Empire of the Sikhs (11 page)

The Lahore Durbar when fully established has been the subject of many descriptions. The hall where Ranjit Singh received his ministers and dignitaries was of impressive proportions, and its floor was covered with rich carpets. The canopy was an enormous embroidered shawl encrusted with gold and precious stones; it covered nearly the whole hall and was suspended from carved golden pillars. Almost all the carpets and shawls in the Durbar came from Kashmir.

The Lion of Punjab loved colour and bejewelled people around him, although he himself wore white or saffron yellow. ‘He is plain and simple in dress', as Henry Prinsep describes, ‘but seems to take pleasure in seeing his courtiers and establishments decorated in jewels and handsome dresses, and it is not to be denied that they show considerable taste, for the splendour of the display of his Durbar is very striking.'
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Prinsep also has a description of him in his later years seated on his famous golden chair, cross-legged, dressed from head to toe in white, sitting upright as men born to the saddle do. His ‘countenance, full of expression and animation, is set off by a handsome flowing beard, grey at 50 years of age but tapering to a point below his breast'.
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Ranjit Singh's Moti Mandir Toshakhana (treasury) was full
of jewels. But he rejected the more garish and glittering ornaments for his person, wearing only on ceremonial occasions the unrivalled table-cut Golkunda diamond, the Koh-i-noor, surrounded by two smaller diamonds as an armlet, and his famous string of round pearls, perfectly matched in shape and colour, the size of small marbles and around 300 in number, hung around his neck and sometimes his waist.

A magical adjunct to Lahore were the Shalimar Gardens, laid out in 1667 by Shah Jahan's talented engineer Ali Mardan Khan. Spread over eighty acres, with three magnificent terraces rising one after another at intervals of twelve to fifteen feet, 450 fountains fed by a canal especially built for the purpose, cascading waterways, exotic flower and fruit trees and much else, the Shalimar Gardens (‘Abode of Love and Joy') lie three miles north-east of the city and may be enjoyed in their full splendour today. From its creation Shalimar was an integral part of Lahore's allure, and Ranjit Singh was to revel in it more than most rulers.

His acquisition of Lahore in 1799 was the first major step towards his vision of the future. He was even more convinced now than ever before of the need to bring all the
misls
under his control; or, better still, do away with them altogether and merge their territories with the others he was acquiring. Some of the
misl
chiefs provided him with the excuse he needed. The first two reckless enough to stick their necks out were the Bhangis and Ramgarhias. Resentful of Ranjit Singh's growing power, they formed an alliance to take Lahore, even after he had dealt magnanimously with the defeated Bhangi Sardar when taking the city.

These two
misls,
like his other adversaries, misjudged him. The Bhangis were the first to suffer one humiliating defeat after another until they not only also lost their share of the sacred city of Amritsar but in due course all their other territories as well. In time they ceased to exist. The loss of their part of Amritsar and the fall of the
Bhangis was entirely a self-inflicted tragedy, precipitated by their loss of Lahore. Determined to avenge that humiliation, they hatched a plan to assassinate Ranjit Singh during a meeting to be held at a village called Bhassin about ten miles east of Lahore. The young ruler, although barely twenty, was already well versed in the ways of the world and, coming to know of their plot, arrived at the venue with a formidable force of men. The would-be assassins, realizing the folly of trying to kill him, abandoned their plan. But Ranjit Singh, by now fully informed of their intentions, would exact a heavy price for what they had planned to do. To legitimize his overthrow of the Bhangi
misl
he first asked for the return of the giant Zam Zama gun, the highly prestigious symbol which was now in their hands but which the Sukerchakias had earlier acquired from the Afghans. Quite understandably the Bhangis refused to return it, which was the excuse Ranjit Singh needed to attack and take over Amritsar. By this bold move Ranjit Singh became possessed of the two Sikh capitals, the political and the religious, and was well on his way to the execution of his grand strategy.

After the Bhangis, Ranjit Singh turned his attention to the Ramgarhias. Since the two
misls
had divided Amritsar between them, the Ramgarhia half of the city consisting of the Ramgarh Fort and the lands around it was soon under Ranjit Singh's control, too, after his army had taken over Amritsar. The complete acquisition of the Ramgarhia territories would take longer, because even in the midst of conflict and armed clashes a strange bond of brotherhood had been established between Ranjit Singh and the then chief of the Ramgarhia
misl,
Jodh Singh, who had come to enjoy Ranjit Singh's confidence and even took part in several of his campaigns until his death in 1815 when the territories of the Ramgarhia
misls
eventually went to the Lahore Durbar.

It is important to note that even before Lahore became the seat of Sikh power Ranjit had begun the consolidation and expansion
on which he had set his mind. After further annexations, including Gurdaspur and Jalandhar to the east and north-east of Lahore, he set his eyes further north on Jammu, heading for it within a few months of taking Lahore. He first subdued Mirowal and Narowal before taking Jassarwal Fort by siege. On the march again, he was less than four miles from Jammu when its ruler, realizing what lay in store if he resisted the seemingly invincible Ranjit Singh, called on him with gifts and a fervent request for clemency for his city and himself. Ranjit Singh responded handsomely by restoring to him some of his holdings and gifting him a robe of honour. Sialkot and Dilawargarh fell next. Since the latter's chief Bawa Kesar Singh Sodhi had surrendered, Ranjit Singh not only pardoned him but gave him a sizeable
jagir
as well.

With the year 1800 almost entirely taken up by continuous campaigns, it was time for Ranjit Singh to return to Lahore, henceforth to be his home for the rest of his life. And here he announced the setting-up of his rule; something he had thought of for quite some time and for which he had judiciously laid the groundwork by earning considerable goodwill in the conquered territories through humane and generous treatment of his defeated foes.

