Harlan’s first meeting with Emir Dost Mohammad, therefore, was not a pleasant one. When it became apparent that Harlan had been responsible for almost turning his brother against him, the Emir was furious. Harlan had to use all his charm and considerable diplomatic skills to leave the Afghan camp unharmed. Only after swearing fealty to the Emir, a copy of the Quran in his hand, was Harlan allowed to leave. Neither he nor the Emir, of course, were aware at that time that their paths were to cross again, in very different circumstances.
Meanwhile, a strong Sikh force sent to Peshawar under the command of General Paolo Avitabile, an Italian general in Ranjit Singh’s service, coupled with Harlan’s efforts, resulted in Dost Mohammad standing down and eventually returning to Kabul. Harlan and Fakir Azizuddin, Ranjit Singh’s very capable Foreign Minister, had been sent again to deal with Dost Mohammad, who ignored the usual protections enjoyed by envoys and seized them and turned them over to Sultan Mohammad, who pretended to play along and set them free as soon as his brother retreated. Peshawar thus remained in Ranjit Singh’s domains without a battle. It was a victory of sorts for Harlan since he had played a critical part in the entire episode.
The heavens continued to smile on Josiah Harlan and he continued to serve as the governor of Gujrat until April 1836, when he was expelled from Punjab by Ranjit Singh. Why this happened is a matter of some controversy.
On August 19, 1835, Maharaja Ranjit Singh suffered a stroke. Harlan, who had served as a doctor under the British and had practised medicine in Lahore earlier, was among those consulted. But Harlan was also engaged in another venture at the time.
John Martin Honigberger, the Hungarian homeopath, who had spent many years in Lahore as a physician in the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (and was also in charge of manufacturing gunpowder for the Lahore artillery!), writes in his memoirs about how Harlan claimed to be practising alchemy when in reality he was actually forging coins.
Harlan was already under a cloud because Ranjit Singh was aware of his counterfeit coin-making enterprise, but matters came to a head because of his behaviour during his master’s illness.
There are varying accounts about what exactly led to Harlan’s dismissal; one account suggests that Harlan offered to cure his master if he was paid the sum of 100,000 rupees, a demand which would have been seen as impudent. A second account says that Harlan felt that Ranjit Singh’s health could be restored by a ‘galvanic treatment’—by passing electricity through the ailing king’s body. He demanded the sum of 5000 pounds sterling to construct a ‘galvanic battery’ … in advance, as he did not ‘trust the Maharaja’. This display of greed and disrespect enraged Ranjit Singh and he proceeded to strip Harlan of his lucrative governorship and banish him from his kingdom.
Once again, Harlan found himself in the British-controlled town of Ludhiana, penniless and powerless after having enjoyed seven years of wealth and luxury in the service of one of the greatest courts of the time, seething with impotent rage and vowing vengeance against his former master.
Even though Harlan was fired, Ranjit Singh was sufficiently intrigued by the notion of being cured by electric shock to ask the British Mission in Ludhiana to arrange for such treatment. The doctor who was sent to tend to the Maharaja was W. L. McGregor, who describes the episode very colourfully in his memoirs.8
McGregor was tasked with building a ‘galvanic battery’ with components supplied by the Company’s depot at Agra. The project had the blessing of Lord Metcalfe, the Governor of the Company’s North-western provinces. Accompanied by the British political agent, Claude Wade, McGregor made his way to Lahore towards the end of 1936. After the usual formalities that followed the arrival of a British delegation in Lahore, a day was selected for the Maharaj’s treatment. Just as McGregor was getting ready, some of the senior courtiers lost their nerve and tried to stop him, fearful that the electric shock might kill the Maharaja. The doughty monarch was not to be deterred! In McGregor’s words, he ‘begged of them to be quiet, and said he would take the Biglee (electricity.) We purposely put a small charge in the Leyden phial, and the Maharajah received it without evincing any particular emotion.’
Emboldened by the absence of any visible negative effects of the ‘Biglee’, the courtiers now clamoured to experience it as well. The Prime Minister, Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, Jemadar Khuhal Singh and other important courtiers all joined hands to form a human chain. McGregor charged his apparatus fully and gave them a much greater shock, causing all of them to jump! Not understanding that they had received a much bigger charge, the courtiers took the opportunity to flatter the Maharaja, as he seemed to have weathered the galvanic treatment much more stoically than they.
