Pakistan History: Trading Company Wars(1748-1858)
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Trading Company Wars(1748-1858)
European powers had been competing with one another since the 16th century to gain control of the Asian trade routes that bypassed the Arabs, who had long dominated the commerce. In the mid-18th century one power achieved hegemony: Britain. Over the next century the English East India Company (EIC), under the patronage of the Crown, would establish control over the subcontinent, its objectives often achieved by military force. The British saw domination of the subcontinent as a national destiny, a God-given mandate similar to the conviction that fueled Islamic warriors in spreading their religion. But the British goals were political and mercantile. They sought to establish the subcontinent as a larder for their resource-starved homeland and to block competing European powers from establishing footholds in the region.
Having bested Portugal, Holland, and France in claiming dominance on the subcontinent, the British established supremacy over native powers with the defeat of the Mughal forces at the Battle of Plassey in Bengal in 1757. Though the Mughal Empire would survive for another century, it was increasingly subservient to Britain's agenda, which included reforms in government and society that remain a part of Pakistan today. Yet British influence and rule incited deep animosity, culminating in the Indian, or Sepoy, Rebellion, also called the Indian Mutiny, an uprising that spread across northern India and what is now Pakistan. It would lead to direct British control over the subcontinent.
The Battle of Plassey
In the mid- 1700s, the chartered European trading companies in Asia and the Pacific transformed their trading posts into fortresses. With their parent nations engaged in political and military skirmishing in Europe, this was done as much to defend against each other as to fend off Maratha attacks. In 1756 Siraj-ud-Daula (r. 1733-57), the young nawab of Bengal, as the region's Muslim rulers were known, ordered the Europeans to dismantle their fortifications. All but the British complied. In response, Siraj seized the English trading post at Kassim Bazaar and laid siege to the British post at Calcutta (Kolkata). After four days, the English commander there fled with some of his men, abandoning the rest of the garrison. Those left behind were captured and put in the post's stockade. According to a survivor, by the next day 123 of 146 prisoners had suffocated. (Some historians have questioned the reliability of his account.) The stockade became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. The few British who escaped Calcutta spent six months waiting for rescue at Diamond Harbor, where many succumbed to disease.
During this time the British were actively engaged in countering French power throughout the world. On the subcontinent French hold- ings included settlements on the southeast and southwest coasts and in Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka) as well as in Bengal. Their headquarters were at Pondicherry on the southeast coast. As part of the British Crown's initiative against the French in Pondicherry, a British fleet and army happened to be in the harbor at Madras, 100 miles (160 km) north, when word of Siraj's attack was received. The fleet was sent to avenge the disaster under the command of Robert Clive (1725-74), a former civil servant who had become a military leader in the subcontinent, and the troops successfully reconquered British Calcutta in January 1757. That same year Clive negotiated a treaty with Siraj-ud-Daula with more favorable terms for the British and also took the opportu- nity to destroy the French trading post at Chandernagore (present-day Chandannagar) .
Despite the new trade agreement with Siraj, Clive desired a more pli- ant ruler on the throne. Many of the merchants and bankers of Bengal also wanted a more business-friendly leader. Clive conspired with Siraj -ud-Daula's opponents, including Mir Jafar, Siraj's commander in chief and father-in-law. Clive organized a small British force to attack Siraj -ud-Daula's army. Fought in a mangrove swamp in Bengal in 1757, the Battle of Plassey marked the true beginning of British control of the subcontinent. Though far outnumbered, the British possessed supe- rior cannons, and with deceit wracking Siraj-ud-Daula's forces, Clive's forces won an easy victory. Siraj-ud-Daula was tracked down and killed, and Clive made Mir Jafar the new nawab of Bengal (r. 1757-60). In the aftermath of the victory, the British would reap untold riches, while the area, at the time among the most fertile in the world, began to experience an economic decline from which it has still not recovered. Henceforth the British appointed and discharged the nawabs of Bengal at their discretion.
The Carnatic Wars
The victory at Plassey opened the door for more British military con- quests on the subcontinent. Rather than administer these territories, Clive formed alliances with corrupt and malleable local rulers, squeez- ing them for ever greater profits made on the backs of their increasingly downtrodden subjects.
