The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 64. Maharaja Sher Singh.

(_From a picture book said to have been prepared for Maharaja Dalip Singh._)]

~The First Sikh War and its results.~--In 1845 these intriguers, fearing the _Khalsa_ army which they could not control, yielded to its cry to be led across the Sutlej in the hope that its strength would be broken in its conflict with the Company's forces. The valour displayed by the Sikh soldiery on the fields of Mudki, Ferozeshah (Pherushahr), and Sobraon was rendered useless by the treachery of its rulers, and Lah.o.r.e was occupied in February, 1846. By the treaty signed on 9th March, 1846, the Maharaja ceded the territories in the plains between the Sutlej and Bias, and in the hills between the Bias and the Indus. Kashmir and Hazara were made over by the Company to Raja Gulab Singh for a payment of 75 lakhs, but next year he induced the Lah.o.r.e Darbar to take over Hazara and give him Jammu in exchange. After Raja Lal Singh had been banished for instigating Shekh Imam ud din to resist the occupation of Kashmir by Gulab Singh, an agreement was executed, in December, 1846, between the Government and the chief Sikh _Sardars_ by which a Council of Regency was appointed to be controlled by a British Resident at Lah.o.r.e. The office was given to Henry Lawrence.

~The Second Sikh War.~--These arrangements were destined to be short-lived. Diwan Sawan Mal's son, Mulraj, mismanaged Multan and was ordered to resign. In April, 1848, two English officers sent to instal his Sikh successor were murdered. Herbert Edwardes, with the help of Muhammadan tribesmen and Bahawalpur troops, shut up Mulraj in Multan, but the fort was too strong for the first British regular force, which arrived in August, and it did not fall till January, 1849. During that winter a formidable Sikh revolt against English domination broke out.

Its leader was _Sardar_ Chatar Singh, Governor of Hazara. The troops sent by the _Darbar_ to Multan under Chatar Singh's son, Sher Singh, marched northwards in September to join their co-religionists.

On the 13th of January, 1849, Lord Gough fought a very hardly contested battle at Chilianwala. If this was but a doubtful victory, that won six weeks later at Gujrat was decisive. On 12th March, 1849, the soldiers of the _Khalsa_ in proud dejection laid down their weapons at the feet of the victor, and dispersed to their homes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 65. Zamzama Gun[6].]

~Annexation.~--The cause they represented was in no sense a national one.

The Sikhs were a small minority of the population, the bulk of the people being Muhammadans, to whom the English came as deliverers. On the 30th of March, 1849, the proclamation annexing the Panjab was read at Lah.o.r.e.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: This gun, known to the readers of _Kim_, stands on the Lah.o.r.e Mall. Whoever possesses it is supposed to be ruler of the Panjab.]

CHAPTER XX

HISTORY (_continued_). THE BRITISH PERIOD, 1849-1913

~Administrative Arrangements in Panjab.~--Lord Dalhousie put the government of the province under a Board of Administration consisting of the two Lawrences, Henry and John, and Charles Mansel. The Board was abolished in 1853 and its powers vested in a Chief Commissioner. A Revenue or Financial Commissioner and a Judicial Commissioner were his princ.i.p.al subordinates. John Lawrence, the first and only Chief Commissioner of the Panjab, became its first Lieutenant-Governor on the 1st of January, 1859. The raising of the Panjab to the full rank of an Indian province was the fitting reward of the great part which its people and its officers, with their cool-headed and determined chief, had played in the suppression of the Mutiny. The overthrow of the _Khalsa_ left the contending parties with the respect which strong men feel for each other; the services of the Sikhs in 1857 healed their wounded pride and removed all soreness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 66. Sir John Lawrence.]

~Administration, 1849-1859.~--When John Lawrence laid down his office in the end of February, 1859, ten years of work by himself and the able officers drafted by Lord Dalhousie into the new province had established order on a solid foundation. A strong administration suited to a manly and headstrong people had been organised. In the greater part of the province rights in land had been determined and recorded. The principle of a moderate a.s.sessment of the land revenue had been laid down and partially carried out in practice. The policy of ca.n.a.l and railway development, which was to have so great a future in the Panjab, had been definitely started. The province had been divided into nine divisions containing 33 districts. The Divisional Commissioners were superintendents of revenue and police with power to try the gravest criminal offences and to hear appeals in civil cases. The Deputy Commissioner of districts had large civil, criminal, and fiscal powers.

