In another part of Punjab, towards the north-west, in the region of Hazara, Chutter Singh, the nominal governor, also soon found himself in a similar situation. While Chutter Singh was the Durbar-appointed governor, the power lay with James Abbot, who held a particular disdain for the governor. In a similar unfortunate incident, an American officer by the name of Canora, a representative of the British, was killed by Chutter Singh’s soldiers. While this was an accident, Abbot was convinced that it was a show of rebellion by Chutter Singh.
Chutter Singh, much like Mulraj, became a reluctant leader of the rebellion, joined by his son Sher Singh, who had earlier gone to Multan with his soldiers to curb Mulraj’s rebellion, but owing to the changing situation and state of mind of his soldiers, had returned to Hazara. Mutual suspicion did not allow Mulraj and Sher Singh to join forces.22 Perhaps this could have been the key to changing the outcome of the war.
While the Sikh soldiers initially had reason to celebrate, the war was eventually lost after massive casualties on both sides. On 12 March 1849, the last battle was fought between the British and the forces of Chutter Singh and Sher Singh on the plains of Gujrat.
Throughout the war, the Lahore Durbar firmly stood behind the British. However, this was not good enough for Lord Dalhousie who blamed the Durbar for the rebellion even though it had no role to play in it, and used it as a pretext to usurp Punjab once and for all.
On 29 March 1849, Maharaja Duleep Singh held court at Lahore Fort for the last time, as he ‘renounced on his behalf and on behalf of all heirs and successors, every right, title or claim to Punjab’. 23 All the properties of the kingdom were taken over by the British, which included, among much else, the famed Koh-i-noor.
The garden once extended as far as the eye could see. The baradari of the sixteenth-century Sufi poet stood at one edge of the garden, while the River Ravi flowed behind it. This open ground was far away from the congested streets of the walled city. Its wide expanse allowed enough space for the Khalsa army to gather and exhibit its latest drills, under the command of its European officers, to the mighty Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He took immense pride in his army, the backbone of his empire. Impressed by the discipline of the British army, he had modelled his army on it, recruiting European officers and British renegades to teach his soldiers the same drills the British officers exhibited across the Sutlej.24 Sipping his wine in the shade of this breezy baradari, the maharaja would frequently monitor his soldiers’ discipline and preparedness.
Even if Maharaja Sher Singh lacked the political acumen and military genius of his father, he made up for it through pomp and splendour. He too would inspect the Khalsa army, bigger than it had been at the time of his father, in the wide expanse of the garden of Shah Bilawal. Most of the European officers who had trained the soldiers meticulously were still there. The Khalsa army that had expanded the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh from a small fiefdom in Gujranwala to all of Punjab, gulping down areas from Afghanistan to Kashmir and Multan, still looked ferocious.
The borders of the Khalsa Empire would have been even wider had it not been for the British. Even so, it was a remarkable empire that stretched from Peshawar in the west to the Sutlej in the east, and from Kashmir in the north to Multan in the south. Sitting at the head of this mighty army as the sovereign of the empire, through a stroke of luck, deceit, treachery, rebellion and violence, was Maharaja Sher Singh.
He had been away from the imperial capital when his father passed away after a prolonged illness. This had been done deliberately in order to ensure a smooth transition of power to the eldest son, Kharak Singh.25 Sher Singh, an able general who had proven himself in many battles, was convinced of his superiority but could not find enough support to back his claim. His fortunes turned unexpectedly when both Kharak Singh and his son and successor, Maharaja Nau Nihal Singh, died on the same day.
A scion of the Kanhaiya misl and the Sukerchakia misl (Ranjit Singh’s misl), Sher Singh, even before he was born, was destined to be the heir of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The Khalsa Empire was his prerogative. That is what his grandmother, Sada Kaur, had planned when she assisted a young Ranjit Singh in sweeping through Punjab. But that was not to be. Her daughter, Mehtab Kaur, Ranjit Singh’s first wife, was beaten to the post by Raj Kaur (also known as Datar Kaur), the second wife, who gave birth to Kharak Singh five years before Sher Singh was born.26 Kharak Singh thus became the heir apparent.