From 1744 to 1763 the British, French, and Marathas engaged in a series of military engagements for dominance of the Carnatic, a coastal strip in southeast India stretching from just north of Madras to the southernmost tip. These were known as the Carnatic Wars. By the end of the Second Carnatic War (1748-55), French power in the subconti- nent had dimmed.
The third and final Carnatic war (1756-63) was a direct outgrowth of the Seven Years' War waged across Europe during those same years. A French fleet commanded by Thomas- Arthur, comte de Lally (1702- 66) arrived at the subcontinent in April 1758 to regain control of the region. Lally first captured the British headquarters for southern India, Fort St. David in Cuddalore, a few miles south of Pondicherry His next goal was Madras. But the French fleet that was to assist him had been bloodied in a recent encounter with the British, and the commander of the fleet refused to take part in an attack. Meanwhile, lack of pro- visions and money to pay the troops greatly demoralized the French forces, and Lally's quarrelsome, overbearing manner alienated civil authorities. Furthermore his lack of respect for local religious traditions antagonized the Indians. By the time he was able to mount his assault in 1759, his depleted forces were unable to take the city. Lally sent for the marquis de Bussy-Castelnau (ca. 1718-85), who led a French force in Hyderabad, to come to his aid. But even with de Bussy's help Madras eluded capture.
Lally and his forces returned to Pondicherry. In 1760 they tried to retake their nearby fort at Vandavesi and were defeated by British Lt. General Sir Eyre Coote (1726-83) in the Battle of Wandiwash (the anglicized version of Vandavesi). It was a defining battle of the war. In its aftermath the French were restricted to Pondicherry, where in 1761 Lally and de Bussy surrendered after a long siege.
Consolidating British Control
In Bengal the British also defeated a Dutch expeditionary force sent to challenge them and conquered Dutch troops at Bedara in 1759. The British consolidated their control in the region by replacing Mir Jafar, the nawab they had installed, with the seemingly more pliant Mir Qasim (r. 1760-63). With Bengal secure, in 1760 Robert Clive retired to England to enjoy the vast fortune he had acquired in the subcontinent. As great a profiteer as he had been, the British who took charge of the subcontinent for the EIC after Clive were even more rapacious.
By the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British had all but eliminated the French from the subcontinent. Lack of unity among local rulers now gave the British an almost free hand in dominating the region. Up to this time Europeans had played a relatively small role in the economy of the subcontinent. But the demands of the British would overwhelm the economy, particularly in Bengal, leading to the famine of 1770, one of a series of food shortages that occurred under British control that claimed the lives of millions.
The Durrani Empire
While the British were gaining control in Bengal and along the sub- continent's coasts, their actions caused little stir in the region that is now Pakistan. Here local rulers engaged in power struggles in the wake of the collapse of the Mughal Empire. In the power vacuum left by the demise of Mughal authority the Marathas, Sikhs, and Afghans all sought hegemony in the area that is now Pakistan.
Afghanistan had been under the rule of the shah of Iran, Nadir Shah. Following his assassination in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani (ca. 1722-92) became the first ruler of Afghanistan's Durrani Empire. Ahmad Shah led eight major military campaigns in the Pakistan area between 1748 and 1768. In 1757 he seized lands east of the Indus, including Lahore and Multan in the Punjab. His son, Prince Timur Shah (r. 1772-93), whom he placed in charge of the newly conquered territories, then attacked the Sikh's sacred city of Amritsar. Provoked by the sacrilege, the Sikhs seized the region around Lahore and allied themselves with the Mughal governor of the Punjab, Adina Beg Khan (d. 1758), who was eager to preserve his own power. Adina Beg in turn asked the Marathas to help drive off Timur Shah. In 1758 the Marathas and the troops of Adina Beg arrived in Lahore, and the Afghan prince retreated westward.
Ahmad Shah Durrani was dealing with a tribal rebellion in Baluchistan at the time, but broke off that campaign to counterattack Punjab. Though Adina Beg Khan eluded capture by seeking refuge in the nearby hill country, awaiting the Afghan emperor's withdrawal, he died soon thereafter. The Marathas returned to Lahore in 1759 to secure the rud- derless city. But rather than supporting the Mughals, the Marathas sup- planted them. They reached the height of their power at this time, their empire embracing almost all of the subcontinent but for the lands west of the Indus; eastern Bengal, which was under British control; and the southern tip of the subcontinent, the Mysore kingdom. What is now Pakistan was increasingly dominated by the Marathas in the southeast and the Afghans in the north and west.