A simple criminal and civil code was enforced. The peace of the frontier was secured by a chain of fortified outposts watching the outlets from the hills, behind which were the cantonments at the headquarters of the districts linked together by a military road. The posts and the cantonments except Peshawar were garrisoned by the Frontier Force, a splendid body of troops consisting ultimately of seven infantry and five cavalry regiments, with some mule batteries. This force was till 1885 subject to the orders of the Lieutenant Governor. It never wanted work, for before the Mutiny troops had to be employed seventeen times against the independent tribesmen. East of the Indus order was secured by the disarmament of the people, the maintenance, in addition to civil police, of a strong body of military police, and the construction of good roads. Just before Lawrence left the construction of the Amritsar-Multan railway was begun, and a few weeks after his departure the Upper Bari Doab Ca.n.a.l was opened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 67. John Nicolson's Monument at Delhi.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 68. Sir Robert Montgomery.]

~Administration, 1859-1870.~--The next eleven years occupied by the administrations of Sir Robert Montgomery and Sir Donald Macleod were a quiet time in which results already achieved were consolidated. The Penal Code was extended to the Panjab in 1862, and a Chief Court with a modest establishment of two judges in 1865 took the place of the Judicial Commissioner. In the same year a Settlement Commissioner was appointed to help the Financial Commissioner in the control of land revenue settlements. Two severe famines marked the beginning and the close of this period. Omitting the usual little frontier excitements, it is necessary to mention the troublesome Ambela campaign in 1863 in the country north of Peshawar, which had for its object the breaking up of the power of a nest of Hindustani fanatics, and the Black Mountain expedition, in 1868, on the Hazara border, in which no fewer than 15,000 men were employed. Sir Henry Durand, who succeeded Sir Donald Macleod, after seven months of office lost his life by an accident in the beginning of 1871.

~Administration, 1871-1882.~--The next eleven years divided between the administrations of Sir Henry Davies (1871-1877) and Sir Robert Egerton (1877-1882) produced more striking events. In 1872 a small body of fanatics belonging to a Sikh sect known as Kukas or Shouters marched from the Ludhiana district and attacked the headquarters of the little Muhammadan State of Malerkotla. They were repulsed and 68 men surrendered to the Patiala authorities. The Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana blew 49 of them from the guns, and the rest were executed after summary trial by the Commissioner. Such strong measures were not approved by the Government, but it must be remembered that these madmen had killed ten and wounded seventeen men, and that their lives were justly forfeit. On the 1st of January, 1877, Queen Victoria's a.s.sumption of the t.i.tle of Empress of India (_Kaisar-i-Hind_) was announced at a great _Darbar_ at Delhi. In 1877 Kashmir, hitherto controlled by the Lieutenant-Governor, was put directly under the Government of India. The same year and the next the province was tried by famine, and in 1878-80 it was the base from which our armies marched on Kabul and Kandahar, while its resources in camels were strained to supply transport. Apart from this its interest in the war was very great because it is the chief recruiting ground of the Indian army and its chiefs sent contingents to help their suzerain. The first stage of the war was closed by the treaty of Gandamak in May, 1879, by which Yakub Khan surrendered any rights he possessed over Khaibar and the Kurram as far as Shutargardan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 69. Panjab Camels--Lah.o.r.e.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 70. Sir Charles Aitchison.]

~Administration, 1882-1892.~--During the Lieutenant-Governorships of Sir Charles Aitchison (1882-1887) and Sir James Lyall (1887-1892) there was little trouble on the western frontier. In 1891 the need had arisen of making our power felt up to the Pamirs. The setting up of a British agency at Gilgit was opposed in 1891 by the fighting men of Hunza and Nagar. Colonel Durand advanced rapidly with a small force and when a determined a.s.sault reduced the strong fort of Nilt, trouble was at an end once and for all. Within the Panjab the period was one of quiet development. The Sirhind Ca.n.a.l was opened in 1882, and the weir at Khanki for the supply of the Lower Chenab Ca.n.a.l was finished in 1892.

