‘Empire of the Sikhs tells a fascinating story of humanity in an age of inhumanity.’
INDARJIT SINGH
‘This book breaks through the barrier between the Sikh world and beyond.’
ANTONY WOOD
EMPIRE of the SIKHS
RANJIT SINGH (1780-1839) HAS BEEN LARGELY WRITTEN OUT of accounts of India’s past by British historians. Yet he was one of the most powerful and charismatic figures in Indian history. He unified the warring chiefdoms of the Punjab into an extraordinary northern empire stretching to the borders of Kabul and Tibet, built up a formidable army, kept the British in check to the south of his realm, and closed the Khyber Pass through which plunderers had for centuries poured into India. His rule provided the north with a political and cultural landscape more integrated and relaxed than any to be found elsewhere in the subcontinent before or since.
His consummate humanity was unique among empire-builders. He gave employment to defeated foes, honoured faiths other than his own, and included Hindus and Muslims among his ministers. He was a colourful character. Inspired by the principles of peaceful coexistence uniquely articulated by the Sikh Gurus and firm in upholding the rights of others, he was unabashed in exercising his own. His court was renowned for its splendour; he had around twenty wives, kept a regiment of ‘Amazons’ and possessed a stable of thousands of horses. On ceremonial occasions he would wear the Koh-i-noor.
The authors of this first full-length biography in English make use of a variety of eyewitness accounts, from reports by Maratha spies at the Lahore Durbar to British parliamentary papers and travel accounts. The story ends with the controversial Anglo-Sikh Wars following Ranjit’s death, which saw the fall of his empire in the hands of successors whose internecine conflict was exploited by the British.
The 300th anniversary of the consecration of the Sikh holy scriptures with which the publication of this book coincides is a fitting moment for a long overdue appraisal of a figure who contributed so much to Sikh history and made Amritsar’s Golden Temple one of the greatest religious pilgrimage sites in the world.
PATWANT SINGH was born in Delhi in 1925. On leaving school he worked in the family construction firm, which helped build Lutyens’ New Delhi in the 1930s. In 1957 he founded the influential magazine Design, devoted to architecture and wider aesthetic concerns, which he published and edited in Bombay and later New Delhi for thirty-two years. He is well known both in and outside India for his books and articles on India, international affairs and the environment. His books include India and the Future of Asia (Knopf; Faber and Faber, 1967), The Struggle for Power in Asia (Hutchinson, 1971; French edition Le Jeu des Puissances, André Gérard-Marabout, 1974); The Golden Temple (Time Books International, 1989), Gurdwaras in India and around the World (Himalayan Books, 1992), Of Dreams and Demons: An Indian Memoir (Duckworth, 1994; Kodansha America, 2005), Garland Around my Neck: The Story of Puran Singh of Pingalwara (UBSPD, 2001), The Sikhs (John Murray; Knopf; Random House, 1999), The World According to Washington (UGI Perspectives, 2004; Common Courage Press, 2005), and The Second Partition: Fault-Lines in India’s Democracy (Hay House, 2007). His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the London Independent and a number of leading Indian newspapers.
JYOTI M. RAI, from a distinguished Maratha family, was educated in London and New Delhi. She is married to a Sikh. From 1980 to 2000 she lived and worked in New York, becoming a numismatist of international reputation. On the American Numismatic Society’s Standing Committee for Central and South Asian Coins for many years, she assessed, catalogued and researched their collection and was instrumental in making the Sikh collection one of the world’s finest. She has also built up an important personal collection of Sikh coins, with related rare books and historical documents. She has published a number of papers in Indian journals and the journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, UK. She is Vice-President of the Delhi Coin Society.
