Empire of the Sikhs (24 page)

Everyone was housed in tents of scarlet material, crowned with gold balls. Floors were covered with rich carpets, and chairs were of carved silver. On his arrival at the camp Fane was greeted by the Maharaja's envoy with 2,100 gold ducats and 500 trays of Indian sweets and fruit.

On the following day a meeting between Ranjit Singh and Fane took place in the garden of Amritsar's Rambagh Palace under a canopy of colourful shawls held up by silver poles. Chairs of gold and silver were placed for the guests. The Maharaja and his entourage came on elephants gorgeously caparisoned. Ranjit Singh, who struck eyewitnesses as beginning to look elderly, although without any diminution in his mental alertness, was plainly dressed in green, but what stood out was a single string of huge pearls around his neck and two diamond armbands. Raja Dhian Singh's eighteen-year-old son Hira Singh, another favourite of Ranjit Singh's, stood out in the crowd. Very handsome although rather effeminate, he was covered from head to toe in a profusion of jewels. It is said that he was one of the few allowed to be seated in the Maharaja's presence. As usual, Ranjit Singh questioned his interlocutor closely and continuously about all aspects of his army.

The Maharaja showered the people with gold and silver coins as he rode through the streets. At the Bhangi Fort the
watna
ceremony (applying oil to the hair) took place, with Ranjit Singh the first to apply oil on his grandson after first throwing hundreds of gold ducats into the vessel full of oil. The others followed suit. Prince Kharak Singh and his mother Raj Kaur made a
sarwarna
or blessing of 125 rupees each over the bridegroom. The latter's sister
then performed the traditional custom of rubbing oil into Ranjit Singh's beard. The pleased Maharaja gave her 500 rupees, but she returned the money and asked for a
jagir
instead, which was instantly granted. This ceremony was followed by an evening of feasting. Gifts of money and gold then arrived for the bridegroom from the bride's home in Attari.

In the morning of the third day, 7 March, the ceremony of investiture of the bridegroom with the bridal chaplet or wreath took place at the Golden Temple. Ranjit Singh personally covered the bridegroom's face with a
sehra
or veil of uncut diamonds and pearls, and monetary offerings were placed before the holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, and at the Akal Takht. In the afternoon the procession left for Attari, headquarters of the Attariwalas. It is estimated that not less than 600,000 people lined the roads on either side.

On reaching the baronial-looking castle of Sardar Sham Singh Attariwala, a stout and easy-going man, the Maharaja was presented with 101 gold mohurs and five richly caparisoned horses, Kharak Singh with 51 gold mohurs
²²
and a horse, and all the other Sardars received commensurate gifts. The marriage ceremony took place in the evening at what was considered an auspicious hour. Under a large canopy attached to the roof of the main building, before a large assembly of guests and spectators, the bridegroom was seen for the first time, his face covered by the
sehra.
The ceremony ended at nine o'clock. The Maharaja was moved to say to his wife Raj Kaur, grandmother of the bridegroom: ‘This is the most auspicious and fortunate day which it has been vouchsafed me by God to see. I must thank the Almighty, for such a day was not vouchsafed even to my forefathers.'
²³

Immediately after the ceremony there was a fireworks display and feasting followed by dancing which carried on all night. On this occasion Ranjit Singh, seated on his chair of state, wore the Koh-i-noor diamond on his arm along with his famous pearls.
Even a sip of his favourite fiery liquor brought tears to the eyes of his English guests, but the Maharaja drank several glasses of it with no visible effect.

The next day the bride's dowry was displayed to the people in an enormous enclosure five miles in circumference. It consisted of 101 horses with gold and silver trappings, hundreds of cows, buffaloes, camels and elephants, shawls from Kashmir, silks from Multan, gold and red brocade from Benares, beautifully carved silver and gold plate and dishes and precious stones. The clothes alone are said to have covered an acre. Sir Henry Fane gave the bridegroom 11,000 rupees and Raja Dhian Singh 125,000 rupees, while the other chiefs gave what was appropriate to their rank and position. Money was also distributed to the poor in the same enclosure; it is said that over a million people were given one rupee each.

The wedding festivities continued at Lahore where on the evening of 12 March the British and other guests were entertained at the Shalimar Gardens, which had a fairyland atmosphere, with decorations and illuminations from countless oil lamps in different colours hanging from trees, roofs and walls and along the walks, all reflected in the cascading waterfalls. The English ladies were enchanted, and after they left the dancing gathered tempo and liquor flowed.

A few days later, with so much military presence on both sides, it was time for reviews. On 16 March a grand review of the Sikh army was held; it is recorded that 18,000 men assembled in Lahore, well clothed and armed in the European fashion. On the following day Fane's escort of cavalry, horse artillery and infantry units held their review. Ranjit Singh's overtly expressed admiration for what he saw was immense, as an eyewitness describes: ‘The extreme delight of the old man at the discipline of the men and the explanation the General gave him of the movements, and how they would act with a large body, surpasses belief. He rode
through and looked at every gun, examined the appointments of the men, counted the number in each square, and quite gained all our hearts by the interest he took and the acuteness which he showed by his questions.'
²⁴
He was so delighted to see a six-pounder of the Horse Artillery dismounted from its carriage, taken to pieces and put together again inside five minutes that he afterwards sent a gift of 11,000 rupees to be divided among the soldiers. And he responded similarly at a British artillery demonstration on the following day.

