The Fall of the Kingdom of Punjab

by Khushwant Singh

  The official British report of the incident, based on the information immediately forwarded by their newswriter in Lahore, mentions it to have been an accident.

  Col. Gardner is however certain that the whole thing was contrived by Raja Dhyan Singh Dogra. Since he claimed to be present at the time, what he says deserves to be carefully read—particularly as his version is accepted by many serious historians, both English and Punjabi. Gardner writes: ‘The palki-bearers who had carried Nao Nihal Singh to his palace were sent to their homes; they were servants in my own company of Artillery, and were five in number. Two were afterwards privately put to death, two escaped into Hindustan, the fate of the fifth is unknown to me. One of the palki-bearers afterwards affirmed that when the Prince was put into the palki, and when he was assisting to put him there, he saw that above the right ear there was a wound which bled so slightly as only to cause a blotch of blood about the size of a rupee on the pillow or cloth on which Nao Nihal Singh’s head rested while in the palki. Now it is a curious fact that when the room was opened, in which his corpse was first exposed by Dhian Singh, blood in great quantities, both in fluid and coagulated pools, was found around the head of the cloth on which the body lay. Be this as it may, when the doors were thrown open the Sindhanwalias found the young Maharajah dead, Dhyan Singh prostrate in affliction on the ground, and Fakir Nuruddin, the Royal physician, lamenting that all remedies had been useless.’

  There is not the slightest doubt that Col. Gardner has used his imagination to convert a tragic accident into a dastardly conspiracy—because the facts prove it clearly to have been an accident and nothing else. It is not unlikely that the old Roshnai Gate had been severely shaken by the blast of cannon firing continuously for over five hours close by and by the pressure of the crowds which had taken every point of vantage to watch the funeral. There is nothing to suggest that the arch giving way was not an act of Providence. For one, Kharak Singh died at about 9 a.m. and was cremated a few hours later at a spot which was a public thoroughfare, being the site of the cremation of Ranjit Singh and alongside the most frequented Sikh temple in the city. With all the coming and going of people and the preparation of the funeral pyre of Kharak Singh, it is inconceivable that any one could have had the time or the opportunity to fit in something in the archway which would make it collapse at a given signal. And it is hardly likely that Dhyan Singh would have sacrificed the life of his nephew, allowed himself and others to be injured, risk the vengeance of the populace of Lahore and yet be unprepared for the eventuality.

  Nao Nihal Singh’s death was clearly an act of God. But why did the Guru deprive the kingdom of the one man who might have restored to it the glory it had in the days of Maharajah Ranjit Singh?

  Chapter 3

  The Ambitious Widow

  The deaths of Maharajah Kharak Singh and Nao Nihal Singh within a few hours of each other caused a crisis of unparalleled magnitude in the Lahore Durbar. The Chief Minister, Dhyan Singh Dogra, handled it with all the ability at his command. When Nao Nihal Singh had succumbed to his injuries, the Dogra ordered that the news should not be announced till the matter of succession was settled. He arranged for food to be brought from the royal kitchen to the room where the Maharajah lay cold and dead on the floor and for empty plates to be taken out. Visitors were turned back on the plea that the doctors had advised complete rest. Even Nao Nihal’s mother, widowed only a few hours earlier, was refused admission and gave vent to her rage by hammering at the iron gates of the fort with her bare hands.

  Dhyan Singh sent for Fakir Azizuddin and Jemadar Khushal Singh and, having ascertained their wishes and the approval of Bhaia Ram Singh, sent word to Prince Sher Singh at Batala to come to Lahore immediately and take over as the Maharajah of the Punjab.

  Sher Singh was the fittest person to succeed to the throne. He was popular with the army, he was courteous and amiable, and the English, whose opinions were of consequence in the Durbar’s affairs, were known to approve of him.

  The confidence that Dhyan Singh Dogra had placed in his fellow courtiers was betrayed by Bhaia Ram Singh, who not only let out the secret of Nao Nihal Singh’s death but along with his brother Bhaia Gobind Ram decided to put up Kharak Singh’s window, Chand Kaur, as a rival candidate. They sent word to her and Sandhawalia kinsmen, Attar Singh, who was living in retirement at Hardwar, and Ajit Singh, who was with the army in Kulu, to come to Lahore at once.