For Pritam Singh Chahil, an extraordinarily gifted scholar and exemplar of Sikh values, Champa, his lifelong inspiration, and Satjiv, a cherished friend
Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps
Acknowledgements
Preface
1 The Legacy That Made the Sikhs Proud
2 Drumbeat of a School Drop-out
3 Emergence of the Sikh Kingdom
4 Campaigns, Conquests and Consolidation
5 The Unabashed Sensualist
6 Patron of the Arts and Minter Extraordinary
7 Flouting the Republican Tradition
8 The Decadent and Deceitful
9 Twilight of an Empire
Family Tree
Notes
Further Reading
Index
Ilustrations
Maharaja Ranjit Singh Listening to the Guru Granth Sahib at the Golden Temple (oil painting by August Theodor Schoefft, c. 1850)
The Gurus and the Harmandir Sahib or Golden Temple (woodcuts, c. 1870)
Traditional Sikh warriors (early watercolour)
Sikh arms and armour (study by W.G. Osborne, 1838)
Late eighteenth-century steel and gold helmet and mid-nineteenth-century jewelled shield
Ranjit Singh on horseback (sketch by W.G. Osborne, 1838)
Ranjit Singh’s sword of watered steel
Gulab Singh, Dhian Singh, Rajas Lal Singh and Tej Singh (various media)
Ranjit Singh (drawing by Emily Eden, 1838)
Fakir Azizuddin (sketch by W.G. Osborne, 1838)
Diwan Mulraj of Multan (watercolour on ivory)
General Hari Singh Nalwa (oil on canvas; detail)
Kharak Singh, Ranjit Singh’s elder son and heir (watercolour)
The Court of Lahore (oil painting by August Theodor Schoefft, c. 1850-5)
Sher Singh, Ranjit Singh’s second son (sketch by W.G. Osborne, 1838; detail)
Ranjit Singh’s horse Leila (drawing by Emily Eden)
Dancing girls (drawing by W.G. Osborne, 1838)
Mirror and gold-trimmed work in the Harmandir Sahib
Ranjit Singh on horseback against the city of Lahore (woodcut, c. 1870; detail)
Diamonds worn by him as an armlet
Maharaja Ranjit Singh on horseback (oil painting by Alfred de Dreux; detail)
The famous Zam Zama gun
The Shalimar Gardens (drawing by W.G. Osborne, 1838; detail)
Armed Akalis (study by Emily Eden)
Maharaja Ranjit Singh (engraving by George J. Stodart, 1860)
Ranjit Singh in Durbar (oil painting in the Central Sikh Museum, Darbar Sahib, Amritsar)
Posthumous oil portrait of Ranjit Singh, c. 1850
The Sikh chieftain Sham Singh Attariwala (watercolour)
Rani Jindan, mother of Dalip Singh (oil on canvas by George Richmond, 1863)
Bridging the River Chenab (oil on canvas by Charles Hardinge)
Governor-General Viscount Hardinge, His Two Sons and Colonel Wood on the Battlefield of Ferozeshahr (oil on canvas by Sir Francis Grant)
Maharaja Dalip Singh (engraving after a photograph by O.G. Rajlander)
Silver rupee, the first coin minted by the misls in Lahore
Silver rupee struck in Lahore in 1801
Morashahi rupee with adornment symbolizing Ranjit Singh’s passion for Bibi Moran
Coin minted by Hari Singh Nalwa, governor of Kashmir, in 1822
Golden rupee used by Diwan Mulraj of Multan to pay his troops in 1848
Nanakshahi minted at Amritsar shortly before the British annexation of Punjab
Emerald seal of Ranjit Singh
The Harmandir Sahib today; detail of inlay work in marble in the Temple )
Maps
The Sikh Heartland in th
e Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Sikh Misls in the Late Eighteenth Century
The Territories in the Kingdom of Maaja Ranjit Singh
The Sikh Empire in 1839, with Cis-Sutlej Towns
The Dismantling of the Sikh Empire in the 1840s
Illustration Credits
Plate pages i, ix (below): Lahore Fort Museum, Lahore Fort, Pakistan; ii (above and below), xii (above): Victoria and Albert Museum, London; iii: © Naresh Singh; iv (top right and bottom), v (below): Wallace Collection, London; vi (top left), viii, ix (above), xviii (below), xx (above and below): Imperial Hotel, New Delhi; vi (top right, bottom left and right), vii (bottom): Paintings of the Sikhs by W.G. Archer (HMSO, London, 1966); xi (below): © Julie W. Munro; xiii: Musée du Louvre, Paris; xvii: Central Sikh Museum, Darbar Sahib, Amritsar; xviii (above), xxi and Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s family tree from Peter Bance’s book The Duleep Singhs (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2004); xix, xxiv (top right): Collection of Satinder and Narinder Kapany. The maps on pages 54, 197 and 250 are from The Sikhs by Patwant Singh (John Murray, London, 1999).