McGregor was congratulated for administering the treatment in a very satisfactory manner. The Maharaja, however, did not seem to be amenable to additional follow-on treatments and the experiment came to an end. The British tried to explain the other uses of electricity to him, particularly its use in rapid communication across the breadth of his empire, but despite his curiosity about the possibilities, he remained sceptical and did not pursue the new technology further.
Through all his years in Punjab, Harlan had been communicating with Claude Martine Wade, the British Resident at Ludhiana, who had befriended Ranjit Singh and had some influence on him. Wade wrote to Ranjit Singh on Harlan’s behalf, suggesting that ‘Hallen Sahib was a wise and intelligent person’, most likely motivated by his unwillingness to lose a highly placed informant in Ranjit Singh’s court. Ranjit Singh relented and sent a kind message to Harlan assuring him of forgiveness, but the angry Harlan had decided to move on.
Harlan’s state of mind is best understood through this excerpt from his memoirs: ‘Monarch as he (Ranjit Singh) was, absolute and luxurious, and voluptuous in the possession of treasured wealth and military power, I resolved to avenge myself and cause him to tremble in the midst of his magnificence.’
On October 17, 1836, Harlan set out for Kabul, where according to Harlan, Emir Dost Mohammad received him ‘like a brother and appointed him aide-de-camp and General of his regular troops’, bestowing upon him the title Sir-I-Lushker (Commander-in-Chief) and Musahib (aide-de-camp).
The high point in Harlan’s adventures was yet to come.
In his memoirs, he also claims that Emir Dost Mohammad was influenced by Harlan to declare war again against the Sikhs, who had constructed a fort at Jamrud, right at the mouth of the Khyber Pass.
In the battle of Jamrud, Hari Singh Nalwa, the most feared of the Sikh generals and the last of the legendary leaders who had helped Ranjit Singh consolidate his empire, was killed. In his memoirs Harlan gloats: ‘The proud King of Lahore quailed on his threatened throne, as he exclaimed with terror and despair, “Harlan has avenged himself; this is all his work.”’
Ranjit Singh was devastated by the loss of his beloved comrade, but the battle was far from being a victory for the Afghans, despite Harlan’s bluster.
The Battle of Jamrud took place on April 30, 1837. Several days earlier, 25,000 armed Afghans with eighteen heavy guns, commanded by Akbar Khan, the bravest and most capable of Amir Dost Mohammad’s sons, had laid siege to Jamrud. The fort was under the command of Maha Singh, who had 600 men under his command. As the Afghan guns pounded the walls of Jamrud to rubble, Maha Singh sent a young woman, Harsharan Kaur, disguised as a boy, with a message to Nalwa, who lay sick in Peshawar, that Jamrud was about to fall. Nalwa then rose from his sick bed and rode to Jamrud. Such was the terror that Nalwa inspired even in the fierce Afghans that the mere news of his arrival caused the Afghans to retreat to the Khyber Pass.
The armies faced off for seven days. Finally, Nalwa, sensing that the Afghans did not have much stomach for a fight, ordered an attack. After a fierce fight, the Afghans broke ranks and ran, leaving eleven heavy guns behind, with the Sikhs in pursuit and Nalwa leading the advance column personally. Akbar Khan, watching the rout of his army from an escarpment seized the opportunity and swooped down on the advance Sikh column as it
pursued the retreating Afghans. Nalwa was seriously injured and the surprise attack enabled Akbar Khan to recapture his guns.
Nalwa was taken back to Jamrud; as he lay dying he commanded his men to keep his death a secret and pursue the retreating Afghans, which they proceeded to do with great gusto, until the Afghans exited the Khyber Pass.
The defeated Afghan army returned to Kabul in great jubilation. Such was the legend of Nalwa that his death was enough to make their ignominious defeat feel like a victory!
