Last Sunday my friend invited me to attend an online collective exploration of Pakistani history and culture hosted by Dastaangoi (which was incredible. Its all on YouTube if you want to check it out). One of the speakers was Abu Bakar Khan, a producer and manager of the Diaspora Creative, who talked about growing up abroad and visiting Pakistan as a child trying to reconcile his identity and roots. As an adult he embarked on an explorative journey that took him across India and Pakistan back to a time when it was one. He talked about healing the narrative - how the two nations needed to come together, build bridges through dialogue and celebrate their shared history. He shared a small teaser of his upcoming series on Maharajah Ranjit Singh. Check it out below:
I had a vague idea of who Ranjit Sigh was. We read about him in connection to Koh-I-Noor but very little else. I feel like the history books made a liberal jump from battle of Plassey and Panipat to the 1857 mutiny. Naturally the trailer fired up my curiosity to delve into that epoch of history. Among a number of books on Ranjit Singh and his conquests I choose one written by Khushwant Singh.
In the 1790’s Punjab looked like a jigsaw puzzle of fourteen pieces with 5 arrows piercing it from the sides. 12 of those 14 pieces were Sikh Misls (Territories under protection of local Sikh lords/families) and of the remaining 1 was controlled by Pathans (Kasur District) and the other by an independent English adventurer (Hansi District). The 5 arrows stabbing these 14 districts from the sides were Afghans in the North west, Rajputs of Kangra in the North, Gurkhas in North East, British in the East and the Marathas in the South East.
Punjab was in a precarious position. The misls were not a united fraternity. Repeated incursions by the Afghan invaders had sowed seeds of dissent among territories.
Ranjit Singh by Khushwant Singh is the story of a young boy who rose to power following the untimely death of his father. With an ambition that knew no bounds he went on to not only unite a fragmented Punjab but also command a Sikh Empire that at its height extended its domain from the Khyber Pass in the northwest to the Sutlej River in the east and from the Kashmir region at the northern limit of the Indian subcontinent southward to the Thar Desert.
Khushwant Singhs lucid style of writing makes this an exciting book to read as he works chronologically through Ranjit Singhs life and conquests while carefully painting the socio-political backdrop of the early 19th century Indian subcontinent. Explaining the life of Ranjit Singh in terms of the historical movements of that time is important because it explains the meteoric rise and equally meteoric collapse of the Sikh Empire as a culmination of a historic movement. Punjabi Nationalism was the deceptively still undercurrent beneath the swell on which Sikhs and Ranjit Singh rode to power. Similarly the fall of the Sikh Kingdom was not simply due to misfortunes in the battle but akin to a wave crashing on the sands completely spent when its driving force was gone.
Ranjeet took over Punjab by bringing together territories under the protection of a central power - the Durbar. Once Punjab was consolidated he secured its borders by countering and eliminating threat of Afghans from the west. In doing so he became the first person in almost a thousand years to turn the tide of foreign invaders from the north west frontier. It was during his reign the Attock fort, a gateway to India for the Afghan invaders, was conquered.
It was not the story of a mere conqueror but of a sharp and shrewd tactician. From a band of intrepid horsemen and matchlockmen he raised a disciplined formidable army that recruited soldiers from a number of nationalities and had units trained by veteran French and Western commanders. However, it was not just armies that fueled his ambitions but equal parts political savvy as well. As his empire stretched into Peshawar, Kashmir and south into Multan he secured the eastern fronts through the Treaty of Amritsar ensuring the British would not interfere in lands west of Sutlej.
His life was fascinating. He built a vast empire without engaging in wanton revenge or bloodletting as one would expect. Time and again his allies engaged in betrayal followed by seeking forgiveness that he gave gracefully. He never ordered the death of a king or general that he defeated. His rule marked decades of peace between the three dominant religion of the land. It was remarkable.
On that note this book, while historical, is also hagiographical. It extols many virtues of Ranjit Singh without going into the negative aspects (no man, a conqueror no less, can be a saint which is why when it comes to reading history - a pinch of salt is important)
I wanted to read more about this personal life as well however this book is not very detailed on that account as it is on his military and political life. It ends right at his death so I had to do some extra reading online trying to understand more about what happened afterwards that fractured this once powerful empire so violently.
“History has not been fair with Maharaja Ranjit Singh because he was a Sikh.” In this Tedx Lahore Talk, Mr Fakir Syed whose ancestors served the Durbar Government talks about the Sikh Rule in Lahore during Ranjit Singhs lifetime.
-Saima