Ranjit Singh was disappointed with his son’s management of the troubled province, but Sher Singh managed to redeem himself in other ways; he led a successful expedition against Syed Ahmad Barelvi, a Wahabi cleric who was waging a jihad to create an Islamist state and defeated and killed him at the Battle of Balakot. The prince had a friendly and gregarious personality that endeared him to the Sikh army. He was also on very good terms with the British Residency in Ludhiana. It was during his tenure in Kashmir that he became thick with the Dogras, supporting them in their conquest of the south-western part of Kashmir and Ladakh, of course then unaware of the extent to which his fortunes were to be tied to theirs.
The latter years of Ranjit Singh’s reign were marked by visits from many European adventurers and British officers, all of whom left accounts of their interactions with the court and the courtiers. Henry Edward Fane, aide-de-camp to his uncle, General Sir Henry Fane, commander-in-chief of the army of the East India Company during the late 1830s, visited the court of Ranjit Singh in March, 1837. Fane provides an engaging account of meeting with Sher Singh. Fane’s sartorial observations about the Sikhs in general and Sher Singh in particular, are particularly amusing.67
Fane describes Sher Singh as a ‘handsome, black bearded gentleman … richly dressed in silk and brocade.’ He was accompanied by several hundred attendants who were also dressed splendidly. Fane remarks that Sher Singh’s ‘expensive and debauched habits’ kept him in penury and probably pre-empted any chance he ever had of succeeding to the throne after Ranjit Singh.
The sartorial style of the Sikh Sardars also does not escape Fane’s attention:
The dress usually worn by the Chiefs is handsome and becoming; consisting of the said turban with a small plume stuck in the front much in the same way as the highland chiefs in Scotland place a heron’s feather in their bonnets, a short jacket generally made of silk handsomely embroidered and trousers made wide at the knee and fitting close around the ankle, of gold or silver kincob, with a dagger stuck in the belt, often covered with precious stones.
Kunwar Sher Singh was apparently quite the fashion icon of his time. According to Fane, the loose-fitting trousers that most of the Sikh Sardars wore on the occasion were Sher Singh’s own innovation and had been a huge hit with the dandies of the Lahore court!
One of the very few Anglophiles in Ranjit Singh’s court, Sher Singh seemed to make a very favourable impression on Fane and his fellow officers. They found him to be courteous, gentlemanly and friendly.
After a return visit to Sher Singh’s camp, Fane reports on a visit to Sher Singh’s personal tent, which the prince proudly invited the visitors to. In abundance were looking glasses, bottles of French perfume and knick-knacks of all kinds that suggested that Sher Singh was a ‘dandy of the first water’.
In the Rise of The Dogras, we have already encountered Captain W.G. Osborne, Military Secretary to the British Governor General of India, who visited Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court in May 1838 with William Macnaghten, the Political Secretary to the Governor General of India to make arrangements for a British mission that was to follow. By then, Kunwar Sher Singh had been recalled to court from his post in Kashmir. In his account, Osborne provides a charming description of his meeting with the young son of Sher Singh that occurred on May 26, as the British contingent was making its way to meet the Maharaja at Adinanagar.68
As the British party neared Adinanagar, they were met by a bright-eyed lad, about seven years old. He was Pratap Singh, the young son of Kunwar Sher Singh, who was representing his father, who in all probability was nursing a severe hangover after the previous night’s carousing. The lad was handsomely dressed and armed with a small ornamented shield, a sword, and matchlock, all in miniature, covered with jewels, and escorted by a small band of heavily-armed Sikhs. He was mounted on a beautiful horse, dyed scarlet with henna. Osborne described him as ‘one of the most intelligent boys I ever met with, very good-looking, with singularly large and expressive eyes. His manners are attractive, polished, and gentlemanly, and free from the awkwardness generally found in European children of that age.’
When Osborne asked him teasingly if his matchlock was real, the princeling became extremely indignant and offered to show off his marksmanship, rapidly loading his firearm and looking for an appropriate target, much to Osborne’s amusement. The lad claimed that he could easily hit a man at a hundred yards distance. When it was time to depart, the precocious lad said goodbye to Osborne and his party and grandly said, ‘You may tell Lord Auckland that the British government will always find a friend in the son of Sher Singh’, before mounting his horse, covered with plumes and jewels, raising his hand to his forehead in a salute and galloping off with his escort.
