Empire of the Sikhs (21 page)

No formal discussions took place at Ropar, but on the last evening, at a parting meeting during the entertainment given by Bentinck, Ranjit Singh, who might have got wind of or at least suspected British intentions in Sind, pressed for a written assurance of the continuation of ‘eternal relations of friendship' between his kingdom and Britain. The appropriate document was duly prepared and presented to the Maharaja on the spot. Ranjit Singh took the opportunity of inviting the two men who seemed to him most in Bentinck's confidence (one of them was his official secretary) to his tent and opened a conversation about Sind, ‘as if desirous to open a negotiation, and concert measures, in relation to that state; or at least to come to an understanding, as to the views of the British Government in respect to it'. The British, however, kept their cards close to the chest, ‘for it was conceived, that, if made aware of the intentions of the British Government, [Ranjit Singh] might, with every profession of a desire to forward them, contrive by intrigue and secret working to counteract the negotiation'.
¹²
In his report back to the British government, Bentinck commented on ‘the anxiety shown by His Highness for the introduction of this assurance'.
¹³
On the very day before the governor-general arrived at Ropar, in fact, he had instructed Henry Pottinger to prepare for a mission to Sind with the object of negotiating a treaty opening up the Indus to trade with Europe and the rest of India.
¹⁴

In the aftermath of the Ropar meeting the British made their designs on Sind plain, and the area would become an increasing bone of contention with the Lahore Durbar. Since the establishment of the first trading station by the East India Company in 1758, the British relationship with the Amirs had been a precarious one at best, with the isolationist Amirs first giving the Company permission to stay and then after a while asking them to leave. By the mid-1820s the British had flexed their muscles at the Amirs to the extent that it left them in no doubt of their intentions.

At the same time the Amirs, fearing Ranjit Singh's growing power and interest in their holdings and territories, had asked the British for their protection, and the British had acted promptly, with Colonel Pottinger's mission to Sind actually coinciding with the meeting at Ropar. The treaty signed in April 1832 was a follow-up to Burnes's visit to Sind the previous year. The British, leaving nothing to chance, sent Captain Wade to negotiate an ‘Indus Navigation Treaty' with Ranjit Singh, duly signed in December 1832. The purpose of the treaty was ‘to regulate the navigation of the Indus and the collection of duties on merchandise'. The levy of duties on the value and quantity of goods, however, gave rise to misunderstandings, and in November 1834 a supplementary treaty was concluded to substitute a toll, to be levied on all boats ‘with whatever merchandise laden'. This was further supplemented in May 1839 by an agreement which provided for the levy of duty on merchandise ‘at one place and not on the boats'.
¹⁵

Far-fetched as it may sound, Sind and the Sikh kingdom occupied a pivotal place in Britain's bid for world domination. Britain's problems had been aggravated by the convergence of many momentous events, especially the loss of its American colonies in 1776 and Washington's declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 that no European power would be allowed to establish itself in North or South America. (In the words of the doctrine, ‘the occasion has been judged proper for asserting,
as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power'.)

The closure of these territories was particularly galling to Britain which, having clearly established a lead over other nations with its Industrial Revolution, now needed endless supplies of a vast range of raw materials for its industries. This need could be met fully by India, one of the world's most mineral-rich nations in iron ore, chromites, manganese ore, bauxite, mica, barites, titanium and a whole variety of gemstones. So clearly, if Britain was to be denied access to other continents with the exception of Africa, its absolute control and dominance of India was a must. India was also of vital importance as a gateway to some of the richest and strategically most important countries in South and South-East Asia and the Far East. The chronology of Britain's expansionist moves in this part of the world was itself revealing, with Burma partially colonized in 1826, China forced into an Opium War in 1839 to make it easier to subjugate and Hong Kong becoming a British colony in 1842.

What stood in the way of Britain's complete control of India was the Sikh empire under its shrewd and powerful ruler. Of course Sind had to be taken over, too, but that would have presented no difficulty to the British had it not been for Ranjit Singh's menacing presence across the Indus. However, even as the British continued to manoeuvre in every possible way through various missions, visits, gifts, flowery communications and deputations vowing eternal friendship, Ranjit Singh, realistic to the end, decided to forgo Sind.

He had the foresight to understand that with the larger goals the British had set their eyes on in Asia, and with their weapons as well as the resources they could draw upon from the entire
subcontinent of India which they now controlled, as also from Europe and elsewhere, it would be imprudent of him to fight them over Sind. Especially as they would do everything they possibly could to prevent him from becoming a sea power, which he would if Sind along with the port of Karachi fell into his hands. It must have been a hard decision for him to forgo Sind, and he showed wisdom in taking it.

