The Fall of the Kingdom of Punjab

by Khushwant Singh

  ‘Then a terrible scene took place. The Rani was dragged away, shrieking to the army to spare her brother. Jawahir Singh was next ordered to descend from his elephant. He lost his head, attempted to parley and a tall Sikh slapped his face and took the boy Dhulip Singh, from his arms, asking him how he dared to disobey the Khalsa. Dhulip Singh was placed in his mother’s arms, and she, hiding herself behind the walls of her tent held the child up above them in view of the army, crying for mercy for her brother in the name of her son. Suddenly, hearing a yell of agony from a well-known voice, she flung the child away in an agony of grief and rage. Fortunately, he was caught by a soldier, or the consequences might have been fatal.

  ‘Meanwhile the bloody work had been done on the hated minister. A soldier who had presumably received his orders, had gone up the ladder placed by Jawahar Singh’s elephant, stabbed him with his bayonet, and flung him upon the ground, where he was dispatched in a moment with fifty wounds.

  ‘Thus did the Sikh army avenge the death of Kashmira Singh and Peshora Singh.’

  The Panches deliberated all through the night with Jindan and Jawahar Singh’s widows wailing in the background. Common soldiers taunted them: ‘Now you know what Peshaura Singh’s mother felt when you had the Prince murdered.’ Jindan threatened to immolate herself and her son Maharajah Dalip Singh on Jawahar Singh’s funeral pyre. Her lamentations moved the soft-hearted Panches. Dina Nath and Attar Singh Kalianwala were released to dissuade her from committing suicide. Jawahar Singh’s body was taken back to the fort and later in the morning cremated with four of his wives committing sati on the pyre. Thus ended the last of the sanguinary episodes in the Lahore Durbar.

  The Panches met again in the afternoon to determine ways and means of running the administration. They were peasants with no knowledge of administrative procedure or the niceties of diplomatic usage. Consequently they decided that although matters of fundamental policy should be determined by them, the details of their execution should be handled by ministers whom they could trust. Dewan Dina Nath and Fakir Azizuddin were the two men whose integrity could not be impugned. The Fakir was anxious to withdraw from active life, particularly as he disapproved of the measures being taken against the English. The choice therefore fell on Dina Nath, whose first job was to announce the execution of Jawahar Singh. Dalip Singh was to continue nominally as the Maharajah of the Punjab with his mother Rani Jindan as Regent. But neither of them nor any of the ministers were to be allowed to communicate with any foreign power—particularly the British—without the prior sanction of the Army Panchayat. An official communique was sent to the British Government stating that the Khalsa Panth wanted peace, but if the British continued to march troops to Ludhiana and Ferozepur, it would be compelled to safeguard its frontiers; and if the British invaded the Punjab, the Punjabis would fight and expel them. It ended by exhorting the British not to make preparations for war and to avoid creating an atmosphere of hostility.

  A week after the execution of Jawahar Singh on 27th September 1854, an oath of allegiance to Dalip Singh and Jindan was taken by the soldiers at all regimental centres. They swore to fight the feringhi, if necessary across the Sutlej. The Durbar moved to Amritsar for Dussehra—the festival was celebrated with parades, mock-battles and the worship of arms. Here once more Sikh soldiers flocked to the Golden Temple to pray for victory against the foreigner.

  On its way back, the Durbar halted for a few days at the Shalamar Gardens where a most dramatic meeting took place. Dewan Dina Nath surveyed the events of the past months and read letters from officers posted in the Durbar’s territories across the Sutlej stating that the British were demanding tributes from them as if the territories had already been annexed. He made special reference to Annandpur, the holy town of Gurus Tegh Bahadur and Gobind Singh. He warned the Panches and the ministers that if the administration of the State was allowed to deteriorate further and dissension in Durbar circles continued, the kingdom of Ranjit Singh would fall an easy prey to the aggressor. The Dewan’s address created a profound impression on his audience. The Panches resolved to choose leaders at once. At the Dewan’s suggestion (at the instance of Jindan) they accepted Lal Singh as Chief Minister and Tej Singh as Commander-in-Chief. The nominations were confirmed at a formal ceremony at the mausoleum of Ranjit Singh where the Panches and officers again took the oath of loyalty to the State.