Acknowledgements
More often than not, to undertake to write a book is far easier than actually to write it. But it is rare so thoroughly to enjoy a task after reluctantly agreeing to do it that an unexpected sense of loss sets in as the work nears its end, and all the vital, valorous, colourful, conspiring, violent and wilful persons whom we encountered in it every day are no longer around. So we cannot thank our friend enough who wishes to remain nameless but who compelled us to write this book. The very idea of writing about a larger-than-life figure like Ranjit Singh was in fact a challenging and alluring prospect that was difficult to turn down. So, in the end, although it took time to finish the biography of this very exceptional man, it was more than worth it.
Our understanding of his true genius was made possible by knowledgeable men and women and those many friends who generously shared their insights with us. Some, alas, are no more, and the one among them who stood out for his intellect and impressive scholarship was Lieutenant General Joginder (Jogi) Singh Dhillon. Ranjit Singh’s life and times were one of Jogi’s fields of interest, and he had the ability to cut incisively through accounts of him that were hyperbolic, churlish, inaccurate, or which failed to gauge his real worth. His analysis was stimulating, instructive and inspiring, because of his endorsement – as an outstanding soldier himself – of Ranjit Singh’s military genius. Jogi also had a knack for analysing and exposing the extent to which the colonial powers would go to achieve their imperial goals. Their misdeeds come through with startling clarity in the later stages of this book. The East India Company’s subversive strategies against the Sikh empire after Ranjit Singh’s death were base beyond belief; especially since few colonial powers in their heyday have so persistently proclaimed their own virtues as the British have. Nobody could dismantle their specious and deceptive arguments as convincingly as Jogi could. It was his conviction that nations conspire at events and no level is too low to stoop to for achieving their ends, no lie too outrageous if it serves the larger national interest. As George Bernard Shaw said: ‘You will never find an Englishman in the wrong.’
As he always has in the past, Jasdev Singh rose magnificently to the occasion by opening up for us the archives of the Imperial Hotel, New Delhi, which have some fine paintings, drawings, sketches and prints of the Sikh period. But it would be an unforgivable oversight not to acknowledge first our deep gratitude to Jasdev’s mother, Bibi Nirlep Kaur, an exceptionally gifted person whose profound admiration and respect for the founding Gurus of the Sikh faith sowed the seeds of Jasdev’s increasing interest in his own heritage. The veritable treasure house he is creating for it is a tribute to her. The invaluable help of Chowdhary Ominder Singh Mander, the archivist of Jasdev’s collection, in putting together the information we needed is gratefully acknowledged.
Four other friends who gave unstintingly of their time and were generous and forthcoming all the way were Harbinder Singh Rana, Hon. Director of the Maharaja Duleep Singh Centenary Trust, Indarjit and Kanwal Singh and Indar Singh Uppal.
The coinage illustrated in this book comes from the Jyoti M. Rai Collection, a private collection of the rarest Sikh coins. Another friend, Narinder Singh Kapany, who has gradually built up a superb collection of Sikh artefacts, very generously allowed us to reproduce whatever we wished out of his collection in California. As in the past, Susan Stronge responded magnificently each time we asked her for her insightful advice and comments. Bhupinder Singh Bance (Peter Bance), Robert Scoales and Sukhbinder Singh Paul were generous with their time and the wealth of information they shared with us, as also were Ros Savill and Jeremy Warren who were most helpful when we visited London’s Wallace Collection. Martin Lutyens was no less generous in setting aside an entire morning to show us around Sir John Soane’s Museum. Each of these goodwill gestures helped us locate material for further enriching this book.
