LIONHEART: the legend of Hari Singh Nalwa:Chapter 3: Consolidating the frontiers: Multan and the Malwa States

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Maharajah Ranjit Singh would have wanted to teach the Nawab of Multan a lesson personally. Nawab Muzaffar Khan of Multan had been a constant source of irritation for the Maharaja for years. In the early years of the Empire when the western lands of Punjab were being consolidated, the Nawab had pledged allegiance to the Lahore Durbar and reneged on his duties many times. Now, his siding with the Nawab of Kasur in the ghazi insurrection was perhaps the final, unpardonable, betrayal. (It should be noted that Muzaffar Khan had failed to honour his alliance with the Nawab of Kasur too – and had not provided any men to relieve the siege of Kasur.)

Multan lay about two hundred miles south of Lahore – almost a ten day march for the army. The lands controlled by the Nawab were at a crucial strategic juncture. Multan was the southernmost province in Punjab. Beyond Multan lay the drylands of Sind, where the five rivers of Punjab now flowed as the grand but solitary Indus. To the west were the beginnings of the foothills of the Hindu Kush, also a mostly barren and dry land, but within striking distance of the Afghan hill tribes. The eastern border of Multan was contiguous with the Nawabdom of Bahawalpur – which was until now neutral but could not be trusted to remain so if it felt threatened by a large marching army.

So, perhaps keeping in mind these considerations of distance and diplomacy, Maharaja Ranjit Singh chose tact, combined with a just adequate display of force.

A contingent of the Khalsa Army, led by Sardar Fateh Singh Ahluwalia, was thus despatched to Multan. Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa had distinguished himself in the Battle of Kasur and in the Sher Dil Regiment he led one of the finest cavalry corps of the Khalsa Fauj. Did he accompany Sardar Fateh Singh on this march? Possibly.

An ultimatum was delivered to the Nawab. He was reminded of his relationship as a tributary of Lahore. He was warned, that this was the final act of toleration the Sarkar-e-Khalsa would grant him, and on any further hint of disloyalty, Multan would be taken over by the Durbar – the line of Nawabs would be terminated. If he wished to continue as Nawab, he would have to pay not only the sums that were due from him – as a vassal – but additional fines.

The Nawab agreed. To everything. He expressed profuse apologies to Sardar Fateh Singh, promised to remain a loyal servant of the Sarkar-e-Khalsa, paid some of his dues, but asked for time to pay the rest. None of the Nawab’s professions of faith turned out to be true. In two years time, the Khalsa fauj, this time led by the Maharaja, was once again laying siege to the fort of Multan.

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But now, the Maharaja’s mind was occupied by other – more urgent – matters. In the previous chapters, we discussed the geopolitical map of northern India. Now the map was changing quite rapidly, with the rise of the East India Company to almost total hegemony around the peninsular to central arc of the subcontinent, up till the borders of Punjab.

The Treaty negotiated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh between the Maratha Holkar and the British had not held. It was, in fact, doomed to failure from the start.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the British East India Company was in the hands of staunch imperialists. In fact there had been almost no successive years in the Indian subcontinent since the mid 18th century (after the Battle of Plassey in the late 1750’s) in which the East India Company did not war against an Indian state. The most powerful rivals of the Company, the Marathas had been the most difficult to subdue. (Earlier, the south Indian sultanate of Mysore had given the British similarly fierce resistance.)

The singular aim of the British in India had been complete dominance. Fuelled with almost unlimited resources from the Indian Ocean trade network, and the burgeoning manpower of the Indian regions they had conquered – where after the destruction of local industry and agriculture people were only too eager to join whatever occupation gave them employment – the EIC had rampaged across India, the period being one of the bloodiest in Indian history.

The Holkar had resisted the march of the British for almost a decade. But in the end, the resources of a land locked kingdom were no match for an oceanic, global empire.

After decisively defeating Holkar Jasvant Rao, and reducing him to tributary status (he would regroup to make another final attempt to push the invader back soon), and having taken control over the lands around Delhi – where there was still a Mughal Emperor! – what was next? There was a scattering of small principalities around the Jamuna river, they were quickly dealt with.

