Ranjit Singh

Front matter

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

Preface

In writing this sketch of the life and times of Maharaja Kanjft Singh I have made large and frequent use of my former works on the cognate subjects ; The Punjab Chiefs^ The Rdjds of the Punjab, and The Lavj of Inheritance to Sikh Ch ief ships. On these books several years of my official life, and .several subsequent years of such leisure as belongs to Indian officials, were employed. They contain in full detail the histories of all the great Sikh families in the Punjab proper and the Cis-Sutlej territories, of the men who were the courtiers, the advisers, and generals of the great Maharaja. There was no noble family in the province with which I was not personally acquainted, and from their records and information, as much as from official manuscripts and documents, the history of the time was compiled. It is thus obvious that I am compelled to plagiarize from myself. To Dr. Ernest Trumpp's work on the Adi Granth, I am indebted for some portion of the information contained in the Chapter on The Sikh Theocracy, and to Mr. Denzil Ibbetson's admirable Census Report of 1881, for certain statistics and deductions therefrom.

LEPEL GRIFFIN.

Contents

CHAP. PAOE-S

I. Introductory 9-18

II. The Sikhs 19-38

CHAPTER I Introdtjctoey

There is, perhaps, no more notable and picturesque figure among the chiefs who rose to power on the ruins of the Mughal Empire than Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the short-lived Sikh kingdom of Lahore. In the stormy days at the beginning of the century, amid a fierce conflict of races and creeds, he found his opportunity, and seizing it with energy, promptitude, and genius, he welded the turbulent and warlike sectaries who followed the teachinor of Govind Singh into a homogeneous nation. Under his strong and remorseless rule, the Sikhs, trained and disciplined on a military system more perfect than had before or than has been since employed in the native States of India, were rapidly converted into a formidable fighting machine, which only broke in pieces when the folly and weakness of the great Maharaja's successors persuaded them to use it against the English.

The Sikh monarchy was Napoleonic in the suddenness of its rise, the brilliancy of its success, and the completeness of its overthrow. Like his contemporary.

Napoleon Bonaparte, the Maharaja of Lahore failed to found a lasting dynasty on the ruins of the petty States, Rajput, Muhammadan, and Sikh, which he in turn attacked and destroyed. His victories had no permanent result ; his possessions, like a faggot of sticks, bound together during his lifetime by the force of his imperious will, fell asunder the moment the restraining band was severed. His throne and the tradition of his power and greatness passed into the hands of incompetent successors, who allowed the ship of the State to drift on to the rocks in irremediable wreck. It is very easy to stretch historical parallels too far, but the likeness between the character and fortunes of Napoleon and Ranjit Singh is not only striking in its superficial resemblance, but interesting as showing how similar conditions work out the same results in Asia as in Europe ; among Frenchmen intoxicated with the first triumphant revolt against feudal tyranny, and Sikhs fresh from a revolt as momentous against the crushing spiritual despotism of Brahmanism. The revolutionaries of the West and the East found their masters in Napoleon and Ranjit Singh, men of military genius, absolutely selfish, pitiless and immoral ; but the power they seized they were unable to transmit to others. It is true that Napoleonism had in our day a late revival, but it did no more than emphasize the fact that adventurers do not easily found dynasties. The popular obedience is willingly given to the great captain, the leader of men, who seems in the dazzled eyes of the people

INTRODUCTORY II

to embody the spirit and glory of the country. But the glamour is personal to ' the man and does not transfigure his heirs and successors. Then, the throne founded by genius is seen to be a poor, tawdry thing, on the steps of which stand a crowd of greedy, unscrupulous parasites, who have no thought but of enriching themselves at the expense of the people. Discipline and obedience give place to conspiracy and revolt ; enthusiasm is succeeded by contempt ; till, ere long, the mushroom dynasty is extinguished amidst the laughter of those who applauded its birth. As it was with Napoleon and the Second Empire, so was it with Kanjit Singh and his son Kharak Singh and the bastards who quarrelled over the inheritance of the Lion of the Punjab.