The following day, the British contingent was met by Sher Singh and Suchet Singh, the youngest of the Dogra brothers. Osborne’s account of that meeting is as colourful as that of the meeting with the seven-year old prince!
Osborne and his contingent were welcomed by the dashing Kunwar Sher Singh and Raja Suchet Singh Dogra, mounted on elephants in golden howdahs and escorted by about 500 of the Maharaja’s ghorchadas (cavalry), splendidly dressed in chain mail and thick quilted jackets made of rich silk of many colours. Osborne, like Fane, describes Sher Singh as ‘a fine, manly-looking fellow, and was richly dressed after the same fashion’. He remarks that Sher Singh is a ‘supposed son of the Maharajah’, whose paternity is not clearly acknowledged by the Maharaja, but who is still allowed to sit in the monarch’s presence! An honour that is granted to only two others—the heir apparent Kunwar Kharak Singh and the Maharaja’s great favourite, the young Raja Hira Singh Dogra.
Osborne refers to the Maharaja’s deep suspicion of Europeans, particularly the British, and acknowledges that Sher Singh is a rare exception at court, though he was careful not to show his Anglophilia openly for fear of offending his father.
Osborne recounts a curious incident that occurred earlier the same morning, which seemed to have dampened Sher Singh’s spirits a bit. Ranjit Singh, anxious that his court make a grand impression, had commanded that all his courtiers show up in their regalia for the meeting with the Governor General. After complimenting Suchet Singh Dogra on his fine garb and accoutrements, the Maharaja turned to Sher Singh and asked him why he was not wearing his customary expensive ornaments. Sher Singh touched the hilt of his sword and said that he was a soldier and that the sword was the only ornament he valued. Rather than being placated, the Maharaja angrily asked where the jewels were, to which Sher Singh replied, ‘In the royal treasury’. Apparently some time earlier, Sher Singh had presented the jewels to the Maharaja as a ‘nazar’ or personal gift. The Maharaja pretended to be annoyed and offered to restore them, but Sher Singh diplomatically refrained from accepting them back.
There are several things of note in the above passage. It is clear that in 1838, despite the fact that Sher Singh had been accorded the title of Kunwar or Prince, doubts continued to be cast on his parentage. The fact that he was given the honour of being allowed to sit in the presence of Ranjit Singh along with the crown prince, Kharak Singh and the Maharaja’s favourite, Hira Singh, while all other courtiers had to stand was a clear symbol of the acceptance of his status. Ranjit Singh had always been wary of the British and suspected them of having designs on his empire; Sher Singh’s willingness to befriend them, in contrast to the other courtiers, must have been a source of irritation to him. It is also clear from the above passage that Sher Singh, despite being characterised by many historians as essentially an affable, even simple-minded soldier, a sensualist and a dandy, was adept in court intrigue and had mastered the art of staying in Ranjit Singh’s good graces.
Osborne was perhaps oddly prescient when he wrote that a conflict was likely to break out between Ranjit Singh’s successors after his demise, which would plunge the empire into violence and chaos—a conflict that he thought only the British were equipped to end!
The startling events after the death of Maharaj
a Ranjit Singh resulting in the the death of Naunihal Singh have been recounted in detail in an earlier chapter (The Rise of The Dogras).
Soon after Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death, two clear factions emerged in the court, each determined to undermine the other as the inevitable jockeying for power started. The more influential of the two was the Dogra faction, consisting of Gulab Singh, Dhian Singh, Suchet Singh and Hira Singh, who had enjoyed the favour of the late monarch. Arrayed against them was the Sikh aristocracy, the three most powerful families being the Sandhawalias, the Attariwalas and the Majithias; all of them had viewed the Dogras as Hindu upstarts who, in their eyes, had enjoyed too much power in a Sikh empire. There were honest brokers too, notably Fakir Azizuddin, the late Maharaja’s foreign minister and Diwan Dina Nath, a Kashmiri brahmin who was the minister of revenue and finance.
The Sandhawalias were among the most powerful of the old Sikh families in Punjab. While the other very prominent clan, the Ahluwalias, held sway over the area between the Sutlej and Beas rivers, known as the Jalandhar Doab, the Sandhawalias dominated the territories west of the Beas. Jats by origin, the Sandhawalias claimed descent from Raja Salvahan, a Rajput King, who had founded the city of Sialkot. Raja Salvahan’s descendants went on to rule many of the kingdoms that formed in the Himalayan foothills as well as various Sikh states such as Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Bhador, Faridkot, Kaithal and Attari.