New railways were constructed. Lord Ripon's policy of Local Self-government found a strong supporter in Sir Charles Aitchison, and Acts were pa.s.sed dealing with the const.i.tution and powers of munic.i.p.al committees and district boards. In 1884 and 1885 a large measure of reorganization was carried out. A separate staff of divisional, district, and subordinate civil judges was appointed. The divisional judges were also sessions judges. The ten commissioners were reduced to six, and five of them were relieved of all criminal work by the sessions judges. The Deputy Commissioner henceforth was a Revenue Collector and District Magistrate with large powers in criminal cases. The revenue administration was at the same time being improved by the reforms embodied in the Panjab Land Revenue and Tenancy Acts pa.s.sed at the beginning of Sir James Lyall's administration.

~Administration, 1892-1902.~--The next two administrations, those of Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick (1892-97) and Sir Mackworth Young (1897-1902) were crowded with important events. Throughout the period the colonization of the vast area of waste commanded by the Lower Chenab Ca.n.a.l was carried out, and the Lower Jhelam Ca.n.a.l was formally opened six months before Sir Mackworth Young left. The province suffered from famine in 1896-97 and again in 1899-1900. In October, 1897, a worse enemy appeared in the shape of plague, but its ravages were not very formidable till the end of the period. The Panjab was given a small nominated Legislative Council in 1897, which speedily proved itself a valuable instrument for dealing with much-needed provincial legislation. But the most important Panjab Act of the period, XIII of 1900, dealing with Land Alienation was pa.s.sed by the Viceroy's Legislative Council. In 1901 a Political Agent was appointed as the intermediary between the Panjab Government and the Phulkian States. On the frontier the conclusion of the Durand Agreement in 1893 might well have raised hopes of quiet times. But the reality was otherwise. The establishment of a British officer at Wana to exercise control over Southern Waziristan in 1894 was forcibly resisted by the Mahsud Wazirs, and an expedition had to be sent into their country. The Mehtar or Chief of Chitral, who was in receipt of a subsidy from the British Government, died in 1892. A period of great confusion followed fomented by the ambitions of Umra Khan of Jandol. Finally we recognised as Mehtar the eldest son, who had come uppermost in the struggle, and sent an English officer as British Agent to Chitral. Umra Khan got our protege murdered, and besieged the Agent in the Chitral fort. He withdrew however on the approach of a small force from Gilgit.

Shuja-ul-Mulk was recognised as Mehtar. This little trouble occurred in 1895. Two years later a storm-cloud suddenly burst over the frontier, such as we had never before experienced. It spread rapidly from the Tochi to Swat, tribe after tribe rising and attacking our posts. It is impossible to tell here the story of the military measures taken against the different offending tribes. The most important was the campaign in Tirah against the Orakzais and Afridis, in which 30,000 men were engaged for six months. In 1900 attacks on the peace of the border by the Mahsud Wazirs had to be punished by a blockade, and in the cold weather of 1901-2 small columns harried the hill country to enforce their submission. By this time the connection of the Panjab Government with frontier affairs, which had gradually come to involve responsibility with little real power, had ceased. On the 25th of October, 1901, the North-West Frontier Province was const.i.tuted and Colonel (afterwards Sir Harold) Deane became its first Chief Commissioner, an office which he held till 1908, when he was succeeded by Major (now Sir George) Roos Keppel.

~Administration, 1902-1913.~--The last eleven years have embraced the Lieutenant Governorship of Sir Charles Rivaz (1902-1907), the too brief administration of Sir Denzil Ibbetson (1907-1908), and that of Sir Louis Dane (1908-1913). Throughout the period plague has been a disturbing factor, preventing entirely the growth of population which the rapid development of the agricultural resources of the province would otherwise have secured. It was among the causes stimulating the unrest which came to a head in 1907. A terrible earthquake occurred in 1905.

Its centre was in Kangra, where 20,000 persons perished under the ruins of their houses. The colonization of the Crown waste on the Lower Jhelam Ca.n.a.l was nearly finished during Sir Charles Rivaz's administration.