Some in the area preferred the Islamic rule of the Afghan Muslims to that of Hindu Marathas from the Deccan. Those who favored the Afghans included the influential figures Shah Waliullah, the Islamic reformer, and Malika-i-Zamani, the widow of the late Mughal ruler Muhammad Shah. Their pledges of support convinced Najib-ud- Daula (d. 1770), of the Rohilla (literally "mountaineer") Afghans — the Pashtun inhabiting the highlands from Swat west to Kabul and Kandahar — to form a Muslim Confederacy to cooperate with Ahmad Shah Durrani. In 1759 Ahmad Shah Durrani, his army fortified with Rohilla Afghan fighters, advanced on Lahore, vanquishing the Marathas and expelling them from the Punjab. The armies met two years later at Paniput, about 80 miles (130 km) north of Delhi, and again the Afghans prevailed, ending Maratha hopes of inheriting the mantle of the Mughal Empire. Ahmad Shah Durrani returned to Kabul with his army. To secure his conquest of Delhi, he installed Shah Zada, the son of the previous Mughal head, Alamgir II (r. 1754-59), as the ruler of the ailing Mughal Empire and Oudh, a region of north central India to the east of Delhi, giving him the title Shah Alam II (r. 1759-1806). By this time the empire had dwindled to Delhi and the surrounding areas. Najib-ud-Daula was appointed regent of Delhi. In the ensuing decade the area enjoyed some respite from the invasions and battles that had characterized its past.
Conflicts in Punjab
Northern Punjab and the Peshawar region were important parts of the Durrani empire. However, Ahmad Shah's rule in Punjab faced ongoing opposition and restiveness from the Sikhs, culminating in a Sikh upris- ing in 1760 and 1761. After suppressing the rebellion, Ahmad Shah allowed the Sikh chief Ala Singh (1691-1765) to rule in east Punjab.
In 1762 Ahmad Shah annexed Kashmir, bringing the Durrani empire to the height of its power and size. He used existing tribal structure to administer his domain, while major decisions were made by a council of sardars, a Punjabi term for "chiefs" or "leaders." But Sikh opposition in the Punjab continued. That same year Ahmad Shah, fearful of losing his Indian territory to the restive Sikhs, launched a campaign to not merely defeat but to exterminate the Sikhs. This only united the Sikh community and strengthened their resolve to resist Afghan rule. In 1764 the Sikhs attacked Lahore, dividing it among their three conquer- ing chiefs. Lahore would remain under Sikh rule until the arrival of the British in 1849.
In 1773 Ahmad Shah Durrani died, succumbing to the cancer that had already forced him to relinquish most of his administrative duties. His death ended Afghan dreams of an empire in the mold of the Mughals or Persians. His son Timur Shah had taken on the responsi- bilities of the state. He allowed the Sikhs to continue their control of Punjab, recognizing the difficulty of maintaining Afghan rule of the region by military means. The empire's reach simply was not great enough. But the lands of the northwestern subcontinent from which the Afghans retreated did not automatically fall to the westward expan- sion of the Sikhs' dominion. The Sikhs had to defeat the Gakkars, who took Rawalpindi, as well as gain the upper head over other local tribes and chiefs — often strongly Muslim and staunchly anti-Sikh — who sought to establish their own kingdoms.
Rule in Sind and Baluchistan
Sind had long been part of the Mughal Empire, but by the latter half of the 17th century local tribes rather than a central authority controlled the region. The weak Mughal hold invited periodic raids and efforts to exercise dominion by Afghan and Maratha forces. By the begin- ning of the 18th century the leaders of one Sind tribe, the Kalhora, were recognized as rulers of Sind, suzerains of whatever larger power claimed the realm. The Kalhora dynasty (r. 1701-83) achieved its zenith during the reign of Ghulam Shah Kalhora (r. ca. 1757-72). This coincided with the period of Afghanistan's weakest grip on the region. Ghulam's rule expanded southward to the Arabian Sea. Karachi was taken peacefully after he negotiated a land exchange with the khan of Kalat in Baluchistan. During this time the Indus River changed course, possibly as a result of earthquakes. The shift made much of the Indus delta unnavigable, effectively shutting Sind's port at Shah Bunder. As a result the nearby city of Thatta, the capital city, lost its position as a major trade center. In about 1768 Ghulam founded a new capital city, Hyderabad, located farther north along the new route of the Indus. Instability and a bitter civil war between the Kalhoras and the Talpurs, a powerful Baluchi tribe, followed Ghulam's death in 1772.