The Sandhawalias were based at Raja Sansi, a village not too far from Amritsar, which had been founded in 1570 by a descendant of Raja Salvahan known as Kirtu, one of whose descendants, Takhat Mal, claimed that he had a firman or letter of authority from the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, which empowered him to collect revenues. His grandson, Budh Singh, an orthodox Sikh who had undergone the rites of initiation and was a Khalsa, was a brave leader who had collected a band of fierce warriors around him. He was a renowned freebooter and cattle-raider, in a time when that occupation was considered completely honourable! Budh Singh’s sons, Chanda Singh and Naudh Singh rebuilt the village of Shukar Chak, which laid the foundation of the Sukerchakia Misl or confederacy. Naudh Singh was succeeded by his son Charat Singh, who went on to lead the Sukerchakias and was the grandfather of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Naudh Singh’s descendants went on to form and rule the Sikh empire.
The Sandhawalias descended from Naudh Singh’s brother, Chanda Singh. His son, Didar Singh, was a mighty warrior who served under his cousin Charat Singh and then under his nephew, Maha Singh. After Maha Singh captured Rasulnagar and Gujranwala, Didar Singh was given several villages as his share of the spoils, one of which was Sandhawalia. From that point onwards, Didar Singh adopted Sandhawalia as his family name.
Attar Singh Sandhawalia was thus the uncle of Maharaja Sher Singh and Ajit Singh Sandhawalia, his cousin.
Amir Singh Sandhawalia, along with his brothers, inherited his father’s estates and continued to serve his nephew, Ranjit Singh, whose star seemed on the ascendant. As Ranjit Singh’s power grew, the Sandhawalias prospered as well, increasing their landholdings and wealth considerably. When Ranjit Singh was crowned the king of Punjab, Amir Singh Sandhawalia followed him to court as one of the Sikh notables.
In 1803, however, Amir Singh Sandhawalia fell into deep disgrace. It is not difficult to imagine that the Sandhawalias might have been intensely jealous of the Sukerchakias. After all they had a common ancestor and were brave warriors in their own right! And yet it was the young upstart Ranjit Singh who had gone from strength to strength and was now the lord of Punjab.
The Musamman Burj was an octagonal tower within the Lahore Fort and had been built by Emperor Akbar, who had made the city his capital for some time. Popularly called Samman Burj, it overlooked the River Ravi, which then flowed closely by its side. The Mughal rulers of Lahore used it as the audience hall and carried out their day-to-day administration at the tower. The Afghan invader, Ahmad Shah Durrani, also held court in the Samman Burj. When the Sikhs occupied Lahore in 1799, Maharaja Ranjit Singh found the Samman Burj in a state of disrepair and had it restored. He began to hold his daily court there in the manner of the Mughal emperors.
One day, as Maharaja Ranjit Singh was leaving the Samman Burj and preparing to mount his horse, Amir Singh Sandhawalia was seen unslinging his matchlock, priming it and striking a match to fire it. Alert guards overpowered him and dragged him to the king, accusing him of an assassination attempt. Quite aware of the jealousy of the Sandhawalia Sardars, Ranjit Singh had no difficulty believing the charges and dismissed Amir Singh Sandhawalia from court. Fearing for his life, Amir Singh fled to seek refuge with Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of the first Sikh Guru, who was deeply venerated by the Sikhs. After some time had passed, Sahib Singh Bedi made a representation on Amir Singh’s behalf and so great was the esteem that he was held in, that Ranjit Singh forgave his uncle and invited him back to court.
Amir Singh Sandhawalia continued to distinguish himself in Ranjit Singh’s service, fighting bravely in the campaign of Kasur in 1807 and the expedition to the Indus in 1810. He was rewarded with more territories and a couple of years later, he introduced his sons Budh Singh and Attar Singh to court. They went on to become great favourites of the Maharaja. Amir Singh Sandhawalia and his sons continued to enjoy success in various campaigns and by 1823 had acquired great wealth and dramatically increased their landholdings.
In 1825, Ranjit Singh was taken ill at Rambagh in Amritsar and rumours started swirling about his impending demise. Budh Singh Sandhawalia decided to seize the opportunity to free his clan from the dominance of the Sukerchakias. He gathered a large force and demanded admittance to the fort of Gobindgarh in Amritsar. The officer at the gate, Daya Ram, refused to let him in, even after Budh Singh had taken the trouble to bribe the keeper of the royal seal to forge a permit in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s name and reported the matter to the commander of the fort, Imamuddin. Ranjit Singh was informed of Budh Singh Sandhawalia’s perfidy when he recovered and decided to banish him to command the Sikh garrison at Peshawar, on the restless Afghan frontier.