We are equally indebted to Rasil Basu and Deidi Von Schaewen and to Rewa Singh who generously loaned us for an indefinite period the very rare (1840) edition of W.G. Osborne’s book The Court and Camp of Runjeet Sing. We gratefully acknowledge the many insights that were provided by Harjit Partap Rai and the Judge family of Kapurthala, Prabeen Singh, Bubli Brar, the Mool-gavkars, and thank Pat Rai for his consistent encouragement, guidance and wise counsel.
Warmest thanks are also due to Dr Michael Bates, the Curator of Islamic Coins of the American Numismatic Society and its wonderful members who so willingly shared their wisdom and knowledge.
As always, Antony Wood rose heroically to the occasion and read the manuscript with a sharp and critical eye from the first to the last page. The book has benefited enormously from his editorial advice, despite some rather tense moments over some of his suggestions, which actually helped further strengthen our friendship!
The wizardry of Jagjit Singh Anand, the librarian at Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi, was much in evidence as he produced with ease books that were impossible to lay hands on elsewhere.
While on the subject of wizardry, Jaya Nair, too, worked miracles with her computer, with her unending secretarial responsibilities and her occasional forays into research. She took on every task confidently and performed it convincingly each time.
We reached port because it was Meher who steered the ship – as she always has in the past. No matter how difficult the task, she was not only there to share the burden but would help us cross yet another hurdle with effortless ease. This book could not have been written without her wondrous interventions.
Preface
Historians, for reasons of their own, have often done grave injust-ice to outstanding historical figures by refusing to accord them their rightful place in history. But when even convincing evidence of greatness was overlooked because the political culture of the time required it, it becomes necessary to correct oversights and falsifications, no matter how long after the event.
Ranjit Singh was one such colossus who bestrode the Indian scene but who never received the credit due to him as one of the outstanding figures of India’s history. He created the altogether extraordinary empire of the Sikhs, the borders of which extended beyond India and into the thresholds of Kabul and Tibet. He also held the British in check for forty years to the south of his realm and closed the Khyber Pass through which plunderers had for centuries poured into India.
Just as Alexander the Great in 333 BC is said to have fulfilled King Midas’s prophecy that whoever untied the Gordian knot would rule Asia, Ranjit Singh and Napoleon Bonaparte, two outstanding visionaries and military commanders who were contemporaries, laid their claims to fulfilling this prophecy by untying the knot and establishing empires in the most divided parts of the world. They each shared a deep mistrust of the British, because they had no illusions about the degree to which their common adversary was driven by its own ambitions of empire.
Even though many books have been published on Ranjit Singh, we f
elt that a definitive biography of this rare man had still to be written, to cover not only the entire range of his military achievements but also the just and humane rule he provided during turbulent times when barbarism was the order of the day. The task we set ourselves was to bring out the essence of the man, his daily routine, his likes and dislikes and his dealings with people in every walk of life. Equally important to establish were his relationships with the many women in his life and the courtesies and decencies which he extended to them without exception. Yet another side of Ranjit Singh was reflected in the grandeur of his Lahore Durbar, equal to any European or Mughal court, his jewels, objets d’art and the precious artefacts which he collected all his life.
In order to draw upon as many different accounts as we could, we went to original sources with eyewitness accounts by Europeans and Indians alike; court diaries during Ranjit Singh’s time; reports of Maratha spies at the Lahore Durbar; British parliamentary papers; Lahore political diaries; British-Indian archives and the libraries of Columbia, New York, Punjab and Chandigarh universities.
What we discovered was that the civilized rule of Ranjit Singh was entirely different from the way many other rulers have treated their people in India. The question that has remained unanswered until now is what made him the man he was – a man who shunned the flagrant violations of humanitarian principles so very common throughout history? What made him adhere so scrupulously throughout his life to the goals he set himself? And what inner resources did he draw upon that enabled him to abide by the ethical and exemplary rules he so diligently observed?
In our efforts to find answers to these questions we were drawn ever deeper into a better understanding of the intense beliefs that helped Ranjit Singh achieve all that he did. His most compelling quality was his total commitment to the religious faith into which he was born. If secularity – or equal respect for other religions – was the founding principle of Sikhism, then he was determined never to deviate from it.
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