Empire of the Sikhs (23 page)

Ranjit Singh's detachment of Amazons seems, not surprisingly, to have been a draw for most of the British officers. In conversation with W.G. Osborne on military discipline, Ranjit Singh once said that there was one regiment he could not manage and which gave him more trouble than his entire army put together –
the beautiful recruits from Kashmir, Persia and the Punjab: the Amazons. He also added jestingly: would the British be able to manage such a formation better?

At first there were around a hundred and fifty warriors in this regiment, but the numbers varied. Osborne describes how once when he and his party visited Lahore, ‘a considerable degree of excitement prevailed among the fairer portion of the Sikh army' owing to rumours that, following the East India Company's example, the Maharaja also intended to take back all grants for which no formal title deeds could be produced. ‘I believe', writes Osborne, ‘Runjeet would sooner face Dost Mahommed and his Afghans than a single individual of his Amazonian bodyguard.'
¹¹
Fortunately for everyone, the rumours proved to be inaccurate. These beautiful, enticingly dressed, voluptuous women armed with bows and arrows were mounted on horseback
en cavalier
– a position that greatly appealed to the Maharaja. They also entertained guests in the evenings with music and dance, often against a backdrop of fireworks.

One Amazon of colourful character and exquisite beauty was called Lotus. She was sent as a tribute from Kashmir to Ranjit Singh in the mid-1830s. He was totally captivated by her and assumed she was madly in love with him. One day, while Lotus was dancing before them, he remarked to General Ventura that the dancer was so taken with him that she would not entertain offers from any other man. The Italian general's face showed disbelief. Ranjit Singh, irked at the doubt cast on his own powers of attraction, challenged Ventura to seduce her. He added that he would put no pressure on her and she would be kept secluded in his
zenana.
After much hesitation on Ventura's part on the desirability of vying for the affections of his sovereign's favourite, he accepted the challenge. Within forty-eight hours it was known throughout the court that the lovely Lotus was now no more in her royal lover's garden but in the Italian general's. Ranjit Singh
did not seem to mind her desertion very much, but Lotus did and soon left her lover to return to the Lahore court and Ranjit Singh.

It was far from Ranjit Singh's nature and temperament to confine himself to just one of his loves; another Amazon he was irresistibly drawn to was the celebrated Bashiran. Because she had gorgeous cat-like eyes he would call her Billo, which in Punjabi is slang for ‘cat'. With a beautiful voice and an exceptional singing talent, she would keep the Maharaja entranced. Ranjit Singh made her rich with his gifts of land and jewels.

Billo was not only a singer but commanded a company of Amazons, consisting of thirty or forty singing and dancing girls, hand-picked for their beauty, playfulness and agility. Their uniform has been described as follows: ‘a lemon-yellow
banarsi
turban with a bejewelled crest; a dark green jumper over a blue satin gown, fastened with a gold belt; deep crimson skin-tight pyjamas of
gulbadan
silk; and a pair of pointed golden shoes. As for jewellery, they wore a pair of gold earrings set with stones, a diamond nose-stud, a pair of gold bracelets and a ruby ring on the middle finger. Their accoutrement was completed by bows and arrows; but their arrows were less deadly than the glances of their eyes.'
¹²

The Amazons received a daily allowance, and some were given
jagirs,
from which they got good rent. Lotus was gifted seven prosperous villages by Ranjit Singh as tokens of his affection. She was devoted to him until the end and committed
sati
when he died.

In addition to the exquisite Amazons, there were others of equal versatility to entertain and enchant Ranjit Singh with their repertoire of dances. W.G. Osborne, military secretary to the Earl of Auckland, invited to dinner by the Maharaja, describes a memorable dance by four recently arrived Kashmiri girls, whose large, luminous eyes and expressive countenances might have entitled them to be considered ‘beautiful anywhere in the world': ‘They were richly and gracefully dressed in scarlet and gold embroidered shawl dresses, with large and enormously loose petticoats of hand-
somely worked silk. Their head ornaments were singular and very becoming; their glossy black hair hanging down the back in a number of long plaits, with gold coins and small bunches of pearls suspended to the ends.'
¹³

Ranjit Singh was prepared to extend his range beyond Persian, Afghan and Kashmiri women, as one young English officer with whom he had a conversation discovered. ‘When Ranjit Singh asked him: “Why don't you marry?” [his reply was] “I can't afford it.” [When asked] “Why not? Are English wives very expensive?” [he was told:] “Yes; very.” [To which Ranjit Singh replied:] “I wanted one myself some time ago, and wrote to the government about it, but they did not send me one.” [The officer said:] “It would be difficult to find one in this country that would suit your highness.” [Ranjit then queried:] “Are there any in England?” [and was told:] “Plenty.” [Ranjit Singh's response was] “Ah! I often wish for one.”‘
¹⁴

Although he didn't quite ‘wish for' Queen Victoria, an endearing story is told by Fane in his Indian memoir. When the Maharaja was presented with an oil painting of the Queen sent to him by the governor-general, he is said to have remarked that ‘Her Majesty [would] make a very decent Nautch girl.'
¹⁵

The number of Ranjit Singh's wives is generally placed at around twenty, which includes those in the
chadar dalna
category. While the latter did not fully qualify as wives of the first order, they were close seconds because they, too, had to go through a religious ceremony. Three Hindu, Muslim and British historians vary slightly in their calculations of the number of Ranjit Singh's wives. While Gupta settles for twenty,
¹⁶
Waheeduddin's figure is eighteen, with nine in each of the two classifications.
¹⁷
Griffin's total comes to sixteen, of whom nine were wives and seven
chadar dalna.
¹⁸
As to the number of concubines, it is anybody's guess.