  Dhyan Singh Dogra tried frantically to get some sort of agreement from Chand Kaur before the intriguers’ brew came to boiling point. He temporarily succeeded in persuading Chand Kaur to accept the honorific title of Raj-Mata—Queen Mother—and allow Sher Singh to become Maharajah. Even before Sher Singh arrived in Lahore, Dhyan Singh summoned the British agent, Maulvi Rajab Ali, and in the presence of all the courtiers (including the Bhais) asked him to convey to his Government that the arrangement had been ‘adopted by the whole Khalsa in concord and unanimity’. The Maulvi reported that the assemblage had applauded the statement with the words, ‘the Khalsa on this subject were unanimous heart and soul.’

  A few hours after the meeting, Prince Sher Singh arrived in Lahore. The death of Nao Nihal Singh was made known and the succession of the new Maharajah was proclaimed.

  In the afternoon Nao Nihal Singh’s body was taken to the spot where his father’s ashes still smouldered. Two of his consorts mounted the pyre with him. One pinned the royal aigrette on Sher Singh’s turban; the other daubed Dhyan Singh Dogra’s forehead with saffron to signify his being Chief Minister. The Satis made the Prince and the minister swear loyalty to the State before they perished in the flames.

  On 11th November another melancholy procession wound its way through the streets of Lahore. It was led by the late Maharajah’s favourite elephant. The howdah bore two caskets containing the ashes of Maharajah Kharak Singh and Nao Nihal Singh. Rich people threw expensive shawls over the urns; the poor paid their homage with flowers. The cavalcade went out of Delhi Gate on the Grand Trunk Road towards Amritsar and on to Hardwar. Thus the remains of the father and son, who had found it difficult to live together, mingled in the holy river.

  Two actors were gone, but two others took their place on the Durbar stage; Chand Kaur and Sher Singh.

  The sanctimonious Bhais, Ram Singh and Gobind Ram, found a willing tool in Chand Kaur. Under their advice she refused to accept Sher Singh’s succession and sent for Gulab Singh Dogra from Jammu to counteract the influence of his brother Dhyan Singh. Dhyan Singh suggested many compromises. She could marry Sher Singh, or, now being childless, adopt Sher Singh’s son Pertap Singh. The widow spurned the offer of marriage. How could she marry a man whom she had contemptuously described as the bastard son of a water-carrier (choba), or a dyer (cheemba)? She parried the suggestion of adopting Pertap by offering instead to adopt Dhyan Singh Dogra’s son, Hira Singh. She also had it noised about that one of Nao Nihal Singh’s widows was pregnant. Dhyan Singh did not fall into the trap of having his son adopted by the Queen mother and made a last appeal to Chand Kaur to preserve the State. He placed his turban at her feet and implored her to accept an arrangement that he and Fakir Azizudin had thought out as a compromise; she would be the Queen Regent and Sher Singh the head of a Council of Regency. Chand Kaur indignantly tore up the proposal. Dhyan Singh threw in the sponge. In a stormy scene in the crowded Durbar he warned Chand Kaur of the danger of lending an ear to mischief-makers and told her that the Government of the Punjab did not depend either on her or on Sher Singh or any of the claimants in the Royal family because it was the government of the entire Khalsa.

  A few days later, the two Sandhawalia Sardars, Ajit Singh and Attar Singh, arrived in Lahore and took over control. Behind them was Gulab Singh Dogra and the Bhais. An agreement was drafted on 27th November by which Sher Singh was to return to his estate in Mukerian for eight months, leaving his son Pertap Singh as hostage in Lahore. If Nao Nihal Singh’s widow bore a son, he would be acknowledged as the heir; if she did not, a new agreement would b
e drawn up. Sixteen leading noblemen—Sikh, Hindu and Muslim—signed the Ikrarnamah.

  Chand Kaur was formally installed with the title of Malika Mukaddas (Queen Empress), and all the courtiers including Sher Singh, who had been nominally made President of the Council of Ministers, and Dhyan Singh Dogra, who continued to be described as Chief Minister, paid her tribute. This was on 2nd December 1840.

  The next day Sher Singh left Lahore to return to his estate. He was promised an allowance of Rs. 1 lakh per year and an additional jagir of the same sum. These did not, however, distract his mind from the throne and he set about winning over support for his cause.

  Chand Kaur took Sher Singh’s place as Resident of the Council of four ministers: Attar Singh Sandhawalia, Jemadar Khushal Singh, Lehna Singh Majithia and Raja Dhyan Singh.