Sher Singh and Tara Singh were twin boys born in 1807 to Mehtab Kaur more than a decade after marriage. When the boys were born, gossip spread through the court claiming them to be ‘illegitimate’.27 Another rumour was that Mehtab Kaur had actually given birth to a girl and had replaced her child with two boys, newly born to a weaver and a carpenter.28 Threatened by the birth of a second son, the rumours were spread by Raj Kaur, Kharak Singh’s mother.29 In fact, so effective were these rumours that Ranjit Singh for some time refused to acknowledge the sons as his legitimate heirs, unlike what he did later on the birth of Duleep Singh.
With the ascension of Maharaja Kharak Singh and his tussle with his son, Nau Nihal Singh, Sher Singh stayed away from the capital, perhaps waiting for an opportune time. Fortune turned in his favour when, after Kharak Singh’s death, Nau Nihal Singh died mysteriously. With both rivals gone, there was general consensus among the Sikh aristocracy and the Khalsa army that Sher Singh would be an acceptable choice. Raja Dhian Singh, the cunning wazir who had earlier served under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and then under Kharak Singh and Nau Nihal Singh, now reached out to Sher Singh to prepare to march to Lahore and claim the throne. By this time another powerful group had emerged at the Lahore court and spilt the Durbar and the army right down the middle.
The Sandhawalia clans led by two brothers, Attar Singh and Lehna Singh, and their nephew Ajit Singh, shared familial connections with Ranjit Singh. They were also associated with Kharak Singh through his wife, Chand Kaur.30 By instigating members of the army, officers, and the Sikh aristocracy against the ‘influence’ of the Jammu brothers and by once again raising doubts about the paternity of Sher Singh, the Sandhawalias propped up Chand Kaur to take over the affairs of the court as regent. Chand Kaur claimed that her daughter-in-law was pregnant with Nau Nihal’s child, the rightful heir to the throne, and that she would be responsible for looking after the throne until the child was born and came of age.31 With the support of sections of the Khalsa army and the Sandhawalias, Chand Kaur was able to take control of the government, even if temporarily, with Raja Dhian Singh retained as the wazir.
It is believed that Dhian Singh would have continued serving the regent had Chand Kaur not favoured the advice of the Sandhawalias over him.32 Thus, while feigning loyalty to her, Dhian Singh reached out to Sher Singh to take over the throne. Meanwhile, he also began contacting different sections of the army and bribing them to stand behind Sher Singh in case of a showdown.
Behind the scenes, Sher Singh and Dhian Singh also began reaching out to the British to support them in their claim against Chand Kaur, while publicly Sher Singh accused the regent and the Sandhawalias of colluding with the British. The regent and the Sandhawalias too felt it necessary to ask the British for help.33 With heightened rhetoric against the British and the politicization of the Khalsa army, a genie had been unleashed: an act that would eventually result in the First Anglo-Sikh War and the imminent end of the Sikh Empire.
The political tension finally erupted when, upon hearing that Nau Nihal Singh’s wife had given birth to a stillborn child, Sher Singh—unannounced and supported by a large section of the army—reached Lahore on 14 January 1841 to snatch the crown from the ‘usurper’.34 However one of his principal supporters, Dhian Singh, was not in Lahore when Sher Singh arrived, while Dhian Singh’s brother, Ghulab Singh, present in Lahore, continued supporting the regent. With the gates of the fort locked, its boundary was surrounded by the army now openly supporting Sher Singh.
Without waiting for Dhian Singh, the army wanted to breach the walls of the fort and f
orcefully remove the regent and her supporters. Ghulab Singh did try with partial success to mediate between the two parties, but things finally settled with the arrival of Dhian Singh on 18 January. The regent was convinced to quit her position with a promise of a jagir, while the Sandhawalia brothers managed to flee to British territory. Sher Singh was pronounced maharaja and Dhian Singh retained his position as the wazir. As a reward for their loyalty, the soldiers were given a permanent increase in salary.35 A little more than a year later, on 11 June 1842, Chand Kaur was murdered by her maids, who were later killed on the orders of the wazir, Dhian Singh.36
With the former regent dead and the Sandhawalias away from Punjab, there was no ostensible threat to Maharaja Sher Singh. The situation turned again when, convinced by the British and his wazir, he allowed the Sandhawalias to return to Lahore. Soon after his ascension to power, Sher Singh distanced himself from his wazir and began relying on his ‘priest’, Bhai Gurmukh Singh.37 With the Sandhawalias back in Punjab, Dhian Singh began to conspire with them to weaken Maharaja Sher Singh’s hold on the throne. They were told that they had been invited back to Lahore as part of a ruse and that their life was under threat.38 Unbeknownst to Dhian Singh, Ajit Singh and Lehna Singh were making plans of their own. The three had decided to get rid of the maharaja, though what Dhian Singh did not know was that the brothers were also planning his death so that they could usurp the throne for themselves.
On an empty ground next to the baradari are the remains of the smadh of Maharaja Sher Singh. When I visited it in 2008, the entire structure, ringed by an outer wall, was in ruins. Facing the smadh, sitting on the floor outside a single room, a young man was grinding bhang leaves. A few older men stood next to him. At some point after Partition, the smadh of Maharaja Sher Singh had been converted into a Sufi shrine.39
The condition of the baradari was even worse. The roof had collapsed, the floral and geometric patterns on its walls had faded away. Where once the Ravi flowed behind the baradari, now there was a small enclosure for solid waste management put up by the district government. It was overflowing with garbage, with some of it spilling into this sixteenth-century structure. All traces of the garden which, along with Shalimar a few kilometres away, was one of the most famous in the city, had disappeared as the area around the smadh and the baradari were taken up by a congested locality.
On 15 September 1843, Maharaja Sher Singh was sitting at this baradari with his son Kanvar Pratap Singh, inspecting the Khalsa army, when his cousin Ajit Singh Sandhawalia asked him to look at a new English gun he had procured. Ever since his return, Ajit Singh had made efforts to grow close to the maharaja. Sher Singh, unaware of the plot, walked towards his death. Ajit Singh shot him and severed his head with his sword, while Lehna Singh killed the maharaja’s twelve-year-old son.
They subsequently marched towards Lahore Fort along with the wazir who, until that moment, thought they were executing a plan crafted by him. On the way to the fort, Dhian Singh was separated from his guards and also killed. The situation had by now spiralled out of control. A segment of the Khalsa army led by Hira Singh, Dhian Singh’s son, laid siege to the fort. The brothers were caught and killed by the army, their severed heads exhibited at the gates of Lahore as revenge for killing their maharaja.
The walled city of Lahore was said to have twelve gates and one mori, or small hole, that allowed entry into the city. After the gates were locked in the evening, the mori allowed visitors in. The primary function of Mori Gate, as it came to be known, was to allow the removal of garbage from the city. The dead would be taken through this exit for cremation on the banks of the Ravi. A little ahead of the gate, across from the grain market, there is a vast open ground called Maidan Bhaiyanwalla. This is where people congregated before taking the body for cremation.40
To one side of this ground stands one of the most splendid havelis of Lahore, that of Nau Nihal Singh—a four-storey structure, with wooden jharokas, false windows and frescoes on the external walls, adorned with floral and geometrical patterns. Next to its wooden door is a blue board that reads ‘Government Victoria Girls Higher Secondary School’. This remarkable haveli, the most exquisite specimen of Sikh heritage in Lahore, was converted into a government school under British rule, a role it continues to serve.
The frescoes inside the haveli are even more breathtaking. One notices Hindu motifs, drawings of Ram, Sita, Krishna and Radha, sharing space with pictures of Sikh Gurus, reminiscent of a time when there was no rigid distinction between Hinduism and Sikhism. The exclusivity was propped up during the colonial era when, similar to Hindus and Muslims, the Sikh community experienced a sharpening of communal identity.41
As various political intrigues unfolded after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, gradually leading to the disintegration of his empire, this haveli became host to two such plots. It is here that Kharak Singh was sent to ‘recover’ by his son Nau Nihal Singh as he became the de facto ruler. Kharak Singh breathed his last in this haveli. Maharani Chand Kaur too was sent here after she was deposed by Maharaja Sher Singh, to be killed by her maids.42
While drugs, alcohol, orgies and parties had always been a weakness of the crown prince, the situation did not improve much after he became the maharaja. Many of his generals and advisers quickly became frustrated with Kharak Singh’s inability to concentrate on matters of state.43 Leading the pack was Dhian Singh, who perhaps would not have been too bothered by Kharak Singh’s distractedness had the maharaja left the control of the administration completely to him. That was not to be. Soon after coming to power, Kharak Singh became close to Chet Singh, his relative by marriage.44 Aware of the ambitions of the young prince, Nau Nihal Singh, and the support he could muster, Dhian Singh began corresponding with him, urging him to return to Lahore and take over the reins of the kingdom.