Ranjit Singh's childless marriage with Mehtab Kaur proved of
far less consequence than his alliance with the Kanhayias, her father's
misl,
thanks to the inputs of the energetic and enterprising Sada Kaur, who helped her son-in-law realize not only some of his goals but some of her own as well in the process. Although his marriage with her daughter did not last long, Sada Kaur, while no doubt disappointed, was a pragmatic and clear-headed woman. She was as determined as ever to exploit the opportunities the alliance with the Sukerchakias had opened up for her. Her eventual goal was to dominate the whole of Punjab.

In 1798 Ranjit Singh married again, and in 1802 his second wife, Raj Kaur of the Nakkai
misl,
presented him with his first son, Kharak Singh, earning her the title of First Rani. As Ranjit Singh's heir, Kharak Singh was to prove disastrous.

Sada Kaur, knowing well that the only way of increasing her power with her son-in-law was through her daughter and aware of the growing importance of others in Ranjit Singh's life after the birth of Kharak Singh, insisted that her daughter, too, should have a child by him, even though she now lived in Batala where he visited her rather infrequently. In 1807 Mehtab Kaur duly produced two boys, Sher Singh and Tara Singh. Her plan was to procure the children by any means and pass them off as the Maharaja's. Ranjit Singh was not fooled but, wishing to avoid a breach with Sada Kaur, treated Sher Singh as a son and gave him the title of prince.
¹⁹

But the friendliness between Ranjit Singh and Sada Kaur was not destined to last long, because as the energetic lady began to expand her role in the affairs of his kingdom Ranjit Singh's resentment at her presumptuousness grew. While the two boys were growing up, the ever-ambitious Sada Kaur's strategy was to get Ranjit Singh to settle handsome
jagirs
on them. She wished to induce her son-in-law to settle an estate on Sher Singh independently of her own, her aim being to establish a solid claim on Ranjit Singh's territories through Sher Singh in the years to come.
²⁰
But the Maharaja, no novice in this game of wile and guile, insisted
that Sada Kaur present the prince with a
jagir
appropriate to his status out of the extensive Kanhayia territories which were now hers. With the steady souring of their relationship over the years Ranjit Singh had his own eyes on the Kanhayia possessions, and Sher Singh, ironically enough, was now pivotal to the game plan of each.

By October 1820 matters came to a head. Ranjit Singh ordered Sada Kaur to set aside half of her own estates for the maintenance of the two princes, Sher Singh and Tara Singh. Sada Kaur was unwilling to obey the order, threatening to cross the Sutlej and place her estate of Wadhni under British protection.
²¹
With this ill-advised threat she overreached herself and sealed her fate. It was now clear to Ranjit Singh that if his mother-in-law was prepared to resort to the ultimate treachery of turning for help to the British, an enemy-in-waiting, she had to be debarred from any future role not only in his affairs but even in those of her own
misl.
After a few more moves and counter-moves, including an unsuccessful attempt by Sada Kaur to cross over to the British, she was confined to the Lahore Fort, from which she managed to escape, but a force was sent to apprehend her, returning with a good deal of Kanhayia wealth from their stronghold of Batala. The Kanhayia
misl
now became Ranjit Singh's property, and Sada Kaur remained confined in a fort for the rest of her life, first in Lahore and then in Amritsar, where she died in 1832 at the age of seventy.

In 1821 Kharak Singh had a son, Nau Nihal Singh, whose mother, Chand Kaur, was to play a significant part in future political events. It is important at this point, even though it will mean getting ahead of the narrative somewhat, to turn to her son, since a major milestone in his life provides a backdrop to the grim succession of events that unfolded soon after Ranjit Singh's death.

Nau Nihal Singh grew up to be the Maharaja's favourite grandson.
Unlike his father, he was intelligent and well mannered. He was not handsome; it is said that he resembled his grandfather in deportment and habits, and his face, too, was pock-marked. Since he was in line for the throne of the Sikh empire after his father Kharak Singh's death, Ranjit Singh, Lion of Punjab and a doting grandfather, wanted his wedding – which was celebrated when the bridegroom was sixteen years of age – to be symbolic of a kingdom that had come to stay and the third generation of which was already coming into its own. His bride Nanki was the daughter of an important Sikh chieftain, Sardar Sham Singh Attariwala. The wedding and attendant events and festivities, held in and near Amritsar in March 1837, lasted just over three weeks, and more than three million rupees were spent on it.

The guest list read like an Indian who's who. The rajas of Patiala, Jind, Nabha and Faridkot, the Nawab Maler Kotla and the Chiefs of Suket, Mandi, Chamba and Nurpur were all invited. On the British side those on the invitation list included the governor-general Lord Auckland, Sir Charles Metcalfe, now governor of Agra, and Sir Henry Fane, commander-in-chief of the British Army in India. The latter was among those who attended and left a fascinating eyewitness account of the wedding in his memoir
Five Years in India.

Fane was received on the River Sutlej on 5 March by Kanwar Sher Singh and then, near Amritsar, by Prince Kharak Singh, Prime Minister Dhian Singh and a deputation of 3,000 splendidly dressed horsemen. He was welcomed with a gift of 5,000 rupees. Kharak Singh was dressed in gold and silver but is said not to have been half as handsome as his brother Sher Singh, who is described as a tall, black-bearded man, majestic in a magnificent
sarpech
(ornamental headpiece) of large diamonds, rubies and emeralds. The emerald belt he wore on this occasion is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Ranjit Singh's powerful prime minister Dhian Singh was a striking figure. He was above average
height, with aquiline features and a high forehead; his attire was bedecked with jewels, the hilts of his sword and dagger were encrusted with gems, and his cuirass of polished steel – a present from King Louis-Philippe of France – was embossed with gold. He sat proud on a large Persian horse, the saddle and bridle of which were embroidered with gold.