  Col. Gardner gives an idea of the atmosphere in the Punjab. He says that such was ‘the real belief that the intentions of the British were aggressive, such the domestic incitements of their families to plunder, and such their devotion to their mystic faith, that one single dogged determination filled the bosom of each soldier. The word went round, “We will go to the sacrifice.” One miserable deserter was nearly beaten to death by his Punjabi countrywomen.’

  Chapter 7

  First War against the English

  The threat of invasion from the East brought the nation together. Self-seeking courtiers of the Durbar were forgiven, differences between Sikh and Dogra were forgotten, and all Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs joined hands to defend their homeland. When it was learnt that the Tunda lat (Lord Hardinge) was himself coming up to the frontier to help Lord Gough direct the operations there was great excitement at Lahore. It is signnificant that in this time of national emergency, the Punjabis did not go to pray at mosques, temples or gurdwaras, but at the shrine of one who symbolised their sense of nationhood: it was the mausoleum of Ranjit Singh that became a place of pilgrimage. At all hours of the day and night, the garden round the mausoleum was crowded with people eager to get the latest news of the advance of the British armies towards their frontiers and hear the decisions of the Panches on how the country was to be defended.

  The Panches went to the palace to get Rani Jindan’s approval of their plans and to decide which of the officers would lead the army. One stormy meeting lasting four hours took place on 17th November 1844. There were some like Bhaia Ram Singh and Fakir Azizuddin who did not believe that the British would cross the Sutlej and that their preparations were as defensive as those of the Punjabis. This argument did not convince anyone. If the British measures were purely defensive, they asked, what was the pontoon bridge over the Sutlej meant for? Why had Ferozepur, which was only forty miles from Lahore, been militarized? And didn’t the provision depot being set up at Bassian near the Sutlej, indicate that the British intended to have it behind them when their troops were fighting in the Punjab? And why in the last five years when the Punjabis were helping them in Afghanistan had the British more than trebled their army and guns, mustered the largest force ever known on the plains of India, on the Punjab frontier? There was no answer to this last argument. When Lord Ellenborough had left India the British force on the Punjab frontier (exclusive of hill-station garrisons) was 17,612 men and sixty-six guns. In the autumn of 1845 this had become 40,523 men and ninety-four guns. Till 1809, the only British military outpost was at Ludhiana. Now Ambala and Ferozepur had been fortified: cantonments had been built in the hills not far from the Sutlej at Sabathu, Kasauli and Dagshai. Large reserves were posted at Meerut and Delhi. It was quite clear to the Punjabis that the British had been preparing to invade their country for some years and since it was the right time of the year for English soldiers to fight in the plains, the army massed on the frontier was poised for an invasion and only awaited the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief to cross the pontoon bridge and take the road to Lahore.

  The consensus of the meeting of 17th November was that the British were bent on war with the Punjabis and that their aggression was to be resisted at all cost. The Durbar army was split up into seven divisions: four were ordered to proceed against British advance points at Rupar, Ludhiana, Harike and Ferozepur; two were to man the other frontiers, one, the Southern alongside Sindh, the other, the North-Western at Peshawar and Attock; one was to remain at Lahore. Each division was to consist of between 8,000 and 12,000 men.

  The British Agent asked for an explanation of the
military preparations. The Punjab Government replied that they were a counter-measure to their own preparations. In addition, the Durbar repeated its demand for the return of the treasure of Suchet Singh Dogra held by the British and the restoration of the village of Moran in Nabha to the Durbar’s nominee, Dhanna Singh. The village in question had been given to Ranjit Singh by the Raja of Nabha in 1819 in exchange for land in the Punjab. Ranjit Singh had given the village to Dhanna Singh Malwai. The Raja of Nabha forcibly occupied and looted Moran in 1843. Despite the protest of the Durbar, the British had upheld the action of the Nabha Raja). Finally, there was the question of a free passage to the Punjab armed constabulary to Durbar possessions across the Sutlej—a right that had been acknowledged by the British on paper but more often than not denied in practice.

