HISTORY—PRE-MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 500 B.C.—1000 A.D.
In Hindu period relations of Panjáb were with western kingdoms.—The large tract included in the British province of the Panjáb which lies between the Jamna and the Ghagar is, having regard to race, language, and past history, a part of Hindustán. Where "Panjáb" is used without qualification in this section the territories west of the Ghagar and south of Kashmír are intended. The true relations of the Panjáb and Kashmír during the Hindu period were, except for brief intervals, with Persia, Afghánistán, and Turkistán rather than with the great kingdoms founded in the valley of the Ganges and the Jamna.
Normal division into petty kingdoms and tribal confederacies.—The normal state of the Panjáb in early times was to be divided into a number of small kingdoms and tribal republics. Their names and the areas which they occupied varied from time to time. Names of kingdoms that have been rescued from oblivion are Gandhára, corresponding to Pesháwar and the valley of the Kábul river, Urasa or Hazára, where the name is still preserved in the Orash plain, Táxila, which may have corresponded roughly to the present districts of Ráwalpindí and Attock with a small part of Hazára, Abhisara or the low hills of Jammu, Kashmír, and Trigartta, with its capital Jalandhara, which occupied most of the Jalandhar division north of the Sutlej and the states of Chamba, Suket, and Mandí. The historians of Alexander's campaigns introduce us also to the kingdoms of the elder Poros on both banks of the Jhelam, of the younger Poros east of the Chenáb, and of Sophytés (Saubhutí) in the neighbourhood of the Salt Range. We meet also with tribal confederacies, such as in Alexander's time those of the Kathaioi on the upper, and of the Malloi on the lower, Ráví.
Invasion by Alexander, 327-325 B.C.—The great Persian king, Darius, in 512 B.C. pushed out the boundary of his empire to the Indus, then running in a more easternly course than to-day[4]. The army with which Xerxes invaded Greece included a contingent of Indian bowmen[5]. When Alexander overthrew the Persian Empire and started on the conquest of India, the Indus was the boundary of the former. His remarkable campaign lasted from April, 327 B.C., when he led an army of 50,000 or 60,000 Europeans across the Hindu Kush into the Kábul valley, to October, 325, when he started from Sindh on his march to Persia through Makrán. Having cleared his left flank by a campaign in the hills of Buner and Swát, he crossed the Indus sixteen miles above Attock near Torbela. The King of Táxila, whose capital was near the Margalla pass on the north border of the present Ráwalpindí district, had prudently submitted as soon as the Macedonian army appeared in the Kábul valley. From the Indus Alexander marched to Táxila, and thence to the Jhelam (Hydaspes), forming a camp near the site now occupied by the town of that name in the country of Poros. The great army of the Indian king was drawn up to dispute the passage probably not very far from the eastern end of the present railway bridge. Favoured by night and a monsoon rain-storm—it was the month of July, 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles higher up into the Karrí plain under the low hills of Gujrát. Here, somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since, the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the Chenáb (Akesines), stormed Sángala, a fort of the Kathaioi on the upper Ráví (Hydraotes) and advanced as far as the Biás (Hyphasis). But the weary soldiers insisted that this should be the bourn of their eastward march, and, after setting up twelve stone altars on the farther side, Alexander in September, 326 B.C., reluctantly turned back. Before he left the Panjáb he had hard fighting with the Malloi on the lower Ráví, and was nearly killed in the storm of one of their forts. Alexander intended that his conquests should be permanent, and made careful arrangements for their administration. But his death in June, 323 B.C., put an end to Greek rule in India. Chandra Gupta Maurya expelled the Macedonian garrisons, and some twenty years later Seleukos Nicator had to cede to him Afghánistán.
Maurya Dominion and Empire of Aşoka, 323-231 B.C.—Chandra Gupta is the Sandrakottos, to whose capital at Pataliputra (Patna) Seleukos sent Megasthenes in 303 B.C. The Greek ambassador was a diligent and truthful observer, and his notes give a picture of a civilized and complex system of administration. If Chandra Gupta was the David, his grandson, Aşoka, was the Solomon of the first Hindu Empire. His long reign, lasting from 273 to 231 B.C., was with one exception a period of profound peace deliberately maintained by an emperor who, after his conversion to the teaching of Gautama Buddha, thought war a sin. Aşoka strove to lead his people into the right path by means of pithy abstracts of the moral law of his master graven on rocks and pillars. It is curious to remember that this missionary king was peacefully ruling a great empire in India during the twenty-four years of the struggle between Rome and Carthage, which we call the first Punic War. Of the four Viceroys who governed the outlying provinces of the empire one had his headquarters at Táxila. One of the rock edicts is at Mansehra in Hazára and another at Sháhbázgarhí in Pesháwar. From this time and for many centuries the dominant religion in the Panjáb was Buddhism, but the religion of the villages may then have been as remote from the State creed as it is to-day from orthodox Brahmanism.
Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Parthian Rule.—The Panjáb slipped from the feeble grasp of Aşoka's successors, and for four centuries it looked not to the Ganges, but to the Kábul and the Oxus rivers.
Fig. 57. Coin—obverse and reverse of Menander.
Up to the middle of the first century of our era it was first under Graeco-Bactrian, and later under Graeco-Parthian, rule directly, or indirectly through local rulers with Greek names or Sáka Satraps. The Sákas, one of the central Asian shepherd hordes, were pushed out of their pastures on the upper Jaxartes by another horde, the Yuechí. Shadowy Hellenist Princes have left us only their names on coins; one Menander, who ruled about 150 B.C., is an exception. He anticipated the feats of later rulers of Kábul by a temporary conquest of North-Western India, westwards to the Jamna and southwards to the sea.
The Kushán Dynasty.—The Yuechí in turn were driven southward to the Oxus and the Kábul valley and under the Kushán dynasty established their authority in the Panjáb about the middle of the first century. The most famous name is that of Kanishka, who wrested from China Kashgár, Yarkand, and Khotan, and assembled a notable council of sages of the law in Kashmír. His reign may be dated from 120 to 150 A.D. His capital was at Purushapura (Pesháwar), near which he built the famous relic tower of Buddha, 400 feet high. Beside the tower was a large monastery still renowned in the ninth and tenth centuries as a home of sacred learning. The rule of Kushán kings in the Panjáb lasted till the end of the first quarter of the third century. To their time belong the Buddhist sculptures found in the tracts near their Pesháwar capital (see also page [204]).
The Gupta Empire.—Of the century preceding the establishment in 320 B.C. of the Gupta dynasty at Patna we know nothing. The Panjáb probably again fell under the sway of petty rájas and tribal confederacies, though the Kushán rule was maintained in Pesháwar till 465 A.D., when it was finally blotted out by the White Huns. These savage invaders soon after defeated Skanda Gupta, and from this blow the Gupta Empire never recovered. At the height of its power in 400 A.D. under Chandra Gupta II, known as Vikramaditya, who is probably the original of the Bikramajít of Indian legends, it may have reached as far west as the Chenáb.
The White Huns or Ephthalites.—In the beginning of the sixth century the White Hun, Mahirakula, ruled the Panjáb from Sakala, the modern Siálkot. He was a worshipper of Şiva, and a deadly foe of the Buddhist cult, and has been described as a monster of cruelty.
The short-lived dominion of the White Huns was destroyed by the Turks and Persians about the year 565 A.D.
Panjáb in seventh century A.D.—From various sources, one of the most valuable being the Memoirs of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who travelled in India from 630 to 644 A.D., we know something of Northern India in the first half of the seventh century. Hiuen Tsang was at Kanauj as a guest of a powerful king named Harsha, whose first capital was at Thanesar, and who held a suzerainty over all the rájas from the Brahmaputra to the Biás. West of that river the king of Kashmír was also overlord of Táxila, Urasa, Parnotsa (Punch), Rájapurí (Rajaurí) and Sinhapura, which seems to have included the Salt Range. The Pesháwar valley was probably ruled by the Turkí Shahiya kings of Kábul. The rest of the Panjáb was divided between a kingdom called by Hiuen Tsang Tsekhia, whose capital was somewhere near Siálkot, and the important kingdom of Sindh, in which the Indus valley as far north as the Salt Range was included. Harsha died in 647 A.D. and his empire collapsed.
Kashmír under Hindu Kings.—For the next century China was at the height of its power. It established a suzerainty over Kashmír, Udyána (Swát), Yasín, and Chitrál. The first was at this period a powerful Hindu kingdom. Its annals, as recorded in Kalhana's Rájataranginí, bear henceforward a real relation to history. In 733 A.D. King Muktapida Lálitáditya received investiture from the Chinese Emperor. Seven years later he defeated the King of Kanauj on the Ganges. A ruler who carried his arms so far afield must have been very powerful in the Northern Panjáb. The remains of the wonderful Mártand temple, which he built in honour of the Sun God, are a standing memorial of his greatness. The history of Kashmír under its Hindu kings for the next 400 years is for the most part that of a wretched people ground down by cruel tyrants. A notable exception was Avantidharman—855-883 A.D.—whose minister, Suyya, carried out very useful drainage and irrigation works.
Fig. 58. Mártand Temple.
The Panjáb, 650-1000 A.D.—We know little of Panjáb history in the 340 years which elapsed between the death of Harsha and the beginning of the Indian raids of the Sultans of Ghazní in 986-7 A.D. The conquest of the kingdom of Sindh by the Arab general, Muhammad Kásim, occurred some centuries earlier, in 712 A.D. Multán, the city of the Sun-worshippers, was occupied, and part at least of the Indus valley submitted to the youthful conqueror. He and his successors in Sindh were tolerant rulers. No attempt was made to occupy the Central Panjáb, and when the Turkish Sultán, Sabaktagin, made his first raid into India in 986-7 A.D., his opponent was a powerful rája named Jaipál, who ruled over a wide territory extending from the Hakra to the frontier hills on the north-west. His capital was at Bhatinda. Just about the time when the rulers of Ghazní were laying the train which ended at Delhi and made it the seat of a great Muhammadan Empire, that town was being founded in 993-4 A.D. by the Tunwar Rájputs, who then held sway in that neighbourhood.
CHAPTER XVIII
HISTORY (continued). THE MUHAMMADAN PERIOD, 1000-1764 A.D.
The Ghaznevide Raids.—In the tenth century the Turks were the janissaries of the Abbaside Caliphs of Baghdád, and ambitious soldiers of that race began to carve out kingdoms. One Alptagin set up for himself at Ghazní, and was succeeded in 976 A.D. by his slave Sabaktagin, who began the long series of Indian raids which stained with blood the annals of the next half-century. His son, Mahmúd of Ghazní, a ruthless zealot and robber abroad, a patron of learning and literature at home, added the Panjáb to his dominions. In the first 26 years of the eleventh century he made seventeen marauding excursions into India. In the first his father's opponent, Jaipál, was beaten in a vain effort to save Pesháwar. Ten years later his successor, Anandpál, at the head of a great army, again met the Turks in the Khaibar. The valour of the Ghakkars had practically won the day, when Anandpál's elephant took fright, and this accident turned victory into rout. In one or other of the raids Multán and Lahore were occupied, and the temples of Kángra (Nagarkot) and Thanesar plundered. In 1018 the Turkish army marched as far east as Kanauj. The one permanent result of all these devastations was the occupation of the Panjáb. The Turks made Lahore the capital.
Decline of Buddhism.—The iconoclastic raids of Mahmúd probably gave the coup de grâce to Buddhism. Its golden age may be put at from 250 B.C. to 200 A.D. Brahmanism gradually emerged from retirement and reappeared at royal courts. It was quite ready to admit Buddha to its pantheon, and by so doing it sapped the doctrine he had taught. The Chinese pilgrim, Fahien, in the early part of the fifth century could still describe Buddhism in the Panjáb as "very flourishing," and he found numerous monasteries. The religion seems however to have largely degenerated into a childish veneration of relics.
Conquest of Delhi.—For a century and a quarter after the death of Mahmúd in 1030 A.D. his line maintained its sway over a much diminished empire. In 1155 the Afghán chief of Ghor, Alá ud dín, the "World-burner" (Jahán-soz), levelled Ghazní with the ground. For a little longer the Ghaznevide Turkish kings maintained themselves in Lahore. Between 1175 and 1186 Muhammad Ghorí, who had set up a new dynasty at Ghazní, conquered Multán, Peshawar, Siálkot, and Lahore, and put an end to the line of Mahmúd. The occupation of Sirhind brought into the field Prithví Rája, the Chauhán Rájput king of Delhi. In 1191 he routed Muhammad Ghorí at Naráina near Karnál. But next year the Afghán came back with a huge host, and this time on the same battlefield fortune favoured him. Prithví Rája was taken and killed, and Muhammad's slave, Kutbuddín Aibak, whom he left to represent him in India, soon occupied Delhi. In 1203 Muhammad Ghorí had to flee for his life after a defeat near the Oxus. The Ghakkars seized the chance and occupied Lahore. But the old lion, though wounded, was still formidable. The Ghakkars were beaten, and, it is said, converted. A year or two later they murdered their conqueror in his tent near the Indus.
Turkish and Afgháns Sultáns of Delhi.—He had no son, and his strong viceroy, Kutbuddín Aibak, became in 1206 the first of the 33 Muhammadan kings, who in five successive dynasties ruled from Delhi a kingdom of varying dimensions, till the last of them fell at Pánipat in 1526, and Bábar, the first of the Moghals, became master of their red fort palace. The blood-stained annals of these 320 years can only be lightly touched on. Under vigorous rulers like the Turkí Slave kings, Altamsh (1210-1236) and Balban (1266-1287), a ferocious and masterful boor like Alá ud dín Khaljí (1296-1316), or a ferocious but able man of culture like Muhammad Tughlak (1325-1351), the local governors at Lahore and Multán were content to be servants. In the frequent intervals during which the royal authority was in the hands of sottish wastrels, the chance of independence was no doubt seized.
Mongol Invasions.—In 1221 the Mongol cloud rose on the north-west horizon. The cruelty of these camel-riding Tatars and the terror they inspired may perhaps be measured by the appalling picture given of their bestial appearance. In 1221, Chingiz Khán descended on the Indus at the heels of the King of Khwarizm (Khiva), and drove him into Sindh. Then there was a lull for twenty years, after which the Mongol war hordes ruined and ravaged the Panjáb for two generations. Two great Panjáb governors, Sher Khán under Balban and Tughlak under Alá ud dín Khaljí, maintained a gallant struggle against these savages. In 1297 and 1303 the Mongols came to the gates of Delhi, but the city did not fall, and soon after they ceased to harry Northern India. During these years the misery of the common people must often have been extreme. When foreign raids ceased for a time they were plundered by their own rulers. In the Panjáb the fate of the peasantry must have depended chiefly on the character of the governor for the time being, and of the local feudatories or zamíndárs, who were given the right to collect the State's share of the produce on condition of keeping up bodies of armed men for service when required.
The Invasion of Timúr.—The long reign of Muhammad Tughlak's successor, Firoz Sháh (1351-1388), son of a Hindu Rájput princess of Dipálpur, brought relief to all classes. Besides adopting a moderate fiscal policy, he founded towns like Hissár and Fatehábád, dug canals from the Jamna and the Sutlej, and carried out many other useful works. On his death the realm fell into confusion. In 1398-99 another appalling calamity fell upon it in the invasion of Timúrlang (Tamerlane), Khán of Samarkand. He entered India at the head of 90,000 horsemen, and marched by Multán, Dipálpur, Sirsa, Kaithal, and Pánipat to Delhi. What lust of blood was to the Mongols, religious hatred was to Timúr and his Turks. Ten thousand Hindus were put to the sword at Bhatner and 100,000 prisoners were massacred before the victory at Delhi. For the three days' sack of the royal city Timúr was not personally responsible. Sated with the blood of lakhs of infidels sent "to the fires of Hell" he marched back through Kángra and Jammu to the Indus. Six years later the House of Tughlak received a deadly wound when the Wazír, Ikbál Khan, fell in battle with Khizr Khán, the governor of Multán.
The later Dynasties.—The Saiyyids, who were in power from 1414 to 1451, only ruled a small territory round Delhi. The local governors and the Hindu chiefs made themselves independent. Sikandar Lodí (1488-1518) reduced them to some form of submission, but his successor, Ibrahím, drove them into opposition by pushing authority further than his power justified. An Afghán noble, Daulat Khán, rebelled in the Panjáb. There is always an ear at Kábul listening to the first sounds of discord and weakness between Pesháwar and Delhi. Bábar, a descendant of Timúr, ruled a little kingdom there. In 1519 he advanced as far as Bhera. Five years later his troops burned the Lahore bazár, and sacked Dipálpur. The next winter saw Bábar back again, and this time Delhi was his goal. On the 21st of April, 1526, a great battle at Pánipat again decided the fate of India, and Bábar entered Delhi in triumph.
Akbar and his successors.—He soon bequeathed his Indian kingdom to his son Humáyun, who lost it, but recovered it shortly before his death by defeating Sikandar Sur at Sirhind. In 1556 Akbar succeeded at the age of 13, and in the same year Bahram Khán won for his master a great battle at Pánipat and seated the Moghals firmly on the throne. For the next century and a half, till their power declined after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Kábul and Delhi were under one rule, and the Panjáb was held in a strong grasp. When it was disturbed the cause was rebellions of undutiful sons of the reigning Emperor, struggles between rival heirs on the Emperor's death, or attempts to check the growing power of the Sikh Gurus. The empire was divided into súbahs, and the area described in this book embraced súbahs Lahore and Multán, and parts of súbahs Delhi and Kábul. Kashmír and the trans-Indus tract were included in the last.
The Sultáns of Kashmír.—The Hindu rule in Kashmír had broken down by the middle of the twelfth century. A long line of Musalmán Sultáns followed. Two notable names emerge in the end of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, Sikandar, the "Idol-breaker," who destroyed most of the Hindu temples and converted his people to Islám, and his wise and tolerant successor, Zain-ul-ábidín. Akbar conquered Kashmír in 1587.
Moghal Royal Progresses to Kashmír.—His successors often moved from Delhi by Lahore, Bhimbar, and the Pír Panjál route to the Happy Valley in order to escape the summer heats. Bernier has given us a graphic account of Aurangzeb's move to the hills in 1665. On that occasion his total following was estimated to amount to 300,000 or 400,000 persons, and the journey from Delhi to Lahore occupied two months. The burden royal progresses on this scale must have imposed on the country is inconceivable. Jahángír died in his beloved Kashmír. He planted the road from Delhi to Lahore with trees, set up as milestones the kos minárs, some of which are still standing, and built fine sarais at various places.
Prosperity of Lahore under Akbar, Jahángír, and Sháhjahán.—The reigns of Akbar and of his son and grandson were the heyday of Lahore. It was the halfway house between Delhi and Kashmír, and between Agra and Kábul. The Moghal Court was often there. Akbar made the city his headquarters from 1584 to 1598. Jahángír was buried and Sháhjahán was born at Lahore. The mausoleum of the former is at Sháhdara, a mile or two from the city. Sháhjahán made the Shálimár garden, and Ali Mardán Khán's Canal, the predecessor of our own Upper Bárí Doáb Canal, was partly designed to water it. Lahore retained its importance under Aurangzeb, till he became enmeshed in the endless Deccan wars, and his successor, Bahádur Shah, died there in 1712.
Bába Nának, the first Guru.—According to Sikh legend Bábar in one of his invasions had among his prisoners their first Guru, Bába Nának, and tried to make him a Musalmán. Nának was born in 1469 at Talwandí, now known as Nankána Sáhib, 30 miles to the south-west of Lahore, and died twelve years after Bábar's victory at Pánipat. He journeyed all over India, and, if legend speaks true, even visited Mecca. His propaganda was a peaceful one. A man of the people himself, he had a message to deliver to a peasantry naturally impatient of the shackles of orthodox Hinduism. Sikhism is the most important of all the later dissents from Brahmanism, which represent revolts against idolatry, priestly domination, and the bondage of caste and ritual. These things Nának unhesitatingly condemned, and in the opening lines of his Japjí, the morning service which every true Sikh must know by heart, he asserted in sublime language the unity of God.
Fig. 59. Bába Nának and the Musician Mardána.
The Gurus between Nának and Govind.—The first three successors of Nának led the quiet lives of great eastern saints. They managed to keep on good terms with the Emperor and generally also with his local representatives. The fifth Guru, Arjan (1581-1606), began the welding of the Sikhs into a body fit to play a part in secular politics. He compiled their sacred book, known as the Granth Sáhib, and made Amritsar the permanent centre of their faith. The tenets of these early Gurus chimed in with the liberal sentiments of Akbar, and he treated them kindly. Arjan was accused of helping Khusru, Jahángír's rebellious son, and is alleged to have died after suffering cruel tortures.
Hitherto there had been little ill-will between monotheistic Sikhs and Muhammadans. Henceforth there was ever-increasing enmity. The peasant converts to the new creed had many scores against Turk officials to pay off, while the new leader Hargovind (1606-1645), had the motive of revenge. He was a Guru of a new type, a lover of horses and hawks, and a man of war. He kept up a bodyguard, and, when danger threatened, armed followers flocked to his standard. The easy-going Jahángír (1605-1627) on the whole treated him well. Sháhjahán (1627-1659) was more strict or less prudent, and during his reign there were several collisions between the imperial troops and the Guru's followers. Hargovind was succeeded by his grandson, Har Rai (1645-1661). The new Guru was a man of peace. Har Rai died in 1661, having nominated his younger son, Harkrishn, a child of six, as his successor. His brother, Rám Rai, disputed his claim, but Aurangzeb confirmed Harkrishn's appointment. He died of small pox in 1664 and was succeeded by his uncle, Teg Bahádur (1664-1675), whose chief titles to fame are his execution in 1675, his prophecy of the coming of the English, and the fact that he was the father of the great tenth Guru, Govind. It is said that when in prison at Delhi he gazed southwards one day in the direction of the Emperor's zanána. Charged with this impropriety, he replied: "I was looking in the direction of the Europeans, who are coming to tear down thy pardas and destroy thine empire."
Fig. 60. Guru Govind Singh.
Guru Govind Singh.—When Govind (1675-1708) succeeded his father, Aurangzeb had already started on the course of persecution which fatally weakened the pillars of Turkish rule. Govind grew up with a rooted hatred of the Turks, and a determination to weld his followers into a league of fighting men or Khálsa (Ar. khális = pure), admission into which was by the pahul, a form of military baptism. Sikhs were henceforth to be Singhs (lions). They were forbidden to smoke, and enjoined to wear the five k's, kes, kangha, kripan, kachh, and kara (uncut hair, comb, sword, short drawers, and steel bracelet). He established himself at Anandpur beyond the Hoshyárpur Siwáliks. Much of his life was spent in struggles with his neighbours, the Rájput Hill Rájas, backed from time to time by detachments of imperial troops from Sirhind. In 1705 two of his sons were killed fighting and two young grandsons were executed at Sirhind. He himself took refuge to the south of the Sutlej, but finally decided to obey a summons from Aurangzeb, and was on the way to the Deccan when the old Emperor died. The Guru took up his residence on the banks of the Godávarí, and died there in 1708.
Bánda.—Before his death he had converted the Hindu ascetic Bánda, and sent him forth on a mission of revenge. Bánda defeated and slew the governor of Sirhind, Wazír Khán, and sacked the town. Doubtless he dreamed of making himself Guru. But he was really little more than a condottiere, and his orthodoxy was suspect. He was defeated and captured in 1715 at Gurdáspur. Many of his followers were executed and he himself was tortured to death at Delhi, where the members of an English mission saw a ghastly procession of Sikh prisoners with 2000 heads carried on poles. The blow was severe, and for a generation little was heard of the Sikhs.
Invasions of Nádir Sháh and Ahmad Sháh.—The central power was weak, and a new era of invasions from the west began. Nádir Sháh, the Turkman shepherd, who had made himself master of Persia, advanced through the Panjáb. Zakaria Khán, the governor of Lahore, submitted and the town was saved from sack. A victory at Karnál left the road to Delhi open, and in March, 1738, the Persians occupied the capital. A shot fired at Nádir Sháh in the Chándní Chauk led to the nine hours' massacre, when the Daríba ran with blood, and 100,000 citizens are said to have perished. The Persians retired laden with booty, including the peacock throne and the Kohinur diamond. The Sikhs harassed detachments of the army on its homeward march. Nádir Sháh was murdered nine years later, and his power passed to the Afghán leader, the Durání Ahmad Sháh.
Between 1748 and 1767 this remarkable man, who could conquer but could not keep, invaded India eight times. Lahore was occupied in 1748, but at Sirhind the skill of Mír Mannu, called Muín ul Mulk, gave the advantage to the Moghals. Ahmad Sháh retreated, and Muín ul Mulk was rewarded with the governorship of the Panjáb. He was soon forced to cede to the Afghán the revenue of four districts. His failure to fulfil his compact led to a third invasion in 1752, and Muín ul Mulk, after a gallant defence of Lahore, had to submit. In 1755-56 Ahmad Sháh plundered Delhi and then retired, leaving his son, Timúr, to represent him at Lahore. Meanwhile the Sikhs had been gathering strength. Then, as now, they formed only a fraction of the population. But they were united by a strong hatred of Muhammadan rule, and in the disorganized state of the country even the loose organization described below made them formidable. Owing to the weakness of the government the Panjáb became dotted over with forts, built by local chiefs, who undoubtedly lived largely by plunder. The spiritual organization under a Guru being gone, there gradually grew up a political and military organization into twelve misls, in which "a number of chiefs agreed, after a somewhat democratic and equal fashion, to fight under the general orders of some powerful leader" against the hated Muhammadans. The misls often fought with one another for a change. In the third quarter of the eighteenth century Sardár Jassa Singh of Kapúrthala, head of the Ahluwália misl, was the leading man among the Sikhs. Timúr having defiled the tank at Amritsar, Jassa Singh avenged the insult by occupying Lahore in 1756, and the Afghán prince withdrew across the Indus. Adína Beg, the governor of the Jalandhar Doáb, called in the Mahrattas, who drove the Sikhs out in 1758. Ahmad Sháh's fifth invasion in 1761 was rendered memorable by his great victory over the Mahratta confederacy at Pánipat. When he returned to Kábul, the Sikhs besieged his governor, Zín Khán, in Sirhind. Next year Ahmad Sháh returned, and repaid their audacity by a crushing defeat near Barnála.
They soon rallied, and, in 1763, under Jassa Singh Ahluwália and Rája Ala Singh of Patiála razed Sirhind to the ground. After the sack the Sikh horsemen rode over the plains between Sirhind and Karnál, each man claiming for his own any village into which in passing he had thrown some portion of his garments. This was the origin of the numerous petty chiefships and confederacies of horsemen, which, along with the Phulkian States, the British Government took under its protection in 1808. In 1764 the chiefs of the Bhangí misl occupied Lahore.
CHAPTER XIX
HISTORY (continued). THE SIKH PERIOD, 1764-1849 A.D.
Rise of Ranjít Singh.—The Bhangís held Lahore with brief intervals for 25 years. In 1799, Ranjít Singh, basing his claim on a grant from Sháh Zamán, the grandson of Ahmad Sháh, drove them out, and inaugurated the remarkable career which ended with his death in 1839. When he took Lahore the future Mahárája was only nineteen years of age. He was the head of the Sukarchakia misl, which had its headquarters at Gujránwála. Mean in appearance, his face marked and one eye closed by the ravages of smallpox, he was the one man of genius the Jat tribe has produced. A splendid horseman, a bold leader, a cool thinker untroubled with scruples, an unerring judge of character, he was bound to rise in such times. He set himself to put down every Sikh rival and to profit by the waning of the Durání power to make himself master of their possessions in the Panjáb. Pluck, patience, and guile broke down all opposition among the Mánjha Sikhs. The Sikh chiefs to the south of the Sutlej were only saved from the same fate by throwing themselves in 1808 on the protection of the English, who six years earlier had occupied Delhi, and by taking under their protection the blind old Emperor, Sháh Álam, had virtually proclaimed themselves the paramount power in India. For 44 years he had been only a piece in the game played by Mahrattas, Rohillas, and the English in alliance with the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh.
Fig. 61. Mahárája Ranjít Singh.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for Mahárája Dalíp Singh.)
British supremacy established in India.—In the first years of the nineteenth century the Marquess of Wellesley had made up his mind that the time was ripe to grasp supreme power in India. The motive was largely self-preservation. India was included in Napoleon's vast plans for the overthrow of England, and Sindhia, with his army trained in European methods of warfare by French officers, seemed a likely confederate. Colonel Arthur Wellesley's hard-won battle at Assaye in September, 1803, and Lord Lake's victories on the Hindan and at Laswárí in the same year, decided the fate of India. Delhi was occupied, and Daulat Rao Sindhia ceded to the company territory reaching from Fázilka on the Sutlej to Delhi on the Jamna, and extending along that river northwards to Karnál and southwards to Mewát. Fázilka and a large part of Hissár then formed a wild desert tract called Bhattiána, over which no effective control was exercised till 1818. In 1832 "the Delhi territory" became part of the North-West Provinces, from which it was transferred to the Panjáb after the Mutiny.
Relations of Ranjít Singh with English.—In December, 1808, Ranjít Singh was warned that by the issue of the war with Sindhia the Cis-Sutlej chiefs had come under British protection. The Mahárája was within an ace of declaring war, or let the world think so, but his statesmanlike instincts got the better of mortified ambition, and in April, 1809, he signed a treaty pledging himself to make no conquests south and east of the Sutlej. The compact so reluctantly made was faithfully observed. In 1815, as the result of war with the Gurkhas, the Rájput hill states lying to the south of the Sutlej came under British protection.
Extension of Sikh Kingdom in Panjáb.—As early as 1806, when he reduced Jhang, Ranjít Singh began his encroachments on the possessions of the Duránís in the Panjáb. Next year, and again in 1810 and 1816, Multán was attacked, but the strong fort was not taken till 1818, when the old Nawáb, Muzaffar Khán, and five of his sons, fell fighting at the gate. Kashmír was first attacked in 1811 and finally annexed in 1819. Called in by the great Katoch Rája of Kángra, Sansár Chand, in 1809, to help him against the Gurkhas, Ranjít Singh duped both parties, and became master of the famous fort. Many years later he annexed the whole of the Kángra hill states. By 1820 the Mahárája was supreme from the Sutlej to the Indus, though his hold on Hazára was weak. Pesháwar became tributary in 1823, but it was kept in subjection with much difficulty. Across the Indus the position of the Sikhs was always precarious, and revenue was only paid when an armed force could be sent to collect it. As late as 1837 the great Sikh leader, Harí Singh Nalwa, fell fighting with the Afgháns at Jamrúd. The Barakzai, Dost Muhammad, had been the ruler of Kábul since 1826. In 1838, when the English launched their ill-starred expedition to restore Sháh Shuja to his throne, Ranjít Singh did not refuse his help in the passage through the Panjáb. But he was worn out by toils and excesses, and next year the weary lion of the Panjáb died. He had known how to use men. He employed Jat blades and Brahman and Muhammadan brains. Khatrís put both at his service. The best of his local governors was Diwán Sáwan Mal, who ruled the South-West Panjáb with much profit to himself and to the people. After 1820 the three Jammu brothers, Rájas Dhián Singh, Suchet Singh, and Guláb Singh, had great power.
Successors of Ranjít Singh.—From 1839 till 1846 an orgy of bloodshed and intrigue went on in Lahore. Kharak Singh, the Mahárája's son, died in 1840, and on the same day occurred the death of his son Nao Nihál Singh, compassed probably by the Jammu Rájas. Sher Singh, and then the child, Dalíp Singh, succeeded. In September, 1843, Mahárája Sher Singh, his son Partáb Singh, and Rája Dhián Singh were shot by Ajít Singh and Lehna Singh of the great Sindhanwália house. The death of Dhián Singh was avenged by his son, Híra Singh, who proclaimed Dalíp Singh as Mahárája and made himself chief minister. When he in turn was killed Rání Jindan, the mother of Dalíp Singh, her brother Jowáhir Singh, and her favourite, Lál Singh, took the reins.
Fig. 62. Mahárája Kharak Singh.
Fig. 63. Nao Nihál Singh.
Fig. 64. Mahárája Sher Singh.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for Mahárája Dalíp Singh.)
The First Sikh War and its results.—In 1845 these intriguers, fearing the Khálsa army which they could not control, yielded to its cry to be led across the Sutlej in the hope that its strength would be broken in its conflict with the Company's forces. The valour displayed by the Sikh soldiery on the fields of Mudkí, Ferozesháh (Pherushahr), and Sobráon was rendered useless by the treachery of its rulers, and Lahore was occupied in February, 1846. By the treaty signed on 9th March, 1846, the Mahárája ceded the territories in the plains between the Sutlej and Biás, and in the hills between the Biás and the Indus. Kashmír and Hazára were made over by the Company to Rája Guláb Singh for a payment of 75 lakhs, but next year he induced the Lahore Darbár to take over Hazára and give him Jammu in exchange. After Rája Lál Singh had been banished for instigating Shekh Imám ud din to resist the occupation of Kashmír by Guláb Singh, an agreement was executed, in December, 1846, between the Government and the chief Sikh Sardárs by which a Council of Regency was appointed to be controlled by a British Resident at Lahore. The office was given to Henry Lawrence.
The Second Sikh War.—These arrangements were destined to be short-lived. Diwán Sáwan Mal's son, Mulráj, mismanaged Multán and was ordered to resign. In April, 1848, two English officers sent to instal his Sikh successor were murdered. Herbert Edwardes, with the help of Muhammadan tribesmen and Baháwalpur troops, shut up Mulráj in Multán, but the fort was too strong for the first British regular force, which arrived in August, and it did not fall till January, 1849. During that winter a formidable Sikh revolt against English domination broke out. Its leader was Sardár Chatar Singh, Governor of Hazára. The troops sent by the Darbár to Multán under Chatar Singh's son, Sher Singh, marched northwards in September to join their co-religionists.
