Empire of the Sikhs (14 page)

What greatly helped Ranjit Singh strengthen the nation he had just founded was his statesmanship in handling the British. It is astonishing that someone so young and unversed in the ways of colonial powers should have risen with such aplomb to the challenge of dealing with the British, with their suave ways, boundless ambition and experienced and efficient army equipped with sophisticated weapons.

When in 1801 Ranjit Singh became head of the Punjab State, the British were already firmly ensconced in Delhi. Even though the Mughals still existed in name, they counted for very little by that time. It was Britain's writ that prevailed over most of India up to Delhi. Beyond Delhi Ranjit Singh was the man to reckon with. Even at that early stage, when he was barely twenty-two, his designs for the future were on a grand scale. His intention was to exercise his exclusive writ over northern India, the north-western provinces, the hill states and the mountain ranges up to the
Khyber Pass. This vast territory was outside British control. Nor was it under the control of any single authority, although the Sikh nation was the most powerful in that part of the subcontinent. But the Afghans possessed the most prosperous cities and towns and controlled major trade routes. They also had sizeable armies to enforce their writ. Then there were many other big and small Hindu and Muslim chiefs, aside from the tribes in the north-west who were a law unto themselves – as they have remained up to the present day.

The only obstacle left between the British and their dominance of the whole of India was the land of the five rivers under Sikh rule. They had shrewdly observed the fighting qualities of the Sikhs, fuelled by their religious beliefs and certainties and sustained by their amazing self-confidence. So it was clearly not in the British self-interest to get involved in any military showdown with them at this stage. Ranjit Singh, too, was canny enough to appreciate the importance of creating a well-defined boundary between British possessions and the Sikh state. Both sides were perfectly aware of the advantages of this. But, as so often happens, the twists and turns of fate were to play their part in influencing events.

When contact was established between the British governor-general Lord Wellesley and Ranjit Singh at the beginning of the new century, it coincided with developments that favoured Ranjit Singh. Wellesley, who had taken office in May 1798 at the age of thirty-eight, was the paterfamilias of the colonial expansionists. Aggressive and ambitious as they come, he publicly proclaimed that British rule was undoubtedly in the best interests of the ruled. ‘I can declare my conscientious conviction', he wrote, ‘that no greater blessing can be conferred on the … inhabitants of India than the extension of the British authority, influence and power.'
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True to form, Wellesley set about adding Mysore, Tanjore, Surat and Oudh to the increasing number of British holdings in India. Because these territories lay in south, central and western
India, no attempt was made to show the flag in northern India or to the ruler of the new Sikh kingdom.

But Wellesley's enthusiasm for expansionism was not received well by the directors of the East India Company in London. They were in India to make money through profitable trading, but with the Company constantly at war because of ‘their local Manager's persistent disregard of the spirit of his orders', its treasury was being seriously depleted. After watching its stocks falling steadily with no dividends coming in, the Company decided to eliminate the cause of their problem. Wellesley was accordingly recalled in July 1805.

His successor, Marquess Cornwallis, died within months of taking over his post. It was when the next governor-general, Lord Minto, assumed office in July 1807 that Ranjit Singh's awareness of British designs on India took on a keener edge. He now realized that although their aim in India was to build up their trade, an aim which they had pursued – aside from a few hiccups – with considerable success, they were now moving on to outright conquest.

General Lake, who in 1803 had defeated the Marathas, who had opposed the British under Holkar and pursued them across the trans-Sutlej states, had been persuaded by the Sikh chieftains of that area, jealous of Ranjit Singh's growing power, of the danger he could pose to the Company. Lord Lake seemed receptive to these voices, and one seasoned British administrator of the time reflects what must have been the British army's response to the propaganda of the cis-Sutlej chieftains in his comment that ‘the prospect of a big fight was cheering'.
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Bemused by a long-held belief in their own invincibility, the British administrators and officers were convinced that the wild men on their horses who were opposing them on the battlefield would easily be annihilated by the disciplined white troops. They would soon be wiser.

While Lake in pursuit of Holkar's troops had reached the banks of the Beas and got a feel of the terrain, young Ranjit Singh had not been idle. Through his intelligence network which he had begun
to assemble early on in his rule, combined with his common sense, he assessed far more accurately than most the threat the British would eventually pose to the Sikh kingdom. Taking advantage of the presence of General Lake's troops on the Beas, he paid a secret visit to the English camp and noted ‘the machine-like drill of the sepoy battalions, the mobility of the Company's artillery, and the solidity of the British regiments, horse and foot'.
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In all likelihood, it was this secret visit to the British army camp that convinced Ranjit Singh of the need to introduce into his own military formations those weapons, battle tactics, training methods and innovative ideas that had given the Europeans a lead over the armies of Asia and even, in due course, to recruit European officers to help achieve this. He henceforth made a point of assembling material and systematically updating his intelligence about the British in India, which helped him to develop his own insights into their moves, motives and methodology.

It is timely to interrupt the diplomatic story for a glimpse at the military forces Ranjit Singh had at his disposal at this time. His army consisted essentially of irregular cavalry, the Ghorchurras, made up mostly from soldiers from the
misls,
the Misldar Sowars. Distinct from these was a cavalry regiment called the Ghorchurra Khas, the first standing unit that Ranjit Singh formed as Maharaja, composed of leading Sardars and their kinsmen, eventually numbering up to 2,000 men; together with a similar regiment formed later it became known to admiring foreign visitors as ‘the Maharaja's bodyguard' and was considered the elite of the Sikh army.