Before he left the Triple Ca.n.a.l Project, now approaching completion, had been undertaken. Other measures of importance to the rural population were the pa.s.sing of the Co-operative Credit Societies' Act in 1903, and the organization in 1905 of a provincial Agricultural Department. The seditious movement which troubled Bengal had its echo in some parts of the Panjab in the end of 1906 and the spring of 1907. A bill dealing with the rights and obligations of the Crown tenants in the new Ca.n.a.l Colonies was at the time before the Local Legislature. Excitement fomented from outside spread among the prosperous colonists on the Lower Chenab Ca.n.a.l. There was a disturbance in Lah.o.r.e in connection with the trial of a newspaper editor, the ringleaders being students. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took the reins into his strong hands in March, 1907, the position was somewhat critical. The disturbance at Lah.o.r.e was followed by a riot at Rawalpindi. The two leading agitators were deported, a measure which was amply justified by their reckless actions and which had an immediate effect. Lord Minto decided to withhold his a.s.sent from the Colony Bill, and it has recently been replaced by a measure which has met with general acceptance. When Sir Denzil Ibbetson took office he was already suffering from a mortal disease. In the following January he gave up the unequal struggle, and shortly afterwards died. Sir Louis Dane became Lieutenant Governor in May, 1908. A striking feature of his administration was the growth of co-operative credit societies or village banks. At the Coronation _Darbar_ on 12th December, 1911, the King-Emperor announced the transfer of the capital of India to Delhi. As a necessary consequence the city and its suburbs were severed from the province, with which they had been connected for 55 years. In 1913 Sir Louis Dane was succeeded by Sir Michael O'Dwyer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 71. Sir Denzil Ibbetson.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 72. Sir Michael O'Dwyer.]

CHAPTER XXI

ARCHAEOLOGY AND COINS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 73. Group of Chamba Temples.]

~Hindu and Buddhist Remains.~--The scholar who ended his study of Indian history with the close of the first millennium of the Christian era would expect to find a fruitful field for the study of ancient monuments of the Hindu faith in the plains of the Panjab. He would look for a great temple of the Sun G.o.d at Multan, and at places like Lah.o.r.e and Kangra, Thanesar and Pihowa, for shrines rich with graven work outside and with treasures of gold and precious stones within. But he would look in vain. The Muhammadan invaders of the five centuries which elapsed between Mahmud of Ghazni and the Moghal Babar were above all things idol-breakers, and their path was marked by the destruction and spoliation of temples. Even those invaders who remained as conquerors deemed it a pious work to build their mosques with the stones of ruined fanes. The transformation, as in the case of the great Kuwwat ul Islam mosque beside the Kutb Minar, did not always involve the complete obliteration of idolatrous emblems. Kangra was not too remote to be reached by invading armies, and the visitor to Nurpur on the road from Pathankot to Dharmsala can realize how magnificent some of the old Hindu buildings were, and how utterly they were destroyed. The smaller buildings to be found in the remoter parts of the hills escaped, and there are characteristic groups of stone temples at Chamba and still older shrines dating from the eighth century at Barmaur and Chitradi in the same state. The ruins of the great temple of the Sun, built by Lalitaditya in the same period, at Martand[7] near Islamabad in the Kashmir State are very striking. The smaller, but far better preserved, temple at Payer is probably of much later date. Round the pool of Katas, one of Siva's eyes, a great place of Hindu pilgrimage in the Salt Range, there is little or nothing of antiquarian value, but there are interesting remains at Malot in the same neighbourhood. It is possible that when the mounds that mark the sites of ancient villages come to be excavated valuable relics of the Hindu period will be brought to light.

The forces of nature or the violence of man have wiped out all traces of the numerous Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrims found in the Panjab. Inscriptions of Asoka? graven on rocks survive at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra in the North-West Frontier Province. Two pillars with inscriptions of the Missionary Emperor stand at Delhi. They were brought from Topra near the Jamna in Ambala and from Meerut by Firoz Shah. The traveller by train from Jhelam to Rawalpindi can see to the west of the line at Mankiala a great _stupa_ raised to celebrate the self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva who gave his life to feed a starving tigress. There is a ruined _stupa_ at Sui Vihar in the Bahawalpur State.