On 22 March the Holi (spring) festival was celebrated with traditional vigour. The British commander-in-chief was present, and the Maharaja poured red powder and yellow saffron over his head while the prime minister rubbed him all over with gold and silver leaf mixed with red powder. The Sardars, seated on chairs with baskets of red powder beside them, pelted each other with balls filled with saffron. The Afghan ambassador, just arrived from Kandahar, a devout Muslim, was covered in coloured dust from head to foot and, not having any idea what was happening, took flight amid roars of laughter – ‘etiquette for the nonce was thrown to the winds'.
²⁵

Twenty-two days after General Fane had been received, on 27 March, he took his leave of the Maharaja in a farewell visit to him in his garden house, seated on a carpet with tame pigeons feeding around him, attended by his court.

Ironically enough, since it was Ranjit Singh who openly asked the questions and soaked up information, it was the British who had seriously set about gaining military intelligence on this occasion. The commander-in-chief's party had used the opportunity to make a detailed appraisal of the Sikhs' military power, which was reckoned to consist of 67 infantry regiments, 700 pieces of artillery and innumerable cavalry. Fane's confidential report to the governor-general contained estimates of the British army's ability to destroy Ranjit Singh's military might, which had now reached formidable proportions.
²⁶
In his
History of the Sikhs
(1849) Joseph Cunningham called this use of what was supposed to be a social occasion to form an estimate of the force which would be required for the complete subjugation of the Punjab ‘a base and graceless act'.
²⁷

Returning to the question of Ranjit Singh's principal wives, if we place the total number at nine, the preceding account leaves seven others. The two who deserve mention here, both of whom he married in 1828, are Mahtab Devi and Raj Banso, daughters of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra: the first because of her deep devotion to him and the second because she committed suicide when Ranjit Singh compared her exceptionally beautiful looks to those of a dancing girl – coming from a ruling family of Rajputs, Raj Banso took this slight to heart and overdosed on opium. Since there is nothing on record of interest about the remaining five wives they are left out of this account, but since those in the
chadar dalna
category bore Ranjit sons, they come into the story.

In 1810 Ranjit Singh had decided it was time to annex the territories of the Bhangi
misl
in Gujrat, but its chief Sahib Singh, realizing the futility of resisting the ruler's superior forces, had withdrawn to his Deva Butala fort without a fight, leaving the
misl
's possessions to the victor. Moved by the pleading of the Bhangi chief's mother Mai Lachhmi, he gifted her son a holding worth 100,000 rupees. Sahib Singh did not live long enough to enjoy this largesse as he died a year later, whereupon his two widows, Daya Kaur and Ratan Kaur, became a part of Ranjit Singh's household through
chadar dalna.
It was not long before the two ranis, seeing how Mehtab Kaur had had her two sons accepted by Ranjit Singh, decided to follow the precedent she and Sada Kaur had so successfully set.

Daya Kaur, taking the lead, produced two sons, Kashmira Singh in 1819 and Peshoura Singh in 1821, named after Ranjit Singh's
victories, and Ratan Kaur produced Multana Singh, named in the same vein, in 1819. Although the paternity of these three was in doubt, Ranjit Singh accepted them as his own sons and allotted
jagirs
to them befitting their princely status.

The number of daughters fathered by Ranjit Singh has remained a mystery to this day in the absence of any conclusive evidence. The closest the authors of this book have come to finding an answer was the discovery of a page in a handwritten diary kept by the Maharaja's youngest son, Dalip Singh. In this diary, which we chanced upon in Britain, Dalip Singh had entered the names of three women (whether wives or concubines was unclear) who had borne the Maharaja four daughters. Only the mothers are named, as Jagdeo (one daughter), Hurdsir (two) and Aso Sircar (one).

The last woman of significance in Ranjit Singh's life, although it seems they were never married, was Rani Jindan. Born in 1817, when he was thirty-seven, she was the daughter of a kennel-keeper who eventually became a chamberlain at court. Attracted to her when she was eleven years old, Ranjit Singh took charge of her education and maintenance by arranging for her to be brought up by a family in Amritsar. She arrived at the Lahore court when she was sixteen and completely captivated the ageing but still vigorous Maharaja. In 1838 she presented him with his seventh son, Dalip Singh. He was ecstatic at this welcome new addition to his family.

Described by one historian as ‘one of the most misunderstood characters of nineteenth-century India', Rani Jindan was to rule the Sikh state for most of the last few years of its existence, from 1843 to 1848. She attracted British admiration, a British resident calling her ‘the only effective enemy of British policy in the whole of India'. During this time she ‘removed the veil, addressed the military Panchayats, inspected the troops, held court'.
²⁸
Never easily impressed by his adversaries or one to give them any credit even when clearly due, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie had this to say about her: ‘Rely upon it, she is worth more than all
the soldiers of the state put together', and for good measure referred to her as ‘the only person having manly understanding in Punjab'.
²⁹

A woman of great spirit and a high sense of self-esteem, Jindan, although faced with overwhelming odds, was not one to keep quiet or cringe before the occupying power. In the first of three letters she wrote to Henry Lawrence, the British resident at Lahore, she said on 7 August 1847: ‘Why do you take over the kingdom by underhand means? Why don't you do it openly? On the one hand you protest friendship and on the other you put us in prison. At the bidding of three or four traitors you are putting the whole Punjab to sword.'
³⁰
In her second letter of 20 August she wrote: ‘You have snatched my son from me. For nine months I kept him in my womb. Then I brought him up with great difficulty. In the name of God you worship and in the name of the King whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of separation.'
³¹
And in her third of 30 August: ‘Well, has the friendship between the two kingdoms repaid? I have lost my honour and you your word.'
³²

Whatever the astrologers of the time may have forecast for the prince, the destructive forces that would come out of the woodwork to put an end to the empire Ranjit Singh had constructed with such energy, enthusiasm and skill would emerge when Dalip Singh was not yet out of infancy. The plots, intrigues and betrayals inside the Durbar, combined with the ambitions of the British across the Sutlej scheming to annex the subcontinent's last great stronghold, would make Dalip Singh the setting ‘son' on a failing empire.