Now, it should be recalled that while Maharaja Ranjit Singh had been subduing the lands around the Lahore to Kangra axis, to the south, across the Sutlej were a number of Sikh kingdoms which were still independent. They recognised the power of Ranjit Singh but were not subservient to him.

It was here, in this ‘shattered’ internal frontier of buffer states, that the two remaining powers in the Indian subcontinent almost went to war.

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British intelligence circles were in a state of panic in the beginning of 1808. Informants from the north reported that Maharaja Ranjit was preparing to lead a large army into the holy city of Haridwar, an ancient settlement that had grown on the banks of the Ganga as it descended from the Himalayas into the plains. One of the most important pilgrimage centres for Hindus, Haridwar was also revered by Sikhs and was home to historic Gurdwaras, marking visits by Guru Nanak.

The purported purpose of the visit was to attend the holy gathering called the Kumbh Mela, a day on which it was considered auspicious to bathe in the River Ganga. However, since the city was nominally independent at the time, a geopolitical purpose could not be dismissed lightly.

Hurriedly, an Ambassador, Charles Metcalfe, was despatched to Haridwar to meet the the Maharaja. The visit by Maharaja Ranjit Singh was, however, cancelled abruptly. Was this just a testing of the waters?

While the Maharaja did not visit Haridwar, some of his Sikhs did. Among them was Hari Singh Nalwa (as mentioned by Vanit Nalwa in her biography of her ancestor) – his name recorded in the annals of the Pandits of Haridwar, who maintain records of genealogies of all families who have visited the holy city, going back hundreds of years. Hari Singh paid respects to his elders, perhaps he visited the bazaars at the fair, a reputed market for the buying and selling of the best horses. in the land. Perhaps, he also performed another task assigned by his King – to gauge the personality of the man who was to negotiate on behalf of the British Empire a treaty of peace with the Sikhs.

Metcalfe, ultimately, did not go to Haridwar. Just as he was preparing to leave Delhi, he received a letter from Lahore, inviting him to Thanesar to meet the Maharaja. Thanesar was well south of the Sutlej, near the ancient city of Kurukshetra, the battleground where the legendary war of the Mahabharata had taken place. The choice of Thanesar was, perhaps, made for its symbolic value – not the mythology, per se, but the geography. It lay to the south of Patiala, which after Ranjit Singh’s Empire, was the largest Sikh state.

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By the year 1808, it had almost been a decade since Ranjit Singh had become the Maharaja of Punjab. In this decade, through war, diplomacy and tact he had stitched together what was turning out to be a substantial Empire of the Sikhs in Punjab. The only Punjabi territories that remained outside this Empire, were south of the River Sutlej. Theses were the Malwa States – Jind, Kaithal, Jagadhari, Nabha and Patiala. Nominally, Ranjit Singh was recognised as suzerain by the Sikh kings and nobles who controlled these lands. He was often called upon to negotiate disputes, settle matters between them.

However, with the East India Company’s consolidation of the territories around Delhi, the geopolitical calculus in the northern subcontinent had shifted. It was with this in mind that the Governor-General of the EIC Lord Minto had despatched Charles Metcalfe, who was initially meant to meet Ranjit Singh in Haridwar. Ranjit Singh, as has been mentioned before, did not finally go to Haridwar, but sent Hari Singh Nalwa instead.

There was also a global geopolitical context to the embassy of Charles Metcalfe. In the previous decade, while the East India Company had consolidate its hold over India, in Europe Britain had been participating in an alliance against Napoleon Bonaparte’s France. Napoleon had previously had some diplomatic contacts with Tipoo Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, who had been the EIC’s greatest opponent in peninsular India. After Tipoo had been defeated by the British, Napoleon had expressed his desire to march overland, through Persia, into India.