The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian _stupas_ built by Kanishka near Peshawar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and a great monastery beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth of the conjecture that the two mounds at Shahji ki dheri covered the remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been disinterred and is now in the great paG.o.da at Rangoon. In the Lah.o.r.e museum there is a rich collection of the sculptures recovered from the Peshawar Valley, the ancient Gandhara. They exhibit strong traces of Greek influence. The best age of Gandhara sculpture was probably over before the reign of Kanishka. The site of the famous town of Taxila is now a protected area, and excavation there may yield a rich reward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 74. Payer Temple.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 75. Reliquary.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 76. Colonnade in Kuwwat ul Islam Mosque.]

~Muhammadan Architecture.~--The Muhammadan architecture of North-Western India may be divided into three periods:

(_a_) The Pathan 1191-1320 (_b_) The Tughlak 1320-1556 (_c_) The Moghal 1556-1753

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 77. Kutb Minar.]

In the Pathan period the royal builders drew their inspiration from Ghazni, but their work was also much affected by Hindu influences for two reasons. They used the materials of Hindu temples in constructing their mosques and they employed masons imbued with the traditions of Hindu art. The best specimens of this period are to be found in the group of buildings in Old Delhi or _Kila' Rai Pithora_, close to Mahrauli and eleven miles to the south of the present city. These buildings are the magnificent _Kuwwat ul Islam_ (Might of Islam) Mosque (1191-1225), with its splendid tower, the _Kutb Minar_ (1200-1220), from which the _mu'azzin_ called the faithful to prayer, the tomb of the Emperor Altamsh (1238), and the great gateway built in 1310 by Ala ud din Khalji. In the second period, named after the house that occupied the imperial throne when it began, all traces of Hindu influence have vanished, and the buildings display the austere and ma.s.sive grandeur suited to the faith of the desert prophet unalloyed by foreign elements.

This style in its beginning is best seen in the cyclopean ruins of Tughlakabad and the tomb of the Emperor Tughlak Shah, and in some mosques in and near Delhi. Its latest phase is represented by Sher Shah's mosque in the Old Fort or _Purana Kila'_. To some the simple grandeur of this style will appeal more strongly than the splendid, but at times almost effeminate, beauty of the third period. Noted examples of Moghal architecture in the Panjab are to be found in Shahjahari's red fort palace and _Jama' Masjid_ at New Delhi or Shahjahanabad, Humayun's tomb on the road from Delhi to Mahrauli, the fort palace, the Badshahi and Wazir Khan's mosques, at Lah.o.r.e, and Jahangir's mausoleum at Shahdara. A very late building in this style is the tomb of Nawab Safdar Jang (1753) near Delhi. A further account of some of the most famous Muhammadan buildings will be found in the paragraphs devoted to the chief cities of the province. The architecture of the British period scarcely deserves notice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 78. Tomb of Emperor Tughlak Shah.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 79. Jama Masjid, Delhi.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 80. Tomb of Emperor Humayun.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 81. Badshahi Mosque, Lah.o.r.e.]

~Coins.~--Among the most interesting of the archaeological remains are the coins which are found in great abundance on the frontier and all over the Panjab. These take us back through the centuries to times before the invasion of India by Alexander, and for the obscure period intervening between the Greek occupation of the Frontier and the Muhammadan conquest, they are our main source of history. The most ancient of the Indian monetary issues are the so-called punch-marked coins, some of which were undoubtedly in existence before the Greek invasion. Alexander himself left no permanent traces of his progress through the Panjab and Sindh, but about the year 200 B.C., Greeks from Bactria, an outlying province of the Seleukidan Empire, once more appeared on the Indian Frontier, which they effectively occupied for more than a century. They struck the well-known Graeco-Bactrian coins; the most famous of the Indo-Greek princes were Apollodotos and Menander.

Towards the close of this dynasty, parts of Sindh and Afghanistan were conquered by Saka Scythians from Central Asia. They struck what are termed the Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins bearing names in legible Greek legends--Manes, Azes, Azilises, Gondophares, Abdagases.