It is hard to understand the comments of a historian such as Hari Ram Gupta on the subject of Ranjit Singh's political capabilities and his decision against annexing Sind. Gupta's five-volume
History of the Sikhs
(1984) has been acknowledged as a painstaking chronicle of those turbulent times. He comments: ‘in diplomacy Ranjit Singh proved a complete failure'; and ‘throughout his reign he behaved as if he were a vassal of the British government'; and ‘immediately after the acquisition of Attock in 1813 he should have directed his steps towards Sind'.
¹⁶

But as we have seen, Ranjit Singh's signing of the Sutlej Treaty while still in his twenties showed vision, skill and finesse in negotiating skills that might not have been found together even in a seasoned diplomat. By keeping the British south of the River Sutlej with the help of this treaty, he opened up limitless horizons for carving out a Sikh kingdom in the north.

On Gupta's second point, to Henry T. Prinsep, chief secretary to the governor-general, it was clear that Ranjit Singh was no vassal to anyone. In
Origin of the Sikh Power in the Punjab
(1834) he writes: ‘The territorial possessions of Ranjit Singh comprise now the entire fork of the Punjab, as bounded by the Indus and Sutlej, the two extreme rivers. He holds besides Kashmir, and the entire hill country to the snowy range, and even Ladakh beyond the Himalayas: for though many of the rajas of this tract still remain in their possessions, they have been reduced to the character of
subjects, paying tribute equal to their utmost means, and contributing men to the armies of Lahore, whenever called upon.'
¹⁷
And Prinsep leaves out of account the former Afghan territories beyond Peshawar and the regions around it.

The last of Gupta's comments just quoted – that after the acquisition of Attock in 1813 Ranjit Singh should have turned to Sind – seems to this author equally unrealistic. The year 1813 was an extremely active one for him, seeing the taking of Attock in March, the first expedition to Kashmir and the acquisition of the Koh-i-noor diamond in June, the second expedition to Kashmir and the Battle of Haidru in July and visits to the easterly Kangra region in October and then westwards to Sialkot, Wazirabad and Jehlum. He arrived at Rohtas on the west bank of the Jhelum on 11 November and proceeded to consolidate his newly won territories, check his troops and artillery, fix sites for granaries where wheat for the troops could be stored and select sites for ammunition storage. He and his generals also planned strategy for taking Kashmir the following year. He finally returned home to Lahore towards the end of December 1813.

He would have been well aware that the strength of his forces did not allow him to spread them too far. Any further advances would have endangered the stability of his realm, and to suggest that he should have made such an advance into Sind is to ignore the scale on which he was campaigning at this time. If Ranjit Singh remained unvanquished throughout his lifetime, even as the British conquered some of the Indian rulers and states including the mighty Mughals, it was because of a very clear-headed acceptance of his own limitations and the wisdom not to imperil the nation he had built with such dedication.

Tensions over Sind continued to build up, even after the ‘eternal friendship' declaration of 1831. Ranjit Singh questioned the right
of the British to hold negotiations with the Amirs of Sind when the Sutlej Treaty of 1809 stipulated that any dealings by the British with countries north of the Sutlej would violate the treaty's conditions. The British response was in character. They contended that while the 1809 treaty put limits on the Lahore Durbar's actions south of the Sutlej it placed no such limits on British moves north and west of the Indus. As to Ranjit Singh's claim on Shikarpur (in Sind) as a dependency of Peshawar which was in Sikh territory, the British government in a flight of fancy said that any territory or dependency of Peshawar equally belonged to the Shah of Persia and the Amir of Afghanistan!

While the above was the public position taken by the British, the governor-general Lord Auckland, in a confidential letter to the president of the East India Company's Board of Control dated 7 October 1836, wrote:

Runjeet Singh … has some cause of complaint of us for interfering with him on this side of the Indus. Our treaty with him fixed the Sutlege as the boundary to his ambition on our side … As long as it suited our purpose, we maintained that the treaty made the Sutlege, when it became merged in the Indus, the bar to Runjeet Singh's power on this side. On that account when he took the territories of the Nawab of Bahawalpur on the other side of the river, we did not allow him to touch on this side, although we had no treaty with Bahawalpur, and that state was not in contemplation when the treaty with Runjeet Singh for the protection of the Sikhs on this side of the Sutlege was made. Are we at liberty to put one construction of treaty at one time, and another at another when it suits our convenience? If not, we can hardly say that we have any right to interfere between Runjeet Singh and Sind.
¹⁸

Auckland's final question sums it all up:
Are we at liberty to put one construction of treaty at one time, and another at another when it suits our convenience?