In 1773 Timur Shah relocated the capital of the Durrani empire from Kandahar to Kabul. This put the empire's center even further from Sind and Baluchistan. Chiefs of Baluchistan, formerly under tight Afghan rule, became semi-independent. Indeed, most of what is now Pakistan was briefly free of both invasions and the requirement to pay tribute to the Afghans, activities that had become the norm over the preced- ing quarter century. But in the chaos following Ghulam's death, Sind again became the target of Afghan invasions, and tribute payments were reinstituted. By 1775 continual warfare made the economic situation in Sind so bleak that the British withdrew their merchants from the region. The Sindis revolted against Afghan rule in 1779, provoking yet another invasion by Afghan forces determined to collect tribute.
Meanwhile local rivals continued battling for rule of Sind as Afghan proxies. After a decade of bloodshed, the Talpurs finally defeated the Kalhoras at the Battle of Halani in 1782. The Afghan emperor gave them a firman, or royal mandate, in 1783 to rule most of Sind, which they continued to do until 1843. Five years later, with the Afghan empire in further decline, the Talpurs stopped paying tribute. The Afghans con- tinued trying to collect revenue by force for another 20 years.
Changing British Policies
The region that would become East Pakistan before gaining indepen- dence as Bangladesh was a center of the British presence on the subcon- tinent. In 1763 a violent dispute erupted in Bengal between EIC traders and their Bengali hosts. Some of the British claimed they were not being accorded the trading privileges the Mughal emperor Farukkhsiyar had extended to them during his rule 50 years earlier; they believed these privileges applied to their personal business dealings as well as to those conducted on behalf of the EIC. With Clive back in England, his replacement as commander in chief of India, John Caillaud (r. 1760/61), negotiated a compromise with Mir Qasim, the British-installed nawab of Bengal. The English traders, however, refused to accept the com- promise. The same year the sepoys the British used as troops mutinied for the first time. The British harshly put down the insurrection. Their actions provoked Mir Qasim to seek support against the British from the Mughal ruler Shah Alam II and the nawab of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1753-75). The forces met at the Battle of Buxar in 1764, where the British defeated the Mughal army.
By this time the EIC was facing serious economic problems. Individual traders in the company's employ were becoming wealthy from their private dealings, while the company itself was losing money, spent on military campaigns against native rulers and competing European powers rather than on trade activities. With turmoil wrack- ing the EIC, Robert Clive returned to India in 1765. He negotiated a peace agreement that granted the British the right of revenue collection in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa and brought Oudh into their sphere of influence. But Clive's efforts to rein in the employees' private dealings were deemed insufficient to reverse the company's fortunes. In an effort to trim expenses the company cut the salaries of its European military officers, provoking a mutiny. Clive sent some of the rebellious officers back to England as prisoners, where he himself returned in 1767.
As EIC agents, eager to amass personal fortunes, plundered the subjugated populations of the subcontinent, they showed less dedica- tion to the EIC's business, and the company's profits turned to losses. In 1771 the EIC asked the British government for a loan to pay its taxes. In 1773 Parliament granted a £1.5 million loan to the EIC and passed the Regulating Act of 1773 to gain greater control over the EIC. The act placed oversight of the EIC's operations in the subcontinent under a governor-general. Warren Hastings, governor of Bengal, was chosen by company directors as the first governor-general of India (r. 1773-85), charged with reforming the company and restoring profit- ability. Hastings, who had joined the company as a young clerk, was a more enlightened administrator then most of the British of the time, knowledgeable and respectful of both Hindu and Muslim cultures. But THE BENGAL FAMINE
Whatever reversal of fortune the EIC experienced was minor compared to what its policies wrought in Bengal. "Dual Rule," one of Britain's bedrock policies, put the peasant class under two rapacious regimes. Not only were they taxed by the British, who received most of the income from all taxes collected, the corrupt and servile proxy rulers the British installed taxed the peasants again to pay for the running of their own administrations. Between 1756 and 1770 these policies turned Bengal, a formerly rich and fertile region with a sound economy, into an impoverished land where one-third of the population died of starvation or accompanying disease. Though drought was the immediate cause of the Bengal famine of 1770, British policies had left no reserves to alleviate the starvation. the Dual Rule policy, whereby peasants in Bengal had to pay taxes both to EIC authorities and to local rulers, continued during his tenure, as did the periodic famines and dislocation of local economies caused by British policies.