So, Metcalfe’s embassy had a two-fold purpose: one, to secure an agreement regarding boundaries with Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and two, to secure a preliminary alliance against the possibility of a French invasion of India. Two more ambassadors were sent at the same time, John Malcolm to Persia, and Montstuart Elphinstone to negotiate with the Afghans. Since the English did not have any agreements with Ranjit Singh at the time, Elphinstone took a circuitous route through Rajasthan and Sind to reach Peshawar, the summer capital of Afghanistan, where he met the Afghan Emir, Shah Shuja.

Shah Shuja will enter our story soon enough, but now, let us return to Charles Metcalfe.

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When Metcalfe left Delhi, for, as he was informed, Thanesar, it was nearing the end of the monsoon season. There had once been a ‘Grand Trunk Road’ – not known by this name of course – that ran all the way from Bengal through Delhi to Kabul. The Grand Trunk Road, the oldest ‘highway’ in the world built by India’s first historical Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, extended by Sher Shah Suri, who christened it the Shah Rah e Azam – the grand road – was once well maintained by the Mughals. Now, as Metcalfe travelled north from Delhi, it was lost in a quagmire of post-monsoon mud. Now, Metcalfe wasn’t traveling alone. He was leading a party that had a retinue of soldiers, scribes, munshis, and, although his letters don’t mention it, supplementary groups of porters, washermen, craftsmen, etc. – as all traveling parties in the age generally did.

After the arduous journey, he would have been hoping for some ‘oriental’ comforts at the Maharaja’s camp in Thanesar, but it was not to be. The Maharaja wasn’t there! What awaited him was a message (carried by Hari Singh, let us assume!) to pass on through the Malwa, across the Sutlej, through the Empire, and meet the Maharaja in Kasur! One can imagine the psychological effect this must have had – almost more than doubling the journey, when the matters at hand demanded urgency. Not to mention the body’s demand for rest.

Thankfully, there was some rest to be had. Just a day’s travel more, and Metcalfe reached the domains of the Raja of Patiala, Sahib Singh. Here, he got his first taste of the legendary Punjabi hospitality, something in which the rulers of Patiala even surpassed the King of Lahore, perhaps.

Metcalfe reached Patiala on 22nd August, he was greeted by the Raja himself, who, in a grandiose gesture, handed the English envoy the keys to the fort of the Capital, asking them to given back as a gift from the British! The Raja of Patiala, it seems, had his diplomatic game all set. He was going to use the opportunity to maintain his independence. This gesture was perhaps also meant for the ‘messenger of Lahore’ who accompanied Metcalfe. The Maharaja of Lahore should be warned, the Raja of Patiala had powerful friends.

Metcalfe remained in Patiala for a few days. He finally crossed the Sutlej on 1st September with a warning in his ear – the Maharaja of Lahore was playing a game, he meant to cross the Sutlej and take the city of Faridkot, which was independent at the time, but, nominally, belonged to Patiala.

The English envoy would have had ten days to contemplate. On the 10th of September he approached the camp of the armies of Lahore on the outskirts of Kasur.

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Charles Metcalfe met Ranjit Singh, finally, on September 12. It was an informal meeting. He had another meeting a week later, on September 19, in which he was allowed to explain the larger geopolitical context and express a desire for an alliance with Punjab.

On September 22, the Maharaja invited Metcalfe to a more ‘personal’ meeting. For long hours they had an informal, wideranging discussion, where the two young men gauged each other’s power and abilities. The Maharaja, accompanied by a select group of advisers, as Metcalfe says ‘his principal counsellors of State’, questioned the Englishman on a range of issues. He asked about the EIC’s military strength, about their relationship with Holkar, about how far they were willing to proceed to fight the French of they did march to India. Metcalfe answered as he thought fitting, ending by saying that they were willing to march up to Kabul, if needed. Ranjit Singh would make note of this – for future reference!

After this somewhat positive meeting, Metcalfe was in for a surprise when he woke up on the morning of the 25th of September. The Maharaja had broken camp early in the morning – he was marching across the Sutlej, to Faridkot.

