Empire of the Sikhs (22 page)

The following excerpt from the East India Company's Ludhiana Agency Records for 1812-14 gives another indication of how it handled its side of the relationship – ostensibly based on peace and friendship – with the Lahore Durbar. Lieutenant-Colonel D. Ochterlony, the agent in Ludhiana, after a visit to the Maharaja in February 1812, wrote to the governor-general Lord Minto:

It may not be deemed improper to offer such observations as occurred to me during my late intercourse with Runjeet to the notice and consideration of the Right Hon'ble the Governor-General in Council, in which I shall endeavour to divest my mind from any bias it may have received from his great attention and from oft-repeated expressions of personal respect. Runjeet's ambition is as unbounded as his rapacity … If Runjeet's opinions are decisively formed on any one subject they are on his utter inability to contend with the British arms; but the more firm this belief the more he is inclined to doubt the pacific intentions of the British Government, whose forbearance is to him incomprehensible … At this moment when our European enemy has been expelled from every possession in the East, when we are not aware of any reverse of fortune in Europe, and when there is no expectation of any invasion of our Asiatic dominions from the north-west, I would wish to propose to Runjeet the junction of a large British army with his own troops to repel … invaders … It cannot be difficult to find arguments to prove to Runjeet that his own interests are deeply connected with ours should such an event occur, and I feel confident not only of his acquiescence, but that such a proposition, by showing him clearly how our interests were united, would of itself serve to dispel his suspicions.
¹⁹

To what extent the reports periodically sent to the governor-general by Company officials such as Ochterlony reflected a reasonable understanding of Ranjit Singh's intentions and strategies is open to doubt, since many such officials will have been influenced by their own personal agendas and ambitions. But there seems little doubt that the proposals put to Ranjit Singh were more often than not meant to dispel his suspicions rather than strengthen ties of friendship.

In the end, no matter how hard the British tried, Ranjit Singh was not taken in. His policies remained focused on the interests of the Sikh state and not on the fanciful proposals put to him by his less than dependable co-signatories of treaties.

On the borderline between Ranjit Singh's harem and his court, between his private and his public life, there was a no man's land, a land of wine and song and dance. It was here that he used to spend his hours of relaxation – an evening once or twice a week.

FAKIR SYED WAHEEDUDDIN
¹

No less impressive than Ranjit Singh's achievements as an empire builder were his amatory exploits. The joys of dalliance with seductive and striking-looking women seemed to give Ranjit Singh the same pleasure as his conquests on the battlefield did. He exulted in their company, viewing them as cherished trophies won in more intimate encounters. If a temptress caught his fancy he was perfectly willing to be tempted. He savoured the joys of sex with those who appealed to him and made clear to courtiers, visitors and his populace that he regarded the delight he got out of his beautiful consorts as his personal right.

Since he always insisted on upholding the rights of others, Ranjit Singh saw no reason to compromise in exercising his own. Or to be furtive about it. Inevitably, in this, too, along with other spheres of life in which commentators seem to have been overtaken by feelings of envy or inadequacy, he has had more than his share of detractors. Henry Prinsep, in a sudden about-face, sermonized about what he termed as Ranjit Singh's ‘dissolute life' and wrote that ‘his debaucheries, particularly during Hoolee [Holi]
and Dussera, were shameless, and the scenes exhibited on such occasions openly before the Court, and even in the streets of Lahore, were the conversation of Hindoostan, and rival the worst that is reported in history of the profligacies of ancient Rome'.
²
Here Prinsep seems to have gone completely overboard. As if people had nothing better to do than gossip about ‘excesses' committed at various festivals all over ‘Hindoostan' – and as if India's communication network in those times was good enough to enable them to do so!

On the subject of Holi, during which people gaily spray each other with coloured water, another prudish observer felt that ‘the dirtiest part of the entertainment consists in the sprinkling with coloured waters … Spirits are drunk, and the amusements are then carried far beyond our European ideas of propriety, but the Hindu thinks no harm of them.'
³
Although these two writers ask to be taken as if they had been close to events, they seem rather to be retailing gossip, their comfortable sense of public propriety apparently blotting out any awareness of the history of some of their own monarchs' far more shocking behaviour. Even a contemporary writer who did get hold of at least part of the truth contrived to put a lurid slant on it. ‘The character of this great man is darkened by his dissolute life, especially the vice of drunkenness, which at last increased to such a degree that, in his latter years, he could not exist without the strongest spirituous liquors.'
⁴

A more balanced and accurate view is provided, as so often, by Joseph Cunningham: ‘It would be idle to regard Ranjit Singh as an habitual drunkard or as one greatly devoted to sensual pleasures; and it would be equally unreasonable to believe the mass of the Sikh people as wholly lost to shame, and as revellers in every vice which disgraces humanity … those who vilify the Sikhs … [should] reflect that what common-sense and the better feelings of our nature have always condemned, can never be the ordinary practice of a nation.'
⁵
And he adds the sobering point: ‘Europeans
carry their potations and the pleasures of the table to an excess unknown to the Turk and Persian, and which greatly scandalize the frugal Hindu.'
⁶

No matter what others thought of him, Ranjit Singh lived his life in just the way he wanted to. He compromised neither in his drinking nor in his sexual appetites. He indulged in them to the fullest – but never at the cost of his commitment to the nation he had founded. He did not permit his driving passion and goal, to create a strong Sikh state, to be compromised by anything in his personal life, and any judgement of him needs to take this into account.