The EIC had built its administration on the framework developed by the Mughals. Revenues were collected by representatives of the regional rulers the EIC supported or installed. The British had also adopted the Mughals' legal system to apply to their subjects. Under Mughal tradition Muslims and Hindus were subject to the laws prescribed by their respective religions. As part of his administrative reform efforts Hastings tried to incorporate these indigenous legal codes into British laws for the subcontinent. But Mughal jurisprudence was based on the ability of judges to know and interpret the law on a case-by-case basis. As adapted by the British, the new law was incapable of capturing such nuance, and it institutionalized differences between Muslims and Hindus that had previously been more malleable.
Efforts to overhaul jurisprudence would take their largest step with the British parliament's Charter Act of 1833, considered the beginning of legal reform in the subcontinent. Though its primary purpose was to recertify the administrative authority of the East India Company, the act also created the framework for codification of laws, based on the British model of justice, throughout India. It also guaranteed rights of the indigenous population, stipulating, for example, that no Indian in the employ of the EIC could be barred from any office in the company due to religion, place of birth, descent, or color.
The Government of Charles Cornwallis
British general Charles Cornwallis, whose defeat at Yorktown in the American Revolution had effectively given the American colonies their freedom, replaced Hastings as the EIC's governor-general (r. 1786-93, 1805). He brought order to British affairs and won salary increases for EIC officers to compensate for the rules barring them from engaging in extortion and illegal trading. The gulf separating the British and the locals grew. The British and the Mughal aristocracy shared mutual interests in trade, sports, and ceremonial ritual, but the EIC's upper ranks were closed to locals of any status, further isolating the British from both the masses and the upper-class Indians.
Cornwallis ignored diplomacy in favor of political maneuvering. Hyderabad, the capital of the kingdom of Golconda, in southeastern India (not to be confused with the city in Sind of the same name), was ruled by a dynasty whose monarchs took the title nizam, or nizarn-ul-rnulk, administrator of the realm. The nizam of Hyderabad, Asaf Jah II (r. 1762-1803), gave territory to Cornwallis in return for the use of local Deccan troops in British employ for his war (r. 1782-99) with Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, a Hindu kingdom that dominated southern India. In retaliation for their support Tipu Sultan (r. 1782-99) attacked the British, and Cornwallis ultimately took command of the British forces. The British allied themselves with the Marathas as well, turning the tide of the conflict. In March 1792 Tipu Sultan capitulated, agreeing to give up half his territories, return prisoners of war, pay war reparations, and surrender two of his sons as hostages. His lands were distributed to the EIC and its allies.
In an attempt to stimulate agricultural production and create a landowning class, Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement of land taxes. The Permanent Settlement fixed tax rates for agricultural land, freeing landowners from concerns that increased production would result in higher taxes. However, droughts occurring soon after the new tax law was adopted made it impossible for them to pay what they owed. They were forced to sell their land to absentee landlords who were more interested in making quick profits than in long-term increases in productivity.
British Interests in the Pakistan Region
The EIC had trading posts on the west coast of the subcontinent as well as on the east. The west coast settlements were primarily com- mercial enterprises, largely uninvolved in political matters, unlike those in Bengal and Madras. It was not until the late 1700s that the British gained a political interest in what is today Pakistan, aroused by Afghanistan and its hold on the region.
