stuck more than others. Kent Gavin’s capture of her in front of the Taj Mahal is one of them. The photo showed a scorned wife, a broken promise and a resilient woman. Diana spent an hour at the Taj Mahal that day; she sat silently on the bench for five minutes.

She confided in her guide, Professor Mukund Rawat, “It would have been better if both of us had been here. But my husband has to be in Delhi.”

The couple had come to India with split intentions. For Charles, who had visited before, this was more of a business trip. For Diana, this was her first visit, and she wanted it to be full of travel, sightseeing and philanthropy. After the Taj Mahal, she went to meet Vinday Tandon, a condom maker from Agra, and later visited a group of Anganwadi workers.

The press team that accompanied the couple were taken with this dynamic. Though they had come to report on serious matters of economics and trade, they focused more on Diana’s trips and Charles’ absences. This was clearest at Princess Diana’s visit to the Taj Mahal, which, thanks to Charles’ declaration years earlier, was all-the-more poignant.

She commented to the press about her visit to the Taj Mahal, “It was a very healing experience.”  When asked to clarify, she said "Work that out for yourself." [Rh/DS]

Also Read: