After reaching this place, I soon came to the conclusion that the reasons for meeting at Lahore were much more forcible than those which could be advanced in favour of any other place; and circumstances which have occurred since then have tended strongly to confirm me in this opinion. Independently of the prestige which attaches to the province of which it is the capital, and to the Sikh population which inhabit it, the state of affairs in Afghanistan, and on our frontier, would render a demonstration which would at once afford evidence of our military strength and gratify the pride and self-importance of the Sikh chiefs, at this moment especially opportune.
I have arranged with the Commander-in-chief to hold his camp of exercise there; the Lieutenant-Governor is to have a great Agricultural Exhibition, which I am to open; and if we mean to establish ourselves for a couple of months there in our legislative capacity while all this is going on, I think that it will have an excellent effect both on our own people and on our neighbours.
[Sidenote: Sitana fanatics.]
Late in the month of September, during the last days of Lord Elgin's stay at Simla, occurred the only break in the otherwise peaceful tenor of his government, in the shape of an outburst of certain Wahabee fanatics inhabiting a frontier district in the Upper Valley of the Indus. The outburst is not without historical interest, as connected with similar disturbances which have assumed more serious proportions; but it is noticed here chiefly as illustrating the view which Lord Elgin took of the policy and duty of the British Government in such cases.
It was not without the greatest reluctance that he was induced to take up the quarrel at all: for he had the strongest aversion for warlike operations in the existing state of India, and particularly on the frontiers of Afghanistan; and he had no small distrust of those military tendencies and that thirst for opportunities of distinction which are apt to characterise the ablest Governors of frontier provinces. But he had prevented a Sitana expedition in the previous year; he was assured that the recent inroads of the fanatics were the direct consequence of his last year's supineness; and he was told that if he again held back, the disturbances would be renewed another year with usury. Moreover, he was assured that the projected expedition would secure the peace of the frontier for a long period; and that the operation would be little more than a military promenade, and would be over before his camp reached Peshawur.
It was scarcely possible for a civil Governor to resist such a pressure of professional opinion; and he consented to take measures of repression.
Writing to Sir Charles Wood on the subject, he said:—
The overt acts charged consist in the return of the fanatics to Sitana, whence they were driven out by us some years ago; and the frontier tribes in question are held to be guilty because they have allowed them to return to this place, although bound by treaty with us to refuse to admit them…. On a review of all the circumstances, and looking to the well-known character and designs of the Sitana fanatics, I came to the conclusion that the interests both of prudence and humanity would be best consulted by levelling a speedy and decisive blow at this embryo conspiracy.
Accordingly it was arranged that the Punjâb Government should at once take the necessary measures for expelling the fanatics from Judoon, where they had congregated, and then, if circumstances permitted, proceed to destroy their place of refuge at Mulka.
But it is well known that in India, to use Lord Elgin's own expression, 'rising officials are instinctively in favour of a good row.' Some of those around him were urgent that the expedition should be deferred until the spring, and should then be organised on a larger scale, and with more comprehensive objects. Lord Elgin set his face decidedly against this.