With the relocation of the Afghan capital from Kandahar to Kabul, the frontier, and the Peshawar region in particular, took on critical importance to the Durrani empire. Timur Shah escaped an attempt on his life in Peshawar in 1791 and executed the chief of the Mohmands, a Pashtun tribe living in southeastern Afghanistan (now the NWFP), for his role in the plot. However, the Sikh rulers of Lahore and Rawalpindi were firmly in the Afghans' orbit. The kahn of Kalat recognized Afghan suzerainty as well, as did other local rulers in Baluchistan and Persian Khorasan. Timur Shah died of natural causes in 1793, leaving no desig- nated successor despite having several sons. Another period of instabil- ity ensued. Zaman Shah (r. 1793-1800), Timur's fifth son, succeeded his father and soon launched a campaign against the Talpur chief of Sind, Mir Fath Khan (r. 1783-1802), to collect overdue tribute. But trouble stirred by an elder brother, Mahmud, required Zaman to negoti- ate a hasty agreement with the Talpurs and quickly return home.
Lord Mornington, the marquis of Wellesley the new British gover- nor-general (r. 1797-1805), reestablished the British trading presence in Sind in order to monitor the area. Karachi had by now overtaken Thatta's position as the area's premier port. Once the Indus changed course, and the delta began to silt up, Thatta could no longer provide a gateway to and from the region's interior. Additionally Karachi was less rigidly controlled than Thatta, where Sindi officials were rigorous in their enforcement of trade rules, collecting tariffs and duties on all goods coming or going through the city and anywhere in the territory.
Karachi had been alternately ruled by the Kalat, Kalhoras, and Talpurs, and the trade routes to Afghanistan from here passed through Baluchistan rather than Sind, making it preferable to the British. The agents engaged in the political mission in Sind discovered rich economic opportunities, and their report extolled the bustling activity of Karachi's port. But unlike the welcome originally accorded the British in Bengal on the east coast, local merchants had resisted foreign presence going back to the time of the Portuguese 250 years before. The locals refused to do business or associate socially with the Europeans. The British representatives sought a meeting with Sind's ruler, Mir Fath Khan, to gain his support, and they were granted permission to open a factory. However, within a year of establishing their factory in 1799, Mir Fath Khan ordered it closed, concerned about the British reputation for seizing power and working against local merchants.
By this time the glory days of the khan of Kalat were over. Its most heralded ruler, Naseer Khan Baluch (r. 1749-94), had died in 1794. Local principalities such as Karachi, Las Bela, Kharan, Jhalawan, and others mounted periodic insurrections against Kalat. Thus British inter- est in Pakistan's economic and political potential was growing at a time when Pakistan was without a dominant power.
The Sikhs in Punjab
Any hopes the Sikhs harbored of being done with the Afghans ended with an invasion marshaled by Zaman Shah in 1795, followed by similar incursions in 1797 and 1798. In 1799 Zaman Shah survived an assassination attempt in Peshawar, and like his father, had the plotters, in this case Barakzai tribal chiefs, executed. In Punjab the absence of outside authority ignited a power struggle among local chiefs. By 1800 most of the 12 Sikh misls, or divisions of the Dal Khalsa, the Sikh army, had staked out land for fiefdoms. (The word khalsa, from the Arabic for "pure," was used by Muslim rulers to signify state lands; later, Sikhs used the term to mean practicing members of the faith, after which it was applied to their military force and soldiers.) Half of these fiefdoms were in what is now Pakistan. Most of Pakistan's Punjabi territory was ruled by local Muslim aristocracies. Some of these ruling families, of Pashtun descent, had roots in the area that dated back centuries, while others came during more recent invasions.
One of the most powerful Punjabi rulers, Ranjit Singh (r. 1801-39), was also one of the most unlikely. A small man — illiterate, blind in one eye, his face scarred by small pox — Ranjit Singh inherited lands in the Gujranwala area, north of Lahore, initially acquired by his grandfather, a Sikh chief allied with Ahmad Shah Durrani at Amritsar. Ranjit's father had led the border chiefs who extended Sikh rule to the Margalla Pass (between Islamabad and Taxila) and Hasan Abdal in northern Punjab during Zaman Shah's reign.
Ranjit was 12 years old in 1791 when his father died. He took part in raids the following year, and his stature among the Sikhs grew. Ranjit fought Zaman Shah's first invasion of the Punjab, but as much a diplomat