On the subject of Ranjit Singh's personal life, Faqir Syed Waheeduddin has this to say:

He was susceptible to feminine influence, but as a man and not as a ruler … there was little of debauchery in the way he used to spend his time in the company of his singing and dancing girls. He loved singing and dancing for their own sake and took a connoisseur's interest in them. The performances, therefore, used to be displays of art and not the orgies of dissipation which some people have imagined them to be … Being fond of repartee and badinage, he would now and again engage in a wordy duel with some particularly vivacious girl; and usually such a one served as cup-bearer. There was, however, never any coarseness or vulgarity in the process. The singing and dancing soirées thus used to be quite sober and dignified affairs.
⁷

Unabashed sensualist, however, that he undoubtedly was, Ranjit Singh was not one to force anyone to grant him favours and went out of his way to make those who did happy; his generosity and civilized conduct towards them were well known. There is a particularly appealing case of a courtesan he was so deeply in love with that he not only married her and had a mosque named after
her in Lahore and also a village in Amritsar district but also had a coin struck in her name – the only woman to be so honoured.

She was Moran, a Kashmiri dancing girl from Amritsar, who completely captivated Ranjit Singh when he first set eyes on her. He was twenty-two then and Moran twelve or thirteen. Her glowing face, large eyes, beautiful black hair, melodious voice and quickness of mind completely won him over. She danced with grace and dignity. Lean and wiry himself, Ranjit Singh, short of stature, with one eye and smallpox scars, was still a striking-looking man with an attractive face, penetrating right eye, a long slightly upturned nose, firm mouth, excellent teeth, broad shoulders and a beard which cascaded down his chest. He had a presence and personality all his own.

Although this girl was a courtesan and he the ruler of Punjab, Ranjit Singh was gentlemanly enough in 1802 to ask her father for his daughter's hand. There is a charming account of the father's reaction. He was terrified at the idea of marrying his daughter outside his class and tried to frighten the royal suitor away by making a condition, one that was in fact a tradition – that the bridegroom should build and ‘blow ablaze with his own breath' a fire in his father-in-law's house. Ranjit Singh had the fire roaring in no time.
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This story alone provides more than one point of insight into the character of this unusual man: that he should even think of asking for the hand of a dancing girl from her father, when all he had to do was have her brought to him; his willingness to agree to the condition laid down; and although his bride was a Muslim he never once asked her to convert, respecting her right to abide by her own faith. The degree to which Ranjit Singh acknowledged the supremacy of his own faith is revealed by his response to the directives of Sikhism's highest authority in Amritsar concerning this affair.

The Maharaja's deep involvement with Moran had upset the conservative religious establishment of the Golden Temple. While
its members resented his devotion to her, he made no effort to hide it. What particularly incensed them was that whenever he had the time he would take her for an outing on his elephant, either about the streets of Lahore or from the fort to the Shalimar Gardens. This was his way of enjoying his leisure, and there would be a drink or two served during the ride. Unwilling to take any more of this the Akalis, the strict sect who were keepers of the Golden Temple, summoned him to Amritsar to appear at the Akal Takht, the seat of temporal authority, and answer the charges against him.

When he appeared before the five chosen ones – in addition to whom a large congregation had also assembled for the occasion – he was charged with conduct unworthy of a Sikh and with belittling the faith. He was sentenced to a hundred lashes on the back in public, along with a fine. Ranjit Singh accepted this writ with folded hands. But on reconsideration the decision was made to drop the sentence of flogging, and the announcement was joyfully acclaimed. Some accounts suggest that the ruler was symbolically struck once on the back, but others dispute it. The fine of 125,000 rupees was, however, dutifully paid.

Yet another story of Ranjit Singh's love for Moran is revealing. After his meeting with Lord and Lady Bentick at Ropar in 1831, an observer of the scene wrote of the deep impression one particular moment had made on him: ‘As soon as the Begum Sahiba crossed the river by a boat, the Nawab Sahib personally went forward to receive her and, taking her by the hand, made her sit in a chair in such a way that it indicated his heartfelt affection and deep love between [the two]. The Maharaja said that at that moment he was put in mind of his connection with Bibi Moran, for he said that he had exactly the same kind of love and unity with her and could not prepare his mind to accept separation from her even for a moment and every moment they remained fully aware of each other's doings.'
⁹
Thus the seigneur, in this case
a monarch, whom the social system of the time allowed as many wives as he pleased was at one with those who lived and loved under quite a different social system.

Given Ranjit Singh's limitless capacity for love, it was not long before Moran's sister Mamola also caught his fancy, and he married her as well. She was a dancer, too. Later in life Ranjit Singh became infatuated with yet another Kashmiri girl, ‘a demi-mondaine of Amritsar, Gul Badam, and married her with pomp and splendour' in 1833.
¹⁰
The bridegroom, wearing a garland of flowers, was decked out in a pearl necklace and was lightly sprinkled with saffron water by no less than Mamola. The newly-wed ruler, wanting to show off his new bride Gul (later called Gul Begum) to his subjects, would often put her before him on his favourite horse and ride through the streets of Lahore. Badami Bagh, the park near Lahore Fort, was named after her, and she was buried there in 1863. It should be mentioned that Ranjit Singh kept all his wives happy by giving them handsome
jagirs
and maintenance allowances so that they wouldn't feel either rejected or overlooked.

Coping with his women must have been no less daunting a task for Ranjit Singh than dealing with the many adversaries he faced during his eventful reign. They numbered literally hundreds if the count includes all his wives, concubines and the regiment of Amazons he had created with an eye on both their physical fitness and striking looks. And then there were the ladies, mostly widows, who came under the category of
chadar dalna
(under his protection). Historians disagree on the numbers in each category.