According to an account of the battle by a Dr. Wood, sent to Claude Wade, the battle resulted in a great slaughter of the Afghans, who lost 11,000 men, including Mohammad Afzal, the oldest son of Dost Mohammad. The Sikhs lost 6000 men, almost half of the force that Nalwa had brought to relieve Jamrud. About the death of Nalwa, Dr. Wood writes:
‘Hari Singh received four wounds: two sabre cuts across his chest, one arrow was fixed in his breast, which he deliberately pulled out himself, and continued to issue orders until he received a gunshot wound to his side, from which he gradually sank and was carried off the field to the fort, where he expired, requesting that his death should not be made known until the arrival of the Maharajah’s reliefs.’
In the following year (1838), Harlan was sent on a military expedition by Dost Muhammad against Mir Murad Beg, the Prince of Kunduz. The expedition was under the command of Dost Mohammad’s young son, Akram Khan, with Harlan as his aide-de-camp. The force included 1,400 cavalry, 1,100 infantry and 100 artillery men, with 2,000 horses and 400 camels as mounts and pack animals. His account of his exploits is filled with his usual bombast about climbing over what he called the ‘Indian Caucasus’ (the Hindu Kush mountains) and unfurling the American flag to a twenty-six gun salute.
Harlan had earlier instructed a tailor in Ludhiana to sew an approximation of the American flag for him, presumably anticipating future conquests!
In the course of the expedition, at Kahmard, the army met with Hazara tribesmen, under the command of Mohammad Rafi Beg, the chieftain of a small kingdom known as Ghor. The Hazaras seemed much impressed by the discipline and organisation of the expeditionary force. Harlan, in turn was impressed by the culture of the Hazaras, which disdained slavery and treated men and women as equal, both uncharacteristic of the region at that time. Harlan and Mohammad Rafi Beg came to an agreement; Harlan would become the ruler of Ghor with the Hazara chief as his Vizier or Chief Minister. Harlan would raise and train an army which would solidify and expand Ghor’s autonomy and territory.
One can only imagine Harlan’s joy at becoming a King in his own right, though he writes, with uncharacteristic modesty, he ‘looked upon kingdoms and principalities as of frivolous import, when weighed in the balance of the more honourable and estimable title of American citizen.’
Harlan’s dreams of his own ‘absolute and luxurious, and voluptuous’ life as the sovereign of a state were to come to naught however. All that he got from the adventure was the title of the Prince of Ghor, which he used to the end of his days, for by March 1839, when he returned to Kabul, his plans were overtaken by the force of British interests, which had turned their attention to Khorasan.
The ‘Army Of The Indus’ was now on the move—a British expeditionary force supported by the Sikhs was taking city after city in Khorasan on its way to Kabul to restore Shah Shuja to the throne.
The First Anglo-Afghan War had begun.
By August 1839, Emir Dost Mohammad had fled and Kabul was in the possession of Shah Shuja and his British allies. Harlan, despite his attempts to secure service under the new regime was shut out as he was now persona non grata with both the British, because of his insubordinate attitude prior to leaving the Company’s service, and Shah Shuja. On September 16, 1839, Harlan was ordered to leave with the British force that was returning to British India. He was held in Ludhiana before being sent to Calcutta, where he was given free passage on a ship bound for America.
Harlan’s adventures in India and Afghanistan were over.
Harlan arrived in Philadelphia in August 1841. He was not a wealthy man. His brother, Richard had not invested the money he had sent back over the years, very wisely. Harlan bought property in Pennsylvania and tried to live the life of a country gentleman, engaging in various commercial ventures over the next several years.
He married Elizabeth Baker on May 1, 1849, in Chester County. Both were Quakers; Harlan had been admitted back into the Religious Society Of Friends (the formal name of the Quaker church), after a judgment against him for violating the rules of pacifism had been withdrawn. The couple had a daughter, Sarah.
In the 1850s, Harlan tried to corner the North American camel market, without success, as we saw earlier. He published a paper about the fruits of Kabul and unsuccessfully tried to enlist the support of Joseph Holt, the Commissioner of Patents for an expedition to Kabul to acquire Afghan vine stock for Ohio vineyards.
The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 brought to a head the issue of slavery in the United States. Seven southern states seceded from the Union rather than continue negotiation and compromise with a government they felt would be hostile to their rights as states. The first to secede was South Carolina on December 20, 1860. By February 1861, six more states had joined the new Confederate States of America. With their secession declarations came the demand that all United States property be turned over to those states, including military property. Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate forces captured Fort Sumter in Charleston. Three days later Abraham Lincoln called for a 75,000 strong militia to suppress the Confederate rebellion. The American Civil War had begun.