Far difierent is the fate of august and ancient dynasties whose hereditary dignities have descended in an unbroken line through many generations. These fall, it is true, by the vices and recklessness of their representatives, as history has often shown. But how many chances are in their favour, and how criminal is the weakness and how abject the folly which alienate the easily retained affection of a nation ! Whatever may be said of the divine right of kings, it would seem that the stars in their courses fight on their behalf; that something of divinity hedges them about ; they are the object of a respect and love which is worth more to them than armies in battle array ; the immemorial sentiment of mankind demanding a master, the weakness of humanity

I a RANJIt SINGH

asking to be ruled, are the very foundations of their throne. A single mistake or a pungent epigram maycost the heir of an adventurer his crown ; but the hereditary ruler can securely sit, like the Olympian gods, above the thunder. His mistakes are speedily forgotten, his follies are forgiven unto seventy times seven, and, if he falls, it is less from the waywardness of fortune than from his own determination to commit political suicide.

If this be the case in Europe, far more is it so in India, whose conservatism is intense, and where prescription and tradition and heredity outweigh, in popular estimation, any personal virtues of a ruler. In a country in which robbery and murder were honoured as hereditary occupations, and where dancing girls place their fragile virtue under the special protection of a deity, it will readily be understood that the splendid attributes of kingship gather around them a reverence and authority which are all but impregnable. Indian history, filled as it is with royal catastrophes and assassination and changing dynasties, does not, if read aright, conflict with the popular belief in the divine right of kings even to rule badly. India has had stormy experiences, and its rich provinces have been for many hundred years the coveted prize of successive hordes of invaders from the North- West. who have swept over the continent leaving ruin behind them, while the many hostile races and nations which make up its population have always been engaged in internecine strife. But the heart of

INTRODUCTORY 13

the people of any particular State has almost invariably remained loyal to the hereditary local dynasty, and in good and evil fortune they have been willing to sacrifice themselves in its defence. Those principalities which have been strong enough to resist attack like Udaipur, Jaipur, and Jodhpur, or which have been happily placed far from the path of invaders, or hidden in the distant recesses of the Himalayas, such as Chamba, Mandi, and Suket, have existed under the rule of families so ancient that their genealogies are lost in prehistoric mist, and they proudly claim their ancestry in the Sun. Princes good and bad, beneficent and tyrannical, have ruled these States ; but the people have accepted them, one and all, without a thought of revolt or resistance ; and these same families will probably be still securely reigning over their ancient principalities when the conquest of India by England will be taught as ancient history in the Board Schools of a distant future. Many of these chiefships are as poor and weak as they are obscure and insignificant ; a ruined castle, a few square miles of mountain and valley, a few hundred rupees of revenue, and an army the soldiers of which may be counted on the fingers of one hand. It is not material force which has given them a perennial stream of vitahty. They have struck their roots deep, as trees grow in the rain and the soft air ; they have, as it were, become one mth nature, a part of the divine and established order of things ; and the simple Rajput peasant no more questions their right to rule than he rebels against the sunshine which ripens his harvest or the storm which blasts it.

There are many principalities to-day in India, some of them of the first rank, whose history would seem, on superficial examination, to refute the idea that for the military adventurer the path of success is a difficult one. The great State of Haidarabad was founded by a rebellious viceroy of the Delhi emperors ; the Maratha States of Baroda, Gwalior, and Indore, and the Muhammadan chiefship of Bhopal were formed, in the last century, by successful generals of obscure origin ; and the Maharajas of Kashmir were created by the British Government in 1 846. But it is most improbable that the ruling families in these States would have retained the power which was seized by their founders, had it not been for the circumstance that a strange and unknown volcanic force made its way through the soft and yielding strata of Indian society and crystallised them into their present form. This force was the rising power of the English, which, through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ever increased in intensity. The victories of the British Government were won by gallantry or diplomacy, by force or by fraud ; but its advance, though sometimes checked, was never long delayed. All the warlike races in India threw themselves by turns on this new and terrible enemy and were shattered and repulsed ; till, at last, it stood revealed as the sole inheritor of the Empire of the Mughals and

commanded peace throughout the continent, a peace which, with the single exception of the Mutiny, has remained unbroken for forty-five years. The Eajas and Nawabs who happened to be in possession when the English enforced their supremacy were confii'med in their rights.