  The British Agent was not satisfied with these answers and on 3rd December 1845 handed the Durbar’s representative his passport. This severed diplomatic relations with Durbar. For all practical purposes the two States were at war.

  The call to arms had gone out earlier. The latest manifestation of hostile intention created an atmosphere of feverish haste. Peasants and Chiefs left their homes and occupations to join the colours. The bard Shah Mohammad says:

  Sons of Sardars—handsome, dashing, debonair—Leapt to battle as lions leap out of their lair.

  On 8th December 1845, British units from Meerut and Ambala under the command of Lord Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, moved northwards to join forces with General Littler’s army at Ferozepur. The Punjabi Generals realised that if the two enemy armies were allowed to join forces, they would certainly be able to cross the river over the pontoon bridge and march straight towards Lahore. The Durbar army was given marching orders. The plan was to keep General Littler where he was and to intercept the column advancing under Gough and Hardinge.

  It is still uncertain as to when exactly the Durbar army crossed the Sutlej. According to some Indian historians, it started to cross over in boats on 14th December; and since the entire flotilla consisted of 24 small boats, the operation was not completed till the 16th. According to British records, the crossing began on 11th December over the ford at Hari Ka Pattan. The news of the crossing was received by Lord Hardinge two days later and he declared war against the Durbar. Some Indian historians further maintain that Durbar troops crossed over into territory which had been recognised by the Treaty of 1809 as being he Durbar’s property and therefore did not commit aggression. The British Government maintained that the crossing was a violation of the Treaty of 1809 and amounted to an act of war.

  Lord Hardinge made the proclamation of war from his camp at Lashkari Khan ki Sarai. He recapitulated the friendly relations that had existed between the British and Ranjit Singh since the Treaty of 1809, the provisions of which, according to Hardinge, had been faithfully observed by the British but grossly violated by the Durbar in recent months. He claimed that British military movements were ‘precautionary measures for the protection of the British frontier’ and continued: ‘The Sikh army has now, without a shadow of provocation, invaded the British territories.’ The Governor-General declared the confiscation of the territories of the Durbar on the left bank of the Subje and called upon the Chiefs and Sardars in the protected territories to cooperate with the British in punishing the common enemy.

  Despite the forthright language of the proclamation of war, Lord Hardinge was full of doubts. Five days later he remarked to Robert Cust, Personal Assistant to Broadfoot: ‘Will the people of England consider this as an actual invasion of our frontier and a justification of war?’ It is not surprising that Cust referred to the advance of the British forces as ‘the first British invasion of the independent Kingdom of the Punjab’.

  The opinions of two other British officers closely connected with Anglo-Punjab politics are worth noting. Major G. Carmichael Smyth of the North-western Agency, wrote: ‘Regarding the Punjaub war; I am neither of the opinion that the Seiks made an unprovoked attack, nor that we have acted towards them with great forbearance . . . if the Seiks were to be considered entirely an independent state in no way answerable to us, we should not have provoked them!—for to assert that the bridge of boats brought from Bombay, was not a causa belli, but merely a defensive measure, is absurd; besides the Seiks had translations of Sir Charles Napier’s speech (as it appeared in the Delhi Gazette) stating that we were going to war with them; and as all European powers would have done under such circumstances, the Seiks thought it as well to be first in the field. Moreover they were not encamped in our territory, but their own.

  ‘. . . and I only ask, had we not departed from the rules of friendship first? The year before the war broke out, we kept the island between Ferozepore and the Punjaub, though it belonged to the Seiks, owing to the deep water being between us and the island.

  ‘. . . But if on the other hand the Treaty of 1809 is said to have been binding between the two Governments, then the simple question is, who first departed from the “rules of friendship”? I am decidedly of opinion that we did.’