The men of the Misldar Sowars had been taken into the Sikh state's service after the capture of a fort or town or the death of a chief, a process that went on for most of the Maharaja's life. These men were paid by the state – at first entirely in
jagirs,
since they looked on cash payment as the mark of mercenaries; only gradually
did Ranjit Singh succeed in his desire to make cash payment the norm, so putting the force on a more regular footing. These Ghorchurras came to constitute the bulk of Ranjit Singh's cavalry, their style continuing the traditions of the Dal Khalsa. Not subject to overall discipline or wearing uniform, resisting the introduction of European drill and methods to which they contemptuously referred as ‘harlots' dancing', they retained their local character; they wore mail shirts and a belt from which hung a bag containing musket balls; some wore a steel helmet and bore a shield on their back. Their charges were swift and deadly. Near the enemy they would halt, load, fire their matchlocks and retire, repeating the operation several times.
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Besides the state-paid Gorchurras, Ranjit Singh had at his disposal the lower-grade feudal army made up of the forces maintained by the local Sardars – those who held
jagirs,
the
jagirdars
– each of whom undertook to provide, when called upon, a contingent according to the size of his landholding. Until the 1830s, when the Sardars were called upon to provide infantry and artillery as well, these forces consisted entirely of cavalry.

Around 1805 Ranjit Singh was ready to begin to lay the foundations of a regular army, the Fauj-i-ain, alongside his irregular forces, with his first infantry units. By 1808 there were five battalions (1,500 men in all). When Metcalfe saw these units, consisting of only around 300 ununiformed men in each (distinguished only by a scarlet turban), armed with ‘swords and a mixture of European muskets and traditional matchlocks', he was not impressed.
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It took a decade and a half for Sikh infantry to reach any sizeable strength and in larger battalions: around 2,800 men in 1811, 7,750 in 1819, nearly 12,000 in 1823. The total strength of this branch of Ranjit Singh's army stood at just under 30,000 at his death in 1839.
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With continuing Sikh aversion to infantry, the ranks were at first filled mainly with Hindus, Muslims, Gurkhas and Afghans. The Hindu Diwan Ganga Ram commanded the infantry until his death
in 1826, but Ranjit Singh took a particular pride in it; by 1813 it had become effective enough for a decisive defeat of the Afghans under the leadership of Diwan Mokham Chand at Chuch outside Attock. The Sikh infantryman's powers of endurance were admired by foreign observers; he could subsist on very small quantities of food and could rapidly cover a lot of ground. The ‘iron-legged' Sikh infantry in its developed state was distinctly more manoeuvrable than the British.

In Ranjit Singh's first years as head of the Sukerchakia
misl,
only the strongest
misls
possessed artillery of any kind, most often taking the form of camel-mounted swivel-guns,
zamburaks
(‘wasps') of one-inch calibre and firing shot of about one pound. Artillery was as generally unpopular as infantry with the Sikhs; it was looked on as an encumbrance to the movement of the horsemen, besides the problem of lack of trained personnel. When Ranjit Singh came to power as ruler of Punjab in 1801, he inherited a battery of six field guns commanded by an Afghan, Ghaus Khan, and immediately realized the importance of artillery. He created an artillery corps in 1804, divided into heavy (bullock-drawn), light (horse-drawn) and camel-drawn artillery. At first this force was built up with guns taken over from captured forts and towns, but in 1807 foundries were established in Lahore and Amritsar which eventually mass-produced copies of British guns received as diplomatic gifts. The largest guns in Ranjit Singh's possession were captured eighteenth-century Muslim pieces firing up to 84-pound shot. Artillerymen were mostly Hindus, with ordnance factories employing a high proportion of Muslim workmen from Delhi.

The most unruly element in Ranjit Singh's army were the Akali horsemen, also known as Nihangs, the ‘Immortals', descendants of Guru Gobind Singh's armed guards of the faith and keepers of the Golden Temple, by now fanatical fundamentalists. They lived an itinerant life, existing on charity or simply helping themselves. These irregulars were Ranjit Singh's shock troops, coming to number about 4,000; they were gradually absorbed into his army and
used as mounted infantry on the most dangerous missions. Here are two eyewitness descriptions of these ferocious and almost uncontrollable soldiers. According to a Sikh official, the Akali was a man ‘whose body is unaffected by pain or comfort. He is a man of firm faith, sexual restraint, meditation, penance and charity, and a complete warrior. In the presence of worldly authority, he remains full of pride… [In battle,] having no fear of death, he never steps back.'
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To W.G. Osborne ‘They are religious fanatics, and acknowledge no ruler and no laws but their own; think nothing of robbery, or even murder, should they happen to be in the humour for it. They move about constantly, armed to the teeth, and it is not an uncommon thing to see them riding about with a drawn sword in each hand, two more in their belt, a matchlock on their back, and three or four pairs of quoits fastened round their turbans.'
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These ‘quoits' were sharp-edged steel rings some six to nine inches in diameter, thrown after being spun round the forefinger; it was claimed they could lop off a limb or slice through a neck at sixty to eighty yards, although according to some accounts they were thrown ‘with more force than dexterity'.
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The Akalis hated Europeans and Muslims and hurled abuse at them whenever they encountered them. Marching past the Maharaja on parades, they would shout insults at him and throw musket balls at his feet, disapproving of his tolerant attitude towards the British. Ranjit Sigh bore this patiently, but if any crime was committed he would see that due punishment was exacted by the removal of a nose, ear or limb according to the seriousness of the crime.
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These ‘military madmen', as Henry Edward Fane, an aide-de-camp to his uncle Sir Henry Fane, Commander-in-Chief of the East India Company's army, described them, even made more than one attempt on their sovereign's life. He always took care to prevent their concentration in large numbers, dispersing them among different regiments when necessary.