An alleged process of slowly poisoning Kharak Singh ensued.45 As the small doses of poison mixed in his food began to affect the maharaja’s health, Nau Nihal Singh, with the help of the wazir, took charge of the Lahore Durbar. Over the next six months, as Kharak Singh’s organs began shutting down because of the poison, he became bedridden. In another five months, he was dead.46
During his short tenure as the head of the state on his father’s behalf, the young prince showed signs of promise. Given the political uncertainty, much of the kingdom suffered from a lack of law and order, while the army was beginning to show signs of disturbance which would soon have an effect on the political sphere. Not only was Nau Nihal able to manage law and order, he also utilized the army’s energy for further conquests. The areas of Mandi and Suket were appropriated under the leadership of General Ventura, while Ladakh and parts of Baltistan were included in the empire by Ghulab Singh.47
While Nau Nihal Singh worked with Dhian Singh to oust his father, it is also claimed that he eventually wanted to sideline Dhian Singh and his brothers who shared between them the administration of the Sikh Empire.48 Dhian Singh, astute as he was, is believed to have been aware of these plans, and is therefore suspected of orchestrating Nau Nihal’s death.
As Nau Nihal was returning from his father’s cremation, a gateway under which he was passing mysteriously collapsed, injuring his head. There are several conflicting reports about the exact nature of his injuries. Some claim that the injuries were brutal and the young maharaja lost his life soon after. Others claim that the injuries were only minor and that the maharaja was seen standing without support and even talking after the incident. He was taken to Lahore Fort, where he is believed to have died a little while later from severe injuries to his skull, which, if one were to go by some of the reports, did not exist at the time of the accident.49 In this way, the young maharaja, perhaps the only one who was worthy of walking in the shoes of his ancestor, died mysteriously on the same day as his father.
There were many who benefited from Nau Nihal’s untimely death, including his mother, Chand Kaur, who took up the role of regent. According to one narrative, she was about to perform sati w
ith the body of her husband when she witnessed the accident and escaped, going on to head Lahore Durbar.50
It is an unusual situation. The mosque’s loudspeakers are silent as the sound of the recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib echoes in the air. Gathered around a small palanquin, hundreds of Sikh men listen with their heads bowed as two Granthis recite from the sacred text. There is not a single woman in sight. Typically, this is not the case; almost as many women as men cross over the border to Lahore during various Sikh religious festivals around the year. This event, however, was an exception—the death anniversary of Sher-e-Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh was perhaps much more masculine an occasion than any other.
It was a Wednesday morning, 29 June 2011, and I had acquired special permission to attend the prayer ceremony for which a few hundred Sikh pilgrims had arrived in Lahore, an event that was otherwise shut off for Pakistani Muslims.
Located next to Badshahi Mosque, facing Lahore Fort, the smadh of Maharaja Ranjit Singh adds to the historicity of this area. Behind Badshahi Mosque and the fort is the walled city of Lahore, with the Ravi in the opposite direction, acting as an unofficial boundary for the contemporary city even though there are parts of it that have spread to the western side of the river.
The smadh is a multistorey building, a beautiful amalgamation of Hindu and Muslim architectural traditions. While there are cupolas and window balconies adorning its facade, there is a small dome at its apex. The smadh of Guru Arjan with its golden dome stands in the shadow of this smadh, paling somewhat in comparison.
Still preserved, the intricate artwork inside the smadh depicts court life. Similar to the haveli of Nau Nihal Singh, paintings of Hindu deities are dominant. On any regular day, a picture of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is placed at the smadh at the centre of the hall, along with the picture of the last maharaja of Punjab, Duleep Singh. Just behind the smadh is the last resting place of the eleven women who performed sati during Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s cremation, more evidence of how interconnected Sikhism was with Hinduism at the time. Four of them were his wives, the other seven his concubines.
Imagining Lahore Page 19