John Company conquers Punjab

The First-Anglo Sikh War 1845-46

Amarpal Singh

HarperCollins India

256 pages; Rs 699

After victory over the Marathas in 1818 made the British East India Company the paramount power in the subcontinent, the only areas outside the company’s control were Punjab (ruled by Maharaja Ranjit Singh), Kashmir and Sind. Ranjit Singh was a strong ruler with a European-trained army, but following his death in 1839, his kingdom’s descent into anarchy was swift, and power came to be exercised by army panchayats consisting of soldiers who held both the civilian and military leadership in contempt. With the Sikh state and the British both making aggressive moves, the uneasy peace that had prevailed between the two soon fell apart. The inevitable trial of strength took place between December 1845 and February 1846, resulting in defeat for the Sikhs and the posting of an all-powerful British resident at the Lahore court.

The First Anglo-Sikh War 1845-46 is a detailed account of the five battles that comprised the war, fought at the villages of Aliwal and Bhudowal (near Ludhiana) and Mudki, Ferozeshah and Sabraon (near the River Sutlej). Amarpal Singh, a UK-based software professional who chose to turn military historian in mid-career, has divided the book into two parts. The first reconstructs the ebb and flow of the fighting, based on eyewitness accounts by British soldiers and officers. (Sadly, there was only one Sikh account — by a senior official of the Lahore court — that Mr Singh could draw upon.) The second contains battlefield guides that list landmarks of interest, both on the battlefield and in villages located nearby. Mr Singh gives their GPS coordinates, and writes that many of these locations can be viewed using satellite imagery.

The British used a tried and tested formula — bribery. The Sikh prime minister, Lal Singh, and the commander-in-chief, Tej Singh, decided that their army would be kept in defensive positions until British preparations were complete; the British cantonments at Ferozepore, Ludhiana, Kasauli and Sabathu, all lightly garrisoned and within easy reach of the Sikh army, would not be attacked; the campaign would be waged passively; food and ammunition supplies would be delivered to the frontlines fitfully; and battle plans and details of force locations would be communicated to the British. (Both men were suitably rewarded.)

The idea, Mr Singh writes, was to hasten the destruction of the Sikh army, in the hope that “the grateful conquerors, upon being given such vast new territories, would be content to let the collaborators continue to run the state, albeit under British supremacy.” He quotes a European doctor at Lahore as having written that Tej Singh confessed to him that the Sikh state had descended into such anarchy that the only remedy was to “surrender it to the English”. Mr Singh adds: “So sometime in November 1845, it was decided by the ruling clique that the army would be led to war against the British.”

The two Anglo-Sikh wars — the second was fought in 1848-49, after which the British annexed Punjab and began ruling it directly — not only extended the East India Company’s sway over the entire subcontinent, but would also have an impact on the course of the 1857 uprising. They ensured that the Sikh army would stay loyal to the British, who were shaken by the events of that year.

Mr Singh goes into astonishing detail. In an innovative approach to history writing, he describes the present state of the sites where the battles were fought. He visited these sites, but it was only with the help of Google Earth that he was able to discern long-vanished roads and tracks, ridges of high ground, dry stream beds, and trench works, foxholes and other defensive installations, all described in the numerous first-hand accounts left by the British, but now virtually invisible from the ground. Mr Singh was also able to locate ancient wells, the ruins of a few mid-nineteenth century havelis and five battlefield memorials constructed by the British in 1869-70, now in a state of disrepair.

Aerial images, he writes, also help reveal the impact of modernity. Villages have grown, the jungle amid which the battles were fought is now farmland, and modern construction, roads, highways, railway tracks and irrigation canals have almost obliterated all traces of the battlefields. Though interest in battlefields of that era is growing (especially those associated with the 1857 uprising), Mr Singh notes, in marked contrast to the West, it is still in its infancy in India. In Punjab, road maps do not mark the sites of the five battles of the First Anglo-Sikh War, there are no signs on highways indicating the locations of the battlefields, and no guidebooks are available. Mr Singh has provided a number of period drawings, as well as modern-day photographs of the battlefield sites, which are now farmlands.

The First-Anglo Sikh War 1845-46 was published in the UK in 2010 and the Indian edition comes seven years later. In the meantime, Mr Singh’s book on the Second Anglo-Sikh War was out in the UK last year, and will be keenly awaited in this country by students of military history, both amateur and professional.