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What commenced hereafter was a diplomatic game of cat and mouse. Metcalfe rushed to Faridkot, arriving just on the day it was captured. There was no serious meeting with the Maharaja. The Khalsa army broke camp and moved on to Malerkottla, where after a show of force the Muslim Nawab surrendered. Again, Metcalfe followed the fauj but could arrive at no terms for a treaty. Ranjit Singh’s march continued – to Shahbad, to Ambala, and finally, to Patiala.

What happened at Patiala was unexpected. At least to Metcalfe. Rather than witnessing an outbreak of hostilities he saw, the Maharaja of Lahore meeting and greeting the Raja of Patiala in a ceremony organised at the behest of a venerable Sikh elder, descendant of the clan of Guru Nanak, Sahib Singh Bedi.

To what extent did the English understand the Sikhs, their enmities, their unities?

Frustrated, Metcalfe wrote to the Governor General that Ranjeet Singh could not be trusted enough for an alliance. He suggested a show of force. Even as his letter was traveling to the authorities of the EIC, Ranjeet Singh brought out another surprise. He was going to travel back to Amritsar, and Metcalfe was to accompany him.

In the ensuing weeks, known to both the English and the Sikhs, armies from each side had begun to gather, in preparation for war. It should be recalled, Ranjeet Singh claimed to have ruled as a regent on earth for the Eternal One, Akaal Purkah. His was an Empire of Sikhs. It would not be complete unless all Sikhs were brought under the Empire.

As the cold of winter descended over the north Indian plain, the two diplomatic camps settled in Amritsar, with regular, but keeping with the theme of the season, chilly contact with each other.

As the new year came, so did new developments in Europe. The British alliance in Europe was beginning to push Napoleon’s conquering armies back into France. It would not be long before the diminutive Gallic conqueror would be defeated for good.

This changed the equation in India. Till now, the stalling had been frustrating for Metcalfe, but not altogether bad for the British. They too had bee waiting for geopolitical stability, in Europe and from the embassies of John Malcolm to Persia, and Monstuart Elphinstone to Afghanistan.

Now, the balance had clearly shifted. The threat of the French invasion had passed. The English could be more assertive. Gradually, final terms were passed on to the Maharaja. He would have to give up suzerainty over all territories south of the Sutlej, since the Sikh Princes of the Malwa had clearly pledged their sovereignty to the British – as they had, in deed, by then.

There were two camps in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. One led by Diwan Mokham Chand and Akali Phoola Singh. Mokham Chand claimed to be in touch with the Marathas, and also whatever remained of the Rohilla Afghan aristocracy. He claimed they could build an alliance to push the British out of north India. The Maharaja was, however, in the other camp. He was not in favour of fighting the British. Perhaps, he realised, it was not the British who were the real, historical, enemy of the Sikhs. Perhaps, he understood the strengths and weaknesses of each side. Also, it was true that the Sikh states south of the Sutlej did not accept his sovereignty. Going to war with the British would mean having to fight them too. This was not worth the cost in blood and treasure, when there was a greater fruit there for the picking.

Had not the British told him they were willing to march up till Kabul?

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The Treaty of Amritsar was signed on 25th April, 1810. Charles Metcalfe made a large offering before Guru Granth Sahib in Amritsar and returned to Delhi, with mixed feelings. He had been led through an arduous emotional, psychological and physical journey in the past half year. He would be rewarded later in his career through temporary Governor-Generalship of the East India Company, for a few months. Maharaja Ranjit Singh had avoided war for, purpotedly, long term strategic gains, but the mood in the Sikh camp was not too cheerful.

More than a few people felt that the Sikh qaum had been robbed of its rightful lands. Perhaps to remind his court that were other frontiers to conquer, perhaps to make up for the loss of territory, in the spring the Maharaja decided on campaigning to Kangra – to secure the kingdom under the direct control of the Lahore Durbar.

He received another piece of news – the Nawab of Multan had turned treacherous, yet again.

There was still work to be done. Now, though, after years of campaigning, he did not have to do everything himself. He had Hari Singh – who no doubt, had been watching and learning. And waiting.

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