Historical accounts often make mention, cryptically and without convincing evidence, of the ‘cruel treatment' to which Ranjit Singh is supposed to have subjected defeated adversaries. Even a distinguished historian such as Syad Muhammad Latif, describing the fall of Jassarwal Fort to Ranjit Singh in 1800, says that, ‘having reduced it, [he] put the defenders to the sword'.
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But no details are provided as to how many were ‘put to the sword' or why. Such reprisals were entirely uncharacteristic of him, and it is difficult to believe that they actually occurred.

Ranjit Singh clearly aimed from a very young age at establishing his own state. But what was unique about him, and makes his life-story so different from that of most other rulers, was that he
drew his strength not from the brutal exercise of power but from his humanity, vision, vitality and tolerance and that he never allowed irrational or primitive instincts to interfere with affairs of state. The powerful impulse that drove Ranjit Singh to create a just, secular and cosmopolitan society for his people was his unshakeable faith in the religion into which he was born.

Considering the many religions that existed in the Sikh state he was creating – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Christian, as also the bewildering number of various subdivisions of these faiths – Ranjit Singh made a far-sighted move at the very outset of his reign. He ensured that the religious and social festivals a multicultural society like India observes throughout the year should be celebrated by people of all beliefs. He was convinced that this would provide the necessary impetus to the secularism to which the Sikhs subscribed. And so he made it a rule that his senior ministers, governors and eminent citizens, including himself, should try to attend as many of them as they could.

Hari Ram Gupta points out that there were different days of special significance for the four castes of the Hindus alone: ‘for Brahmans, Rakhi, or Rakhri, or Raksha Bandhan or Solunon in July-August; for Kshatriyas (warrior class), Dasahra in September-October; for Vaishyas (trading class), Diwali in October-November; and for Shudras (cultivators and the like), Holi in February-March'.
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There was logic in each of these points of the calendar, rooted not just in the religious but in the economic facts of life as well. While the trading classes, cultivators and those engaged in various vocations looked forward to the Diwali festival to celebrate good yields from wheat, sugarcane and other crops, the fighting caste of Kshatriyas chose to herald the coming winter season to plan new campaigns. For the Brahmins Rakhi was a time of thanksgiving for
all the offerings they received from the other castes, and for the Shudras the months of February and March seemed the most appropriate to mark the end of rigorous winters and celebrate the onset of spring through the colourful festival of Holi.

There were many other festivals in addition to these, such as the birthdays of the Hindu gods Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. The former, Ram Navmi, was celebrated in early April and the latter, Janam Ashtmi, in August-September. Guru Nanak's birthday, or Gurpurab, in November was an occasion of the utmost significance for the Sikhs and was observed with great fervour.

Many other lesser festivals were also looked forward to with much enthusiasm. Lohri, in January, was especially important in Punjab where the festive mood was highlighted by roaring bonfires around which people sang and danced well into the night. Basant, which fell in January-February each year, heralded the advent of spring, and just as the fields were full of yellow mustard flowers people also dressed in yellow robes to celebrate the good times to come. Baisakhi, in April, was – and still is – a day of great rejoicing because it was harvest time. People in their thousands travelled to Amritsar to take a dip in the holy pool on this day.

The list is a long one because Ranjit Singh well knew how vital it was to make every citizen in his realm feel an integral part of – and entitled to – the best that his country had to offer him and made sure that people of different castes, creeds and religions were encouraged to assemble together to celebrate religious holidays and overcome their differences and prejudices. It was most important for the well-being of his state that its people should develop a sense of fellow feeling and religious toleration and have the right to practise their own religious beliefs in absolute freedom. His aim of creating a spirit of communal harmony was convincingly conveyed by the pomp and gaiety that attended Muslim religious days. Ranjit Singh ‘celebrated the Muslim festivals of Id with the same enthusiasm as he showed for Holi and Dussehra. Persian continued
to be the court language. Although illiterate, he acquired a speaking knowledge of Persian and Urdu. He married Muslim women and tried to curb the Akalis (independent Sikh warriors fully armed and dressed in deep blue, and wearing tall conical turbans with steel quoits stuck in them) with an iron hand. There were no forced conversions in his reign, no communal riots, no language tensions, no second-class citizens. Any talented man could come to the court and demand his due.'
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Christmas was also joyfully celebrated, and Ranjit Singh's Lahore Durbar would send big hampers of fruits, sweets, wine and other presents to Europeans living in the Sikh kingdom.

Those accorded sainthood are usually persons venerated for their holiness, spiritual stature and virtuous life. As we shall see, Ranjit Singh was far from virtuous in his personal life. He was unrestrained in his sexual relationships, in the number of times he took marriage vows, in his unconcern for the traditional definitions of morality and in his bouts of drinking from time to time. Since he indulged himself in these whole-heartedly, he was obviously nowhere near sainthood if his life is judged through these self-indulgences. But his passion for ensuring just governance for his people, his dedication to secular beliefs, his respect for god-given life and the uncompromising stand against tyranny enjoined by the Sikh Gurus – these were articles of faith from which he seldom deviated.

The rulers or conquerors of that period were occupied with no such concerns. Appalling atrocities were the order of the day, and it is in this context that Ranjit Singh came close to being a saint. No conqueror ever established a regime as humane as his. He built up his power with a very small percentage of people of the Sikh faith and without the customary barbarities which the victors of that or indeed many another age visited on those of other religious beliefs who were subjugated. He conducted himself civilly as a ruler of a mixed nation, without any cruelty, arrogance or arbitrariness, and in this respect he may well be called a saint at the
same time as he was indubitably a sensualist. His strength lay in the versatility with which he combined both fundamental aspects of his nature. If he lived his personal life the way he did, it was not at the expense of his responsibilities as a ruler.