Empire of the Sikhs

by Patwant Singh

  The Sikh soldiers resented the influence and intrigues of the Dogra brothers. This led to the increasing assertiveness of their republican spirit, which was now increasingly manifesting itself. They would never have questioned Ranjit Singh’s charismatic leadership but were now thoroughly angered at decisions of great importance being taken – without consultation with them – by ineffectual and conspiratorial men. To top it all were Sher Singh’s foolish moves to get the army to take sides in palace intrigues.

  No less ill-advised was his constant hankering for British support. He had long tried to woo the British and within five days of his father’s death had already conveyed to the British political agent at Ludhiana, George Russel Clerk, his own eminent suitability for the Sikh throne, asking him to convey this to the governor-general, Lord Auckland. Emily Eden, Auckland’s sister, visiting Lahore in 1838, had grown quite fond of Sher Singh and at one point observed: ‘It is just possible his dear fat head will he chopped off, unless he crosses to our side of the river.’17 On the death of Chand Kaur the Sandhanwalia Sardars, key supporters of hers, fearing Sher Singh’s anger, had fled across the Sutlej to seek British protection, and two of the four Sandhanwalia brothers even went over to the British. In due course, however, all four were persuaded to return to Lahore. George Russel Clerk did his utmost to plead and champion their cause with Sher Singh. The Maharaja had no reason to trust the Sandhanwalias but was swayed by Clerk’s persuasive arguments. He pardoned and allowed them to return to Lahore and made the mistake of befriending them.

  It was only a matter of time before they started plotting the downfall of both Sher Singh and Dhian Singh. One day while Sher Singh was in his cups they got him to sign a document ordering the death of Dhian Singh. Next they went to Dhian Singh and showed him his death warrant duly signed by the Maharaja. Dhian Singh, whose loyalities were like the ebbing and flowing tide, hatched a plan with the Sandhanwalias to murder Sher Singh.

  Quite apart from his own defects of mind and character, court intrigues, the stigma of illegitimacy and a constant threat to his life made Sher Singh a thoroughly helpless figure, caught between antagonistic political factions and a resurgent republican army, when he was supposed to be a successor to the great Maharaja. He aligned with all and sundry but trusted none. In desperation he was even willing to surrender part of his kingdom to the British in return for their help towards restoring his authority as a sovereign. On 15 September 1843 the predictable end came: both he and Prime Minister Dhian Singh were murdered by the Sandhanwalia chiefs.18 Shortly after these murders Prince Partap Singh, Sher Singh’s son and heir apparent to the throne of Punjab, was stabbed to death.

  The odds had been so strongly stacked in favour of an imminent and violent change of power that Clerk and the British would have had to be blind not to know what was likely to happen if the Sandhanwalias went back to Lahore. Were the British guilty of being accomplices or accessories to these treasonous murders? As The British Friend of India, published in London, wrote in December 1843 of these murders: ‘We have no proof that the Company instigated all the King-Killing in the Punjab since Ranjit Singh died … We must say we smell a rat.’19

  In any objective assessment of the extent of Sher Singh’s responsibility for his own murder, the only conclusion possible is that he was responsible. By actively participating in plots to assassinate political rivals he completely reversed Ranjit Singh’s policy of tolerance and non-violence even towards his vanquished foes. It was inevitable that he should pay with his life for the folly of failing to understand that, once encouraged, political murders become a way of life. The British knew how to take full advantage of their adversaries’ weaknesses, but in the ultimate analysis far more serious was the effect of these palace intrigues on the army. Here again Sher Singh gravely misjudged the dangerous implications of casting the army in the role of king-maker, which he had done by winning over sections of it to help him attack Chand Kaur in Lahore on 14 January 1841.

  Bikrama Jit Hasrat pinpoints the situation: ‘Sher Singh’s accession was unattended by any acts of violence; the army which had enthroned him, had also become his master. It began to wreak vengeance on those whom it considered traitors to the Khalsa. It plundered the houses of several chiefs, dismissed foreigners from state service, and declared its determination to punish those who sought foreign interference.’20 Sher Singh’s contacts with the British stirred up further discontent within the army, which was utterly disapproving of the British.

  When, inevitably, the army seriously split down the middle, the very fundamentals of the Khalsa’s founding principles were affected, since it was the privilege of the entire Khalsa community to take decisions of profound importance to the faith. Even then, despite the serious schisms in its ranks, the army, while divided against itself and some of the key political players, was not against the Durbar, which even the seasoned British failed to understand. Their assumption that the restlessness of the Sikh forces was directed against the Durbar could not have been more wrong; their resentment was directed at the British who were trying to impose their will on the Khalsa, which would have none of it. This misreading of the army’s temper and the mood of the resurgent Khalsa would take a heavy toll not only of British lives on the battlefield but also of their pride and myth of invulnerability. Sher Singh had been quite incapable of grasping the complexities of the unfolding situation.

  The only aspirant left to the throne of Ranjit Singh after Sher Singh’s death was five-year-old Dalip Singh, Ranjit Singh’s acknowledged son by Rani Jindan. Born on 4 September 1838, he will for ever remain a tragic figure of history. He was ten months old when his father died. His mother Jindan Kaur, although not born into a privileged family, was a remarkably intelligent and attractive woman with a ‘ready wit and lack of sexual inhibitions, [which] made her well qualified to organize the more outlandish entertainments of the court’.21 Dalip may not have been Ranjit Singh’s legitimate son but was very much an heir to his father’s throne when the time came for him to claim his rights. He continued to live in the palace at Lahore with his mother through the reigns of Kharak Singh and Sher Singh, but she made sure he kept a low profile which would help him stay out of harm’s way. In those unsettled times anyone who was seen as a claimant to what others coveted was in mortal danger. As a British historian has noted: ‘Probably no one believed that Dalip was the son of Ranjit Singh; but, on the other hand, no one could prove that he was not; and that alone was sufficient to render him a dangerous weapon in the hands of such a master of intrigue as Ghulab Singh.’22

  The shrewd Rani Jindan Kaur, seeing all the signs of trouble at court, had taken her son Dalip Singh to stay with Gulab Singh at Jammu after Ranjit Singh’s death. But she knew that Lahore was where she had to be to get her son on the throne. So despite the relentless struggle for power which had become routine at the Lahore Durbar it was not long before Jindan returned to it with her son. Her remarkable self-confidence and tenacity of purpose enabled her to weather the many ruthless plots and subplots which were being hatched all the time by the aspirants to power.

  She not only managed to survive all of them but also became regent to keep the way to the throne open for her son. He was crowned on 18 September 1843 and at the age of six became the Maharaja of Punjab and its vast territories. He would never have made it without the astonishing skill with which his mother dealt with the devious ways of the Lahore Durbar and its key players. But even this forceful woman was to meet her match soon. Not in the form of her own countrymen, whose ways were familiar to her, but of those from a distant land who were waiting on the sidelines to acquire the territories, treasures, natural resources and rare antiquities of her country by whatever means they could. They had not sailed thousands of miles to acquire wealth by signing treaties and such. Treaties were fine as long as they served their purpose; the Sutlej Treaty of 1809 was no longer relevant, with the East India Company’s acquisition of Sind and navigation rights on the Indus along with many other advance
s. The 1809 treaty with Ranjit Singh had already been sidestepped through deft manoeuvres and weasel words.

  If they had managed to get away with such tactics even in the time of Ranjit Singh – who was fully a match for them – the strife-torn self-centred men who succeeded him were no match for the seasoned British, who now perceived that the time had come for them to annex Punjab, the most strategic state in India with its rivers and mountains, which was crucial for them to control if the security of the subcontinent they had conquered was to be assured.

  9

  Twilight of an Empire

  There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles.’

  GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

  If the Dogras were responsible for the twilight of the Sikh empire, the British ensured its descent into the darkness of night. They came to the Punjab in the early nineteenth century as a trading company – the Honourable East India Company – with the object of amassing wealth for their shareholders – a goal that was made clear to all the Company’s employees from the governor-general to the lowliest clerk. ‘Money-making being the object, the Directors … impressed upon successive Governors-General the paramount importance of remembering they were traders, not empire-builders, and exacted a promise from each that peace and retrenchment should be the aim of his administration, and each in turn bound himself to observe his instructions – if he could.’1 Most of them, as it happened, couldn’t!

  The officers of the East India Company were principally experienced in destroying whatever stood in the way of their enduring passion for exploitation and acquisition of an adversary’s wealth. After the death of Ranjit Singh, the wealth of the Sikhs, their erstwhile allies, was now viewed as worthy of acquisition. Under Ranjit Singh the Sikhs had kept at bay the Durranis of Afghanistan and had stood rocklike in the way of the Russians, French, Persians and others who had – much to the concern of the British – clearly indicated their interest in India. But since the Sikhs were no longer the strong bulwark they had been under the bold and unbeatable Ranjit Singh, the British now saw no reason to stand by them. Especially as all the difficult peoples of the northern regions – the Afghans, Pathans, tribal chiefs and others – had been subdued and brought under control. From the British point of view it was obviously time to take over what clearly belonged to the Sikhs because they were no longer united enough to defend it.

  The strategies devised to subvert the Sikh state ranged from actively encouraging dissensions within the Durbar to a military showdown, with Sikh forces now weakened by their infighting. The British did everything possible to make Punjab’s annexation appear a noble undertaking, even though it took many unworthy moves to achieve it.

  To start with, in a General Proclamation of 20 August 1847, the governor-general, Lord Henry Hardinge, announced that he felt ‘the interest of a father in the education and guardianship of the young Prince [Dalip Singh]’ and that ‘he had at heart the peace and security of this country [the Punjab], the firm establishment of the State, and the honour of the Maharaja and his ministers’. In order ‘to maintain the administration of the Lahore State during the minority of the Maharajah’ the governor-general was armed with supreme and plenary power, and was ‘at liberty to occupy with British soldiers such possessions as he may think fit, for the security of the capital, for the protection of the Maharajah, and the preservation of the peace of the country’. The British resident was placed at the head of the administration with ‘full authority to direct and control all matters in every department of the State’.2

  This excerpt from the secret papers maintained by the British places in perspective the many devious means by which the British created their Indian empire. The possession of Punjab is justified because of the governor-general’s fatherly interest in the ‘education and guardianship of the young Prince’, to ensure which it will be necessary to bring peace and security to the state and country. Peace and security, of course, will require the presence of British soldiers, who will after all be for ‘the protection of the Maharaja’. To quote the American historian Barbara Tuchman on this particular English talent: ‘Official histories record every move in monumental and infinite detail but the details serve to obscure … other nations attempt but never quite achieve the same self-esteem. It was not by might but by the power of her self-image that Britain in her century dominated the world.’3

  In planning moves towards the annexation of Punjab after Ranjit Singh’s death, no limits were set to encouraging betrayals in the Sikh ranks, nor entering into squalid deals of any kind. Even some British writers, although very few, have shown qualms at their compatriots’ use of traitors among their adversaries in the pursuit of military and political ends. ‘The Sikh Army fought valiantly and stubbornly,’ writes one British military historian, ‘in spite of poor generalship from commanders who, for political reasons, did not want to win the war and were constantly in touch with the British commanders to ensure them of that fact.’4

  When Ranjit Singh died in 1839 the British governor-general at the time was Lord Auckland (March 1836-February 1842) who was succeeded by the Earl of Ellenborough (February 1842-June 1844) and then by Lord Hardinge (July 1844-January 1848) who distinguished himself in the Battle of Waterloo, after which he was awarded Napoleon’s sword by the Duke of Wellington, the trophy the duke himself had won at Waterloo. ‘Many years afterwards,’ we are told by a later member of the family, ‘he [Hardinge] wore Napoleon’s sword in the battles of the Sutlej; and when matters appeared desperate during the eventful night of the 21st December, 1845, he sent his surgeon with it to a place of safety, lest it should fall into the hands of the Sikhs.’5