  A few days after Sher Singh’s departure, the Prince’s chief supporter, Raja Dhyan Singh Dogra, was involved in an incident which proved to him that the Mai—the title by which Chand Kaur came to be known amongst the people—did not need his services. He was going towards the private apartments, which was his right as Chamberlain, when the guard stationed by Ajit Singh Sandhawalia barred his way. This led to an exchange of abuse between the Dogra and the Sandhawalia. The Mai supported Ajit Singh and thus made it clear to Dhyan Singh that he was no longer to consider himself Deodhidar. Rather than become embroiled in more intrigue, Dhyan Singh also left Lahore early in January 1841 for his home in the estate of Jammu. He wrote to Prince Sher Singh assuring him of his support and advising him to make contacts with officers of the regiments posted at Lahore.

  The Mai and the Sandhawalias had the run of affairs for a few days. But the dice were heavily loaded against them. They did their best to win over the army and get the cooperation of ministers. But neither one nor the other could quite reconcile themselves to being ruled by a woman who could not leave the veiled seclusion of the zenana.

  Chand Kaur’s first move was to get her powerful neighbours, the English, to recognise her succession. She proposed sending a mission to the Governor-General with presents for Queen Victoria. The idea of the mission was dropped as the British, who still needed Punjabi collaboration to pursue their aggression against Kabul, readily accorded her government de facto recognition.

  While recognising the Mai’s government, the English were contemplating taking over her kingdom. The British attitude towards an ally who had not only helped them to win the war in Afghanistan but was allowing his territory to be used by alien armies as if it were a common highway, is an example of ingratitude the like of which would be hard to find in the pages of history books. Sir William Macnaghten proposed that the British should unilaterally declare the Treaty of 1809 null and void, take Peshawar from the Punjabis and give it to the Durranis. He also suggested that the Punjab should be further divided into two: the hills should be administered by the Dogras and the plains by the Sandhawalias. The Governor-General counselled patience and comforted Macnaghten with the thought that in the near future the Punjab would disintegrate and then all the Durbar territory across the Indus could be attached and given to their Durrani puppet.

  The chief problem of the Mai was the loyalty of the Army. Sher Singh was popular with the troops and with the European officers. Soldiers were reported to be leaving the cantonments to join the Prince at Batala. Chand Kaur tried to hold back the ebbing tide by tempting the troops with gold. She appointed Tej Singh Commander-in-Chief and through him assured the men that their wages would be paid regularly on the 25th of every month. She made the men and officers swear allegiance to her. But none of these measures helped her. Sher Singh offered an increase in wages and desertions began on a larger scale than ever. Within a fortnight of her assumption of power she had to have two battalions posted inside the fort for her safety.

  The Governors of the distant provinces failed to send the revenue in time and the soldiers were not even paid their first month’s wages as promised. The desertions became general; the few soldiers that remained in Lahore refused to obey officers loyal to the Mai. Unpaid soldiery ran riot in the countryside helping themselves at the expense of the poor peasantry.

  Then the rumour spread that the British Army was marching towards the frontier. There was panic in the Punjab.

  Sher Singh decided to take over power from the feeble hands of the widow and save the Punjab from disintegration. He sent a secret envoy to Mr. Clerk at Ludhiana to get British reactions to his bid for the throne. The British were bogged down in Afghanistan and badly needed assistance. In the Anglophile Sher Singh they saw a potential ally and gave him assurance of support.

  Sher Singh left Batala on 14th January 1841 at the head of an army composed of deserters who had flocked to his standard. He pitched his camp at Budhu da Ava just outside Lahore. Col. Gardner describes his arrival at the city outskirts: ‘The most tremendous roars that ever rose from a concourse of human beings drowned our voices, distant as it was, and warned us that the man had arrived. Sher Singh had indeed come, and planted his flag and pitched his camp on the high mound called Budhu da ava. The whole of his troops then thundered a salute, which continued for two hours, amid shouts of ‘Sher Singh Badshah! Dhyan Singh Wazir! Death to Chand Kaur and the Dogras!’