On the 13th of January, 1849, Lord Gough fought a very hardly contested battle at Chilianwála. If this was but a doubtful victory, that won six weeks later at Gujrát was decisive. On 12th March, 1849, the soldiers of the Khálsa in proud dejection laid down their weapons at the feet of the victor, and dispersed to their homes.
Fig. 65. Zamzama Gun[6].
Annexation.—The cause they represented was in no sense a national one. The Sikhs were a small minority of the population, the bulk of the people being Muhammadans, to whom the English came as deliverers. On the 30th of March, 1849, the proclamation annexing the Panjáb was read at Lahore.
CHAPTER XX
HISTORY (continued). THE BRITISH PERIOD, 1849-1913
Administrative Arrangements in Panjáb.—Lord Dalhousie put the government of the province under a Board of Administration consisting of the two Lawrences, Henry and John, and Charles Mansel. The Board was abolished in 1853 and its powers vested in a Chief Commissioner. A Revenue or Financial Commissioner and a Judicial Commissioner were his principal subordinates. John Lawrence, the first and only Chief Commissioner of the Panjáb, became its first Lieutenant-Governor on the 1st of January, 1859. The raising of the Panjáb to the full rank of an Indian province was the fitting reward of the great part which its people and its officers, with their cool-headed and determined chief, had played in the suppression of the Mutiny. The overthrow of the Khálsa left the contending parties with the respect which strong men feel for each other; the services of the Sikhs in 1857 healed their wounded pride and removed all soreness.
Fig. 66. Sir John Lawrence.
Administration, 1849-1859.—When John Lawrence laid down his office in the end of February, 1859, ten years of work by himself and the able officers drafted by Lord Dalhousie into the new province had established order on a solid foundation. A strong administration suited to a manly and headstrong people had been organised. In the greater part of the province rights in land had been determined and recorded. The principle of a moderate assessment of the land revenue had been laid down and partially carried out in practice. The policy of canal and railway development, which was to have so great a future in the Panjáb, had been definitely started. The province had been divided into nine divisions containing 33 districts. The Divisional Commissioners were superintendents of revenue and police with power to try the gravest criminal offences and to hear appeals in civil cases. The Deputy Commissioner of districts had large civil, criminal, and fiscal powers. A simple criminal and civil code was enforced. The peace of the frontier was secured by a chain of fortified outposts watching the outlets from the hills, behind which were the cantonments at the headquarters of the districts linked together by a military road. The posts and the cantonments except Pesháwar were garrisoned by the Frontier Force, a splendid body of troops consisting ultimately of seven infantry and five cavalry regiments, with some mule batteries. This force was till 1885 subject to the orders of the Lieutenant Governor. It never wanted work, for before the Mutiny troops had to be employed seventeen times against the independent tribesmen. East of the Indus order was secured by the disarmament of the people, the maintenance, in addition to civil police, of a strong body of military police, and the construction of good roads. Just before Lawrence left the construction of the Amritsar-Multán railway was begun, and a few weeks after his departure the Upper Bárí Doáb Canal was opened.
Fig. 67. John Nicolson's Monument at Delhi.
Administration, 1859-1870.—The next eleven years occupied by the administrations of Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Donald Macleod were a quiet time in which results already achieved were consolidated. The Penal Code was extended to the Panjáb in 1862, and a Chief Court with a modest establishment of two judges in 1865 took the place of the Judicial Commissioner. In the same year a Settlement Commissioner was appointed to help the Financial Commissioner in the control of land revenue settlements. Two severe famines marked the beginning and the close of this period. Omitting the usual little frontier excitements, it is necessary to mention the troublesome Ambela campaign in 1863 in the country north of Pesháwar, which had for its object the breaking up of the power of a nest of Hindustání fanatics, and the Black Mountain expedition, in 1868, on the Hazára border, in which no fewer than 15,000 men were employed. Sir Henry Durand, who succeeded Sir Donald Macleod, after seven months of office lost his life by an accident in the beginning of 1871.
Fig. 68. Sir Robert Montgomery.
Administration, 1871-1882.—The next eleven years divided between the administrations of Sir Henry Davies (1871-1877) and Sir Robert Egerton (1877-1882) produced more striking events. In 1872 a small body of fanatics belonging to a Sikh sect known as Kúkas or Shouters marched from the Ludhiána district and attacked the headquarters of the little Muhammadan State of Malerkotla. They were repulsed and 68 men surrendered to the Patiála authorities. The Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiána blew 49 of them from the guns, and the rest were executed after summary trial by the Commissioner. Such strong measures were not approved by the Government, but it must be remembered that these madmen had killed ten and wounded seventeen men, and that their lives were justly forfeit. On the 1st of January, 1877, Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of Empress of India (Kaisar-i-Hind) was announced at a great Darbár at Delhi. In 1877 Kashmír, hitherto controlled by the Lieutenant-Governor, was put directly under the Government of India. The same year and the next the province was tried by famine, and in 1878-80 it was the base from which our armies marched on Kábul and Kandahár, while its resources in camels were strained to supply transport. Apart from this its interest in the war was very great because it is the chief recruiting ground of the Indian army and its chiefs sent contingents to help their suzerain. The first stage of the war was closed by the treaty of Gandamak in May, 1879, by which Yakúb Khán surrendered any rights he possessed over Khaibar and the Kurram as far as Shutargardan.
Fig. 69. Panjáb Camels—Lahore.