  Lord Ellenborough, a relative of Lord Hardinge by marriage, was recalled in 1844. He was quite elated because he felt that at the end of his term he had left India in a ‘state of profound peace’. But would this peace last? And for how long? In June 1844, at a farewell dinner in England for Lord Hardinge who was on his way to India as the next governor-general, the chairman of the Company’s court of directors observed in his speech that ‘By our latest intelligence we are induced to hope that peace will be preserved in India … we feel confident that, while ever ready to maintain unimpaired the honour of the country and the supremacy of our arms, your policy will be essentially pacific. It has always been the desire of the Court that the government of the East India Company should be eminently just, moderate, and conciliatory; but the supremacy of our power must be maintained when necessary by the force of our arms.’6

  A former financial commissioner of Punjab reminisces in 1883: ‘To our officers the prospect of a big fight was cheering: they believed the hordes of wild horsemen, dashing against their disciplined infantry, would break like waves beating against rocks. And the men? Well, the white soldiers had faith in themselves and the sepoys in the sahibs and their guns.’7

  So much for an ‘eminently just, moderate, and conciliatory approach’. These two statements point up the difference between what was professed and what was actually practised by the rulers of nineteenth-century India. The two wars between the British and the Sikhs were a matter of touch and go for the British, and had they not resorted to every dubious tactic in the book the outcome would have been entirely different for them.

  Yet when the history of those times is read in the accounts of British historians the verbal nobility so beloved of their nation comes through at every turn, referring to actions of men of influence in the British administration that were questionable to say the least. While some British writers had the integrity to point to the misdeeds of their countrymen when b
attle was finally joined between the two armies, few indeed wrote of how betrayals in the enemy’s forces were encouraged to turn the tide of war in Britain’s favour. The one outstanding example of a member of the British establishment of the time who exposed British moves for what they were was Captain J.D. Cunningham, dismissed from service for his pains and sent back to his regiment in disgrace for daring to expose the misdeeds of his countrymen. This former additional aide-de-camp to the governor-general during the Sabraon battle died within two years of being removed from office – of a broken heart, it is said – at the age of thirty-nine.

  What were the misdeeds of his countrymen that Cunningham exposed and that earned him the severe displeasure of his countrymen? In the Battle of Sabraon, the fourth and last battle of the First Anglo-Sikh War, fought on 10 February 1846, the British used secret deals and every conceivable form of deceit to help them to emerge victorious over the Sikh forces. The methods they used led Cunningham to record them in disgust in his History of the Sikhs (1849). What this young officer found utterly distasteful was the understanding Governor-General Hardinge had reached with Gulab Singh whereby the latter would ensure the defeat of his own side and facilitate the victory of the British. Cunningham found it indecent ‘that the Sikh army should be attacked by the English, and that when beaten it should be openly abandoned by its own government; and further that the passage of the Sutlej should be unopposed and the road to the capital laid open to the visitors. Under such circumstances of discreet policy and shameless treason was the Battle of Sabraon fought.’8

  This can hardly be the line of action enjoined upon the Company’s various governor-generals selected to serve in India or the advice that the chairman of the Company’s court of directors gave to Lord Hardinge at his farewell dinner before he left for India. Yet it was the same Hardinge who entered into the infamous understanding with Gulab Singh before the Battle of Sabraon. Even after Sabraon, which opened the road to Lahore, there was no change in the unbecoming conduct of the English. Unequivocal evidence exists, which includes the army chief Sir Hugh Gough’s dispatches, showing how Gulab Singh was persuaded by the British to betray the Sikh government – of which he was the prime minister – in return for many British favours, the sale of Kashmir to him and his investiture as Maharaja being the most notorious.