Beaii possidentes. "Whatever may have been the method of acquisition, it was not for the English to question the divine right of conquest, or to deny that the sword was a valid title to inheritance. Thus it has happened that the Native Feudatory States of the present day can be roughly divided into two widely different classes, the fii'st, respectable by antiquity and strong in the traditional loyalty of ^ the people, the second, newer than the English Government itself and their origin the same — the violent disintegration of the Muhammadan Empire. Should the day ever come, as come it may, for time and change wait for all, when the English, weary of the burthen of rule, retire from India, the old Hindu principalities will survive the ensuing storm, as the mud-built villaores with their mano^o erroves are seen

O Do

in times of flood high above the inundated country. But the new families whose birth was in war and plunder, who are alien in blood and race and creed to the people over whom they too often oppressively rule, and whose roots are not deep in the soil, will have to take their chance and fight again for their lands, as did the Sindhias and Holkars and Gaikwars from whom they claim.

The downfall of the Sikh monarchy was chiefly due to the fact that the authority of Ranjit Singh was personal and drew no part of its strength from the inherent respect of the people for an ancient house. Sprung from the people and the outcome of the democratic principles of Sikhism, the one chance of the survival of his dynasty was that his successors should have inherited his character and ability. But this was not the case. His only son Kharak Singh was a hopeless imbecile ; his grandson, Nao Nihal Singh, a youth of promise, died a violent death, and a period of anarchy set in which the men who succeeded had no power to subdue or control. There were several who claimed the throne as sons of the great Maharaja, but the secrets of Ranjit Singh's zenana were the common property of the Lahore bazaars, and there was not one whose legitimacy the Sikhs accepted as proved. Then came the war with the English, in which the Sikhs, badly led, displayed the utmost gallantry in vain ; ending in the occupation of the Punjab by a foreign army, dismemberment, and finally annexation. As Ranjit Singh had often prophesied, the red line marking the limit of British possessions moved on from the Sutlej to the Beas, thence to the Indus and the Afghan mountains, and all that remained to remind the world of the monarchy were an exiled prince at the Court of St. James and the ill-omened Koh-i-Nur in the regalia of the British Queen.

No man can be more strong than destiny. Al-

INTRODUCTORY 17

though the hands of the English were clean in the matter of the Sikh wars and in the annexation of the Punjab, which were forced unwillingly upon them by the fierce and uncontrolled passions of the Sikh chiefs and people, yet there can be little doubt that, even if the contest with the English had been delayed, and the successors of Ranjit Singh had clung, as he did, to the British alliance, the trial of strength which was to determine the question of supremacy in Northern India must have occurred sooner or later. There were too many occasions for dispute and discord on the Sutlej and in Afghanistan ; the temper of the Sikhs was so hot and imperious ; the prestige of England was so essential to maintain, that it was impossible that these two military powers could have for long existed side by side in peace. It was fortunate both for the reputation of England and for her future relations with the Sikh people that the provocation and the attack came from Lahore and not from Calcutta. In the splendid record of the English conquest of India, illumined by so many chivakous and noble actions, so much temperance in the hour of victory and so much generosity to the vanquished, there are still some episodes which, however pardonable in rough times, cannot be regarded by the impartial historian with approval. But the annexation of the Punjab is not one of these. It was accepted by the whole Sikh nation as just, and their acknowledged bravery in both campaigns and the loss they inflicted on their opponents, took the sting from defeat and

B l8 RANJIt SINGH

left them the most loyal subjects the Queen has in the East. Their devotion and their gallantry have been proved many times, and if they continue to be governed as wisely and sympathetically as in the early years succeeding annexation, they will remain, what they now are, the sword and shield of British India.