Administration, 1882-1892.—During the Lieutenant-Governorships of Sir Charles Aitchison (1882-1887) and Sir James Lyall (1887-1892) there was little trouble on the western frontier. In 1891 the need had arisen of making our power felt up to the Pamírs. The setting up of a British agency at Gilgit was opposed in 1891 by the fighting men of Hunza and Nagar. Colonel Durand advanced rapidly with a small force and when a determined assault reduced the strong fort of Nilt, trouble was at an end once and for all. Within the Panjáb the period was one of quiet development. The Sirhind Canal was opened in 1882, and the weir at Khánkí for the supply of the Lower Chenáb Canal was finished in 1892. New railways were constructed. Lord Ripon's policy of Local Self-government found a strong supporter in Sir Charles Aitchison, and Acts were passed dealing with the constitution and powers of municipal committees and district boards. In 1884 and 1885 a large measure of reorganization was carried out. A separate staff of divisional, district, and subordinate civil judges was appointed. The divisional judges were also sessions judges. The ten commissioners were reduced to six, and five of them were relieved of all criminal work by the sessions judges. The Deputy Commissioner henceforth was a Revenue Collector and District Magistrate with large powers in criminal cases. The revenue administration was at the same time being improved by the reforms embodied in the Panjáb Land Revenue and Tenancy Acts passed at the beginning of Sir James Lyall's administration.
Fig. 70. Sir Charles Aitchison.
Administration, 1892-1902.—The next two administrations, those of Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick (1892-97) and Sir Mackworth Young (1897-1902) were crowded with important events. Throughout the period the colonization of the vast area of waste commanded by the Lower Chenáb Canal was carried out, and the Lower Jhelam Canal was formally opened six months before Sir Mackworth Young left. The province suffered from famine in 1896-97 and again in 1899-1900. In October, 1897, a worse enemy appeared in the shape of plague, but its ravages were not very formidable till the end of the period. The Panjáb was given a small nominated Legislative Council in 1897, which speedily proved itself a valuable instrument for dealing with much-needed provincial legislation. But the most important Panjáb Act of the period, XIII of 1900, dealing with Land Alienation was passed by the Viceroy's Legislative Council. In 1901 a Political Agent was appointed as the intermediary between the Panjáb Government and the Phulkian States. On the frontier the conclusion of the Durand Agreement in 1893 might well have raised hopes of quiet times. But the reality was otherwise. The establishment of a British officer at Wána to exercise control over Southern Wazíristán in 1894 was forcibly resisted by the Mahsúd Wazírs, and an expedition had to be sent into their country. The Mehtar or Chief of Chitrál, who was in receipt of a subsidy from the British Government, died in 1892. A period of great confusion followed fomented by the ambitions of Umra Khán of Jandol. Finally we recognised as Mehtar the eldest son, who had come uppermost in the struggle, and sent an English officer as British Agent to Chitrál. Umra Khán got our protégé murdered, and besieged the Agent in the Chitrál fort. He withdrew however on the approach of a small force from Gilgit. Shuja-ul-Mulk was recognised as Mehtar. This little trouble occurred in 1895. Two years later a storm-cloud suddenly burst over the frontier, such as we had never before experienced. It spread rapidly from the Tochí to Swát, tribe after tribe rising and attacking our posts. It is impossible to tell here the story of the military measures taken against the different offending tribes. The most important was the campaign in Tirah against the Orakzais and Afrídís, in which 30,000 men were engaged for six months. In 1900 attacks on the peace of the border by the Mahsúd Wazírs had to be punished by a blockade, and in the cold weather of 1901-2 small columns harried the hill country to enforce their submission. By this time the connection of the Panjáb Government with frontier affairs, which had gradually come to involve responsibility with little real power, had ceased. On the 25th of October, 1901, the North-West Frontier Province was constituted and Colonel (afterwards Sir Harold) Deane became its first Chief Commissioner, an office which he held till 1908, when he was succeeded by Major (now Sir George) Roos Keppel.
Fig. 71. Sir Denzil Ibbetson.
Fig. 72. Sir Michael O'Dwyer.
Administration, 1902-1913.—The last eleven years have embraced the Lieutenant Governorship of Sir Charles Rivaz (1902-1907), the too brief administration of Sir Denzil Ibbetson (1907-1908), and that of Sir Louis Dane (1908-1913). Throughout the period plague has been a disturbing factor, preventing entirely the growth of population which the rapid development of the agricultural resources of the province would otherwise have secured. It was among the causes stimulating the unrest which came to a head in 1907. A terrible earthquake occurred in 1905. Its centre was in Kángra, where 20,000 persons perished under the ruins of their houses. The colonization of the Crown waste on the Lower Jhelam Canal was nearly finished during Sir Charles Rivaz's administration. Before he left the Triple Canal Project, now approaching completion, had been undertaken. Other measures of importance to the rural population were the passing of the Co-operative Credit Societies' Act in 1903, and the organization in 1905 of a provincial Agricultural Department. The seditious movement which troubled Bengal had its echo in some parts of the Panjáb in the end of 1906 and the spring of 1907. A bill dealing with the rights and obligations of the Crown tenants in the new Canal Colonies was at the time before the Local Legislature. Excitement fomented from outside spread among the prosperous colonists on the Lower Chenáb Canal. There was a disturbance in Lahore in connection with the trial of a newspaper editor, the ringleaders being students. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took the reins into his strong hands in March, 1907, the position was somewhat critical. The disturbance at Lahore was followed by a riot at Ráwalpindí. The two leading agitators were deported, a measure which was amply justified by their reckless actions and which had an immediate effect. Lord Minto decided to withhold his assent from the Colony Bill, and it has recently been replaced by a measure which has met with general acceptance. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took office he was already suffering from a mortal disease. In the following January he gave up the unequal struggle, and shortly afterwards died. Sir Louis Dane became Lieutenant Governor in May, 1908. A striking feature of his administration was the growth of co-operative credit societies or village banks. At the Coronation Darbár on 12th December, 1911, the King-Emperor announced the transfer of the capital of India to Delhi. As a necessary consequence the city and its suburbs were severed from the province, with which they had been connected for 55 years. In 1913 Sir Louis Dane was succeeded by Sir Michael O'Dwyer.