  The Mai decided to fight it out. She dismissed Tej Singh, who was disliked by the soldiers, and appointed Gulab Singh Dogra as administrator and defender of the city. She cleared four months’ arrears in the soldiers’ wages and lavished presents of gold bangles, necklaces, jewels and shawls on the officers. She issued orders to the city’s bankers forbidding them to lend money to Sher Singh. These measures had the reverse effect. The troops sensed the Mai’s nervousness and felt that she was trying to gain a lost cause by bribery. Sher Singh did not have much money but he was able to infuse confidence that his was the winning side and he would be able to redeem his promise of a permanent increase of Re. 1 per month in the wages of the troops as well as reward those who joined them. The Mai’s regiments stationed outside the city walls went over in a body to Sher Singh. The regiment guarding the magazine refused to supply her gunners with powder. Sher Singh had 26,000 infantry, 8,000 horses and 45 guns. The Mai was left with only 5,000 men and a limited quantity of gunpowder.

  On 15th January 1841, Sher Singh moved up from Shalamar Gardens towards Lahore. The gates of the city were forced open at night and many bazars were looted by his troops. Early on the morning of the 16th, Sher Singh entered Lahore. Amongst the officers with him were the Europeans Ventura, Court and Van Cortlandt. He made a belated proclamation assuring safety of life and property to the citizens and offered pardon to those who would leave the Mai’s service and come over to him. By the evening, the leading Sardars, including Sham Singh Attariwala, Fakir Azizuddin and the two Bhais, Gobind Ram and Ram Singh, who had instigated the Mai to stake her claim, made their submission. They forwarded a joint appeal to the Mai and Gulab Singh Dogra to lay down their arms.

  The Mai supported by Gulab Singh Dogra and the Sandhawalias refused to make an unconditional surrender. On 16th January, Sher Singh’s guns opened concentrated fire on the southern bastion of the fort. The defenders hit back, firing indiscriminately over the city. The bombardment continued for two days and many breaches were made in the three-hundred-year-old ramparts of the fort. The Dogras fought back stoutly and repelled attempts to rush the citadel. For two days the citizens of Lahore lived in peril of their lives. The bazars were cluttered with the debris of fallen houses; the stink of decaying corpses and carcases of animals became unbearable. Both sides had had enough of the fight—particularly the defenders of the fort, who had now to contend with snipers mounted on the minarets of the Badshahi Mosque which overlooked the palace courtyard. In the forty-eight hours of fighting nearly five thousand people were killed and almost half the houses of the city damaged.

  On the evening of 17th January 1841, Dhyan Singh Dogra arrived in Lahore and arranged a cease-fire the next day. He and Fakir Azizuddin began negotiations for a settlement. The Mai was
promised a jagir of Rs. 7 lakhs a year and allowed to retain a part of her husband’s treasure in exchange for the surrender of the fort. Sher Singh undertook to show her the respect due to a brother’s widow and agreed to retain the services of the men who had sided with her. The Mai’s resistance was broken and with tears in her eyes she put her signature to the document. Her short reign of a month and a half was over.

  At midnight Gulab Singh and his Dogras evacuated the fort, taking with them all the Durbar’s treasure kept at Lahore. It is said that sixteen carts were loaded with gold, silver and bullion and five hundred bags of gold mohurs were removed from the fort treasury.

  Gulab Singh paid his homage to Sher Singh and handed over the Koh-i-noor diamond to him. The Dogra was given leave to go to the North-West Frontier to help the British armies engaged in the Afghan campaign. The Sandhawalias were too proud to bend their knees before Sher Singh. Attar Singh and his nephew Ajit Singh sought asylum in British territory. Ajit Singh tried to see Clerk at Ludhiana and having failed with him, proceeded to Calcutta to see the Governor-General himself. Lehna Singh Sandhawalia was arrested and put in the dungeon.

  The next day Sher Singh entered the fort to the salute of the guns. His first act was to pay his respects to the deposed Mai, Chand Kaur.

  The widow paid dearly for her ambition. After her deposition, she not only acknowledged Sher Singh as Maharajah of the Punjab, but in order to retain her position agreed to marry him. It was decided that the nuptials should take place after a decent lapse of time. Chand Kaur moved out to a house in the city to await the day when Sher Singh would take her back to the palace as his Maharani.

  That day was not destined to dawn. One sultry day in the month of June, while the Maharajah was away in Batala, Chand Kaur got an attack of migraine and asked her maid-servants for medicine. Chand Kaur had reason to suspect that the medicine was tinctured with poison and threw it away. At night while she was resting, the same women stole into her apartments and smashed her skull with a grindstone. They were apprehended next morning, but instead of being made to confess, had their tongues pulled out and then executed.