CHAPTER II The Sikhs

The Sikh people, mostly of Jat descent, are roughly divided into two great classes, named from the districts they inhabit, the Manjha and the Malwa, and the origin and history of these are altogether different. The Manjha is the name of the southern portion of the Bari Doab (the word doab signifying a tract of country between two rivers, here the Beas and the Eavi), in the neighbourhood of the cities of Lahore and Amritsar ; and the Manjha Sikhs, by a convenient enlargement of the terms, may be held to include all those who at the time of the final dissolution of the Muhammadan power, were resident to the north of the river Sutlej.

Malwa is the country immediately to the south of the same river ^ stretching towards Delhi and Bikaner, and the Sikhs who inhabit this district, being the original settlers and not mere invaders or immigrants from the Manjha, are known as the Malwa Sikhs. Their acknowledged head is the great PhuJkian house, of

* Not to be confused with Malwa of the Deccan ; the rich country north of the Narbada, of which Indore is the centre.

B % which the Maharaja of Patiala is the chief representative, with the closely allied families of Nabha, Jind Bhadour, Malod, Badrukan, Jiundan, Dialpura Landgharia, Rampur and Kot Dhuna, with the more distantly connected houses of Faridkot and Kythal.

The ancestors of the Malwa Sikhs were simple Hindu peasants, mostly of Rajput extraction, who about the middle of the sixteenth century emigrated from the neighbourhood of Jaisalmer, and settled as peaceful subjects of the Muhammadan rulers of Delhi. In the course of a hundred years, as the central authority grew weak, the power of the Jat settlers increased. They were nidlguzdrs or payers of revenue into the imperial treasury, and made no efforts to shake off a yoke which was in no way galling ; but they acquired large grants of land, founded villages, and became wealthy and of some social importance. But about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Malwa chiefs abandoned Hinduism for the new faith which was then being preached by Govind, the last and the most influential of the Sikh Gurus. The hundred years that followed was a time of anarchy. The great Muhammadan Empu-e was, from inherent weakness, falling asunder, and the Sikhs day by day gained power and territory at the expense of their nominal masters, who persecuted the new faith but were unable to destroy it. Sikhism was then, as Muhammadanism in the seventh and eighth centuries, and Wahabeeism in the present, a religion of the sword, and the new converts appeared as ready to fight with

THE SIKHS 2J

each other as with the common enemy against whom alone they ever united. The Sikhs did not avowedly abandon the Hindu codes of law which they had from time immemorial obeyed, and neither Nanak nor Govind laid down new rules by which their followers should be bound in matters of marriage and inheritance, but they felt a contempt for Hinduism with its restrictions and prejudices, and refused to follow its precepts whenever they were opposed to their immediate interests. Society was in a state of demoralisation. Each man did what was right in his own eyes, and whatever he could do with impunity appeared to him right. Widows and orphans had no helper against the powerful neighbours who divided their lands amongst them at their pleasure ; and the only means by which the smaller chiefs could escape absorption was by attaching themselves as feudal retainers or vassals to the great houses, who were able and willing to protect them in return for service in the field. Thus arose the great Cis-Sutlej chiefs, whose obscure origin and unprincipled acquisitions were ennobled by titles extorted from the Emperor of Delhi, who was still the nominal ruler of the Malwa, and was too weak and timid to refuse to honour the men whom he knew to be the most formidable enemies of his power.

At the beginning of the present century the fate which the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had so often brought upon others seemed likely to become their own. Eanjit Singh, Maharaja of Lahore, having reduced to submission the chiefs in the neighbourhood of his capital, determined to conquer the whole country to the south of the Sutlej, as far as the river Jumna, which, he believed, he might safely accomplish, without coming into collision with the English power. The condition of the Cis-Sutlej States eminently favoured the success of his design. Jealous of each other, and with no common bond of union now that the Muhammadan power had finally collapsed, they would, one by one, have fallen victims to the energy and determination of Ranjit Singh, whose ambition knew no limits and scruples, and to whom the very names of honour and pity were unknown. The Malwa chiefs saw their danger in time, and at the very moment when their annihilation seemed inevitable, threw themselves on the mercy of the British Government, which, after much hesitation, accepted the position and declared the Cis-Sutlej territory under its protection.

Then followed a period of unbroken security, during which the strong power which prevented any attack from without insisted upon tranquillity within, and maintained the smallest as well as the largest States in the possession of the dignity and power which they had possessed when first they claimed its protection. It was during this period that the rules of succession became^ to a certain degree, uniform and consistent, although it will be understood that these are but comparative terms when applied to laws that prevailed in a society so exceptionally constituted, which had learned so lately the advantages of order, and which had been accustomed for so long to consider license synonymous with liberty.

The effect of the Sutlej campaign of 1845-46 was almost precisely similar to that caused by the campaign of 1866 in Northern Germany. The British Government, which had for years deplored a state of things which it was unable without breaking faith with the chiefs to rectify, which had seen the people oppressed and ground down by petty tyrants who possessed absolute power in their respective States, seized the opportunity which the folly and ingratitude of the chiefs had given to inaugurate a new order of things. The most important chiefs alone were permitted to retain their power, while that of the smaller ones was taken altogether away : they were declared mere Jagirddrs of the British Government, and the whole of their territories was placed under the control of British Officers and British Courts of Law.

It will thus appear that the Malwa chiefs have passed through several distinct periods of development. First, the mere cultivators of the lands on which, as immigrants, they had settled ; then, the owners of those same lands. Next came the period of conflict with the Muhammadan power, during which the chiefships grew up gradually and naturally, followed by the period of tranquillity which was the consequence of their claiming British protection. The last period saw the majority of them stripped of the power which they had infamously abused, and which it was a misfortune to the country that they had ever possessed.

There is no gradual development such as this to be traced in the history of the Sikh chiefs of the Manjha. Scarcely more than a hundred years ago the majority of them were cultivators of the soil, enjoying none of the consideration which the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had, for long, received from the Court of Delhi. With the last invasions of Ahmad Shah and the Afghans, they rose to sudden power, and every man who had energy and courage gathered a band of marauders about him and plundered the country, seizing and holding whatever lands he could. Many of these Sikhs crossed the Sutlej and ravaged the country to the very gates of Delhi, while some of them seized large tracts of land Cis-Sutlej, which they continued to hold against all comers by the sword alone, a tenure altogether different from that of their Malwa neighbours, and more resembling that of a Norman baron settled in the Welsh marches seven hundred years ago.

The ascendency of the Sikhs in the Punjab Trans- Sutlej was but brief. Maharaja Ranjit Singh subdued them one by one ; Ramgarhias, Bhangis, Kanheyas ; all the great houses fell in turn, and so completely that the chiefships became merely nominal, dependent on the will of the sovereign of Lahore.

The districts which contain the largest Sikh population— Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Lahore, Gurdaspur, Gujranwala, Sialkot, and Firozpur — are the most populous in the Punjab. For administrative purposes, the district is the political, fiscal and judicial unit, while several districts, ordinarily three in number, are grouped to form the more important administrative area known as a Division. The four Punjab divisions of Ambala, Jalandhar, Amritsar, and Lahore are those which include all the Sikh districts above given, and there is no reason to believe that there has been any large migration of Sikhs to or from other districts since the days of Ranjit Singh. It may be that the presence of a great native court temporarily attracted to Lahore and Amritsar an exceptional number of Sikhs from a distance ; while the absolute peace and security now enjoyed may have encouraged colonists to settle in localities and among a Muhammadan population where they would not have ventured fifty years ago to show their face. But, on the other hand, the Sikh population is mostly agricultural, and has little inclination to leave its hereditary holdings except for temporary service in the army. Thus it is that the distribution of the Sikh population will be found to be much the same at present as under Maharaja Kanjit Singh. What the total number of the Sikh population was in his day, and what proportion it bore to the general population of the whole Punjab, it is impossible to say, for no accurate statistics are available before the census of 1855.