  Even more emphatic on the subject is Sir George Campbell, who was then posted at Kaithal (a Sikh state escheated by the British). He wrote: ‘It is recorded in the annals of history, or what is called history, which will go down to posterity, that the Sikh army invaded British territory in pursuance of a determination to attack us. And most people will be very much surprised to hear that they did nothing of the kind. They made no attack on our outlying cantonments, nor set foot in our territory. What they did do was to cross the river and to entrench themselves in their own territory.’

  The exact size of the Punjab army sent against the British is not known; but it is conjectured that it was of the same strength as the enemy with slight superiority in artillery. It mainly comprised Sikhs and Mussulmans. The artillery had always been manned by Muslims. The bard Shah Mohammad names Sultan Mohammad (son of Ranjit Singh’s famous artillery-man, Mian Ghausa), Imam Shah and Elahi Bakhsh. The Punjab army also had small numbers of Poorabias and Gurkhas. Gulab Singh forbade the Dogras to join.

  The Punjabis started with the handicap of being led by traitors. There is enough evidence to prove that at different times both the Chief Minister, Raja Lal Singh, the Commander-in-Chief, Tej Singh, and at a later stage, Gulab Singh Dogra, were in communication with enemy agents. There is nothing concrete to implicate Rani Jindan apart from her liaison with the traitor Lal Singh and his letter to the British ‘to consider him and the Bibi Saheba as their friends’. Nevertheless the feeling among many people was that the Durbar and Jindan were primarily responsible for egging the soldiers into hostilities and then letting them down—the object being to teach them a lesson for having executed her brother, Jawahar Singh. The bard Shah Mohammad states in no uncertain terms that Jindan ‘tore up the State from the floor’.

  The first thing Lal Singh did on marching with his army across the Sutlej was to write to Capt. Nicholson at Ferozepur: ‘I have crossed with the Sikh army. You know my friendship to the British. Tell me what to do.’

  Nicholson replied: ‘Do not attack Ferozepur. Halt as many days as you can, and then march towards the Governor-General.’

  Lal Singh carried out Nicholson’s behest. He detached Tej Singh with a force to march towards Ferozepur and took the rest of the army with him a few miles upstream where he entrenched in horse-shoe formation near the village of Pheru Shahr—(now described as Ferozeshahr)—with the river Sutlej behind him and seven wells with good drinking water in their midst. Then, as Nicholson had instructed, he detached yet another force and marched it off to meet the main British army advancing under Lord Gough and the Governor-General.

  Battle of Mudki-18th December 1845

  The force Lal Singh took with him was considerably smaller than the one the British were bringing up. Accordding to Capt. Nicholson, it was no more than 3,500 men. Capt. Cunningham estimates it to have been about 12,000 men with twenty-two guns. Whatever their own strength, the Punjabis were unpleasantly surprised at the la
rge size of Gough’s army and its advanced position. Apart perhaps from Lal Singh, no one was expecting to meet the enemy for another couple of days, when suddenly on the afternoon of 18th December 1845 they sighted the British encamped near the village of Mudki. Instead of retreating to more suitable terrain, Lal Singh ordered his men to fall into battle formation on absolutely flat ground with little or no cover for his guns except some sandy hillocks and brushwood. Punjabi snipers took their perches on branches of some tamarisk trees growing in the vicinity and before the enemy were within range, Lal Singh ordered his guns to open fire—thereby betraying their position as well as wasting valuable ammunition.

  Lord Gough waited patiently till the Punjabi fire slackened. Then he got his guns in position with their beads drawn on the spots already revealed by flashes from the Punjabi guns and in a short but intense cannonade silenced them. Just before sunset the British Cavalry charged the Punjabi flanks. Lal Singh promptly deserted his men and retreated to the camp at Ferozeshahr. The men refused to give in. They fought a grim hand-to-hand battle against the more numerous enemy led by the most experienced commanders of Europe, Lord Gough and Lord Hardinge. The battle continued with unabated fury till midnight (and came thereafter to be known as ‘Midnight Mudki’). Then the leaderless Punjabis, who had lost more than half of their comrades and fifteen of their guns, withdrew from the battlefield.