Josiah Harlan answered the President’s call by organising a regiment he named Harlan’s Light Cavalry (forty-one officers and 1,089 enlisted men) to fight on the Union side. Harlan was commissioned as the Colonel of the regiment, which was moved to Washington DC in October and renamed the Pennsylvania 11th Regiment Cavalry. The regiment was subsequently moved to Ft. Monroe in Virgina, where it remained.
There was to be no glory for the Prince of Ghor in the Civil War. Used to commanding soldiers in Punjab and Afghanistan, where being a white ‘Sahib’ conferred upon one a fair amount of authority, Harlan must have come across as abrasive, authoritarian and condescending to his regiment. His men mutinied and levelled several charges against him.9
A few months after the formation of his regiment, Harlan was court-martialled on five different charges: habitual neglect of duty, being drunk in violation of the 45th Article of War, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, encouraging embezzlement by a junior officer by inflating a bill and sharing the confidential ‘watchword’ with ‘several unauthorised persons, including Negroes’.10
The trial record included a letter signed by the lieutenant-colonel, two majors, nine captains and sixteen lieutenants, which asked him to retire honourably and leave as his men were determined to remove him from the regiment!
The Court Martial Board found him guilty on roughly half the counts and sentenced him to be suspended without pay for six months. Fortunately for Harlan, the trial record was reviewed by Major General John E. Wool, who came to the conclusion that Harlan was being lynched by his disgruntled men. Wool reversed the decision and restored Harlan to command, severely reprimanding his mutinous men.
The ultimate indignity our hero suffered a few months later was a severe intestinal infection and diarrhoea, which resulted in his being discharged from service on medical grounds on August 20, 1862.
Harlan moved to San Fransisco, returning to the practice of medicine and died on October 21, 1871.
Thus ended the career of General Josiah Harlan, Adventurer, Surgeon, Governor of Gujrat, Prince of Ghor, Mukarrib-ul- Khakan Unees ud-Dowlah Bahadur of Shah Shuja and Sir-I-Lushker and Musahib of Amir Dost Mohammad, putative camel merchant and Colonel of the Pennsylvania 11th.
Josiah Harlan had rubbed shoulders with giants who are remembered to this day, but he himself has been mostly forgotten.11
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* Gujrat is a district located in between the rivers, the Jhelum and Chenab. It falls in modern-day Pakistani Punjab and is distinct from the Indian state of Gujarat.
GAME OF THRONES: THE AFGHANS AND THE SIKHS
In triumph do the armies march
To beat of mighty kettle drum
Elephants and steeds proclaim
Their glory in the fearsome thrum
Mighty kings there are today
And many more are sure to come
Godless will they all depart
Hands bereft of even a crumb.
These words, spoken by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, are a cautionary tale about the ephemeral nature of temporal power. Dynasties, powerful beyond imagination have risen and fallen, but this truth endures. This is the story of four great dynasties, the Mughals, the Sadozais and the Barakzais of Afghanistan and the Sukerchakias of Punjab; some of these were in decline, others in ascendancy and some were yet to emerge, when our story begins.
The year was 1739. The Mughal capital, Delhi resounded with the sound of music. On the fabulous Peacock Throne sat the thirty-seven-year-old Roshan Akhtar, the great-grandson of Aurangzeb. History remembers him as Muhammad Shah ‘Rangila’, or Muhammad Shah the colourful.
Muhammad Shah Rangila was a colourful man indeed, in many ways. A connoisseur of the arts in general and classical music in particular, he is remembered for popularising the Hindustani classical genre, known as ‘khayal’, which is the dominant vocal form in North Indian classical music, even today. He had a galaxy of the finest musicians in his court, most notably, Niamat Khan, known as Sadarang and Firoz Khan, known as Adarang, compositions penned by whom are sung by the leading musicians of the Indian subcontinent to this day. One of the most popular of these compositions is titled ‘Muhammad Shah Rangila’ and is often sung in the raag of the rainy season, Miyan Ki Malhar.
The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia Page 2