Other enumerations were made in 1868, 1881, and 1891, the figures of the latest not being yet available for purposes of comparison ^. It will be interesting to ascertain whether the Sikhs are, as some believe and as the 1881 census seemed to indicate, diminishing in numbers, or whether the fluctuation was only accidental and temporary. There are obviously many considerations which influence the question. The Sikh represents a creed, not a race. Of the Hindu, of whatever caste, it may be said, as of the poet, nascitur non fit. His birth status is unalterable. But with the Sikh the exact reverse is the case. Born of a Sikh father, he is not himself counted of the faith until, as a grown boy, he has been initiated and received the baptism of the pdhtd at the Akal Bungah or some equally sacred place. Thus the supply of candidates for baptism 4s apt to rise or fall with the popular estimate of the advantages or disadvantages of joining the communion. During the days of Ranjit Singh, when spiritual fervour and national pride worked in common, the numbers who joined the dominant faith were proportionally great. At the time of the first British census of 1855 the outside influences were depressing. The Khalsa had fallen to rise no more, and its members were uncertain of the temper of their new masters, who might be expected to be angry with those who had forced upon them the burthen and expense of two wars. As a consequence the Sikhs lay low and did not bring their sons to baptism. It

^ The Census Report of the Punjab for 1881 was compiled by Mr. Denzil Ibbetson of the Civil Service. It is a work of the highest ability and interest, and a treasure-house of valuable facts regarding the social history and development of the province.

was as well to wait and watch events, and the pdhul can be taken at any period of life.

When the census of 1868 was taken, there had been a great and welcome change. The Mutiny had taken place, and the Sikhs had cordially joined their conquerors in reestablishing order in Hindustan. Their share had been an especially grateful and glorious one. Perhaps a more fortunate occurrence than the Mutiny of 1857 never occurred in India. It swept the Indian sky clear of many clouds. It disbanded a lazy, pampered army, which, though in its hundred years of life it had done splendid service, had become impossible ; it replaced an unprogressive, selfish and commercial system of administration by one liberal and enlightened ; and it attached the Sikh people closely to their rulers and made them, what they are to-day, the surest support of the Government. Lastly, it taught India and the world that the English possessed a courage and national spirit which made light of disaster; which never counted whether the odds against them were two or ten to one ; and which marched confident to victory, although the conditions of success appeared all but hopeless. After the Mutiny the Sikhs found themselves no longer regarded with suspicion by their new masters, but treated in a spirit of confidence and good fellowship. The name of Sikh became what it was in the days of the great Maharaja, a title of honour opening to its possessor the door of military service. Thus the creed received a new impulse, and many sons of Sikhs, whose baptism had been defen-ed, received the paliul^ while new candidates from among the Jats and lower caste Hindus joined the faith.

Since those days of enthusiasm a natural reaction has set in, and comparing the census of 1881 with that of 1868 there appears to be a falling off in almost all the central districts. This is in part due to inconsistency in the returns, and the confusion regarding the Nanaki Sikhs, who do not adopt the surname of Singh, with the followers of the tenth Guru Govind. But the chief reason is found in the strong attractive force of Hinduism, which, in days of peace, when martial instincts have less influence, retains its hold of the people. Its ivy-like vitality, enfolding and strangling everything which it has once grasped, has been fatal to almost all creeds which, like Sikhism and Buddhism, both heterodox forms of Hinduism, have put themselves in competition with it. As the Church of Kome in the West so is Hinduism in the East. When it has ebbed like the tide and its enemies have believed in a victory, it has returned on the flood in all its former strength. Hinduism has been ever hostile to Sikhism, for the latter faith attacked it in its most vital principle of caste, without which the whole Brahmanical system falls to the ground. The influence of Hinduism on Sikhism is doubly felt, both in preventing the children of Sikh fathers from taking the pdhul^ and by indirectly withdi-awing professed Sikhs from the faith. The performance of a few expiatory rites, the payment of a certain sum of money to the Brahmans, the disuse of the militant surname, and the Sikh reverts, as a Jat peasant, into the ordinary Hindu community. Even where there has been no abandonment of the Sikh name and creed the tendency is alwaj'S, in less essential matters, to revert to the practice of the ancient religion, and it is here, as in all countries, that feminine influence is paramount.