Syed Ahmed Barelvi, a Muslim preacher inspired by Wahabi ideology had declared a jihad or holy war against the Sikhs. His grand plan was to establish an Islamic bastion in the Peshawar valley after defeating the Sikhs and then use it as a base to take on the British. Budh Singh Sandhawalia, along with his brother Attar Singh, led the Sikhs with much gallantry and defeated a large but undisciplined force commanded by the Syed, breaking the back of his oath to jihad and sent him back to the Yusufzai hills to lick his wounds. Budh Singh and Attar Singh returned triumphantly to Lahore where honours were heaped upon them. A few months later, however, Budh Singh Sandhawalia died of cholera. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had put Sandhawalia’s treachery behind him again, wrote the family a heartfelt letter of condolence. His estates, which generated very significant revenues, were turned over to his brothers with the provision that annual tribute would continue to be paid to the court.
According to Sohan Lal Suri, the official court diarist of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sandhawalia estates were passed on to Budh Singh Sandhawalia‘s brothers, Wasava Singh, Attar Singh and Lehna Singh.69 In return they were to pay three hundred thousand rupees into the royal treasury. The brothers hemmed and hawed and the Maharaja flew into a rage, ordering that their troops be disbanded and placed under the command of Kunwar Kharak Singh. The Sandhawalia brothers beat a hasty retreat to their estates.
Attar Singh and his brother Lehna Singh were capable soldiers and leaders and did manage to repair their relationship with the monarch. So much so that after the death of the doughty General Hari Singh Nalwa in 1837, Attar Singh Sandhawalia became the most prominent Sikh general in the Maharaja’s court. That same year, Attar Singh was sent to Peshawar and his success in battle earned him the somewhat baroque title ‘Ujjal Didar, Nirmal Budh, Sirdar Bawakar, Kasir-ul-ikadar, Sarwar-i-giroh-i-namdar, Ali Tababi Shajaud-dowlah, Sirdar Attar Singh, Samsheer-I Jung Bahadur’!
The Sandhawalia estates continued to grow. By the time o
f Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s passing in 1839, the Sandhawalias were already riding high. As Maharaja Kharak Singh and Maharaja Naunihal Singh perished in quick succession, the Sandhawalias felt that their time had finally come.
The machinations began immediately.
Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, who had served his beloved master Maharaja Ranjit Singh and then his son Maharaja Kharak Singh as Prime Minister, moved swiftly to bring about a smooth succession after Naunihal Singh’s death. After quickly consulting some of his peers on the late monarch’s council, he sent word to Sher Singh to hasten to Lahore from his estates in Batala. Sher Singh was the obvious choice to become the next Maharaja. He had been a favourite of his late father’s, notwithstanding the ugly rumours about his illegitimacy. He was hugely popular with the Sikh army, affable and courteous, and had excellent relations with the British, who were really the only other power of consequence at that time in the Indian subcontinent.
The Sandhawalias, however, had other ideas and they decided to throw their weight behind Chand Kaur, the widow of the late Maharaja Kharak Singh and the mother of the late Maharaja Naunihal Singh. Attar Singh Sandhawalia, who was at Hardwar, and his nephew Ajit Singh Sandhawalia, who was in the mountains of Kulu, set out for Lahore. Dhian Singh Dogra tried to bring about a compromise and initially managed to persuade Chand Kaur to take the title of Queen with Sher Singh as her chief advisor. The British agent in Punjab was summoned and the succession of Sher Singh, who had by then arrived in Lahore was proclaimed.
Chand Kaur, in the meantime, had collected her wits about her and decided to stake a claim to the crown again. Dhian Singh Dogra begged and pleaded with her to accept Sher Singh as the next monarch and offered several compromises. She could marry Sher Singh or adopt his son Pratap Singh. Chand Kaur haughtily replied that she would never marry the bastard son of a dyer, once again airing the canard about Sher Singh’s alleged parentage that had dogged him his entire life. To the suggestion that she adopt Sher Singh’s son as her own, she craftily offered to adopt Dhian Singh Dogra’s son Hira Singh instead. Chand Kaur also announced that the late Maharaja Naunihal Singh’s widow, Rani Sahib Kaur, was pregnant, offering the hope that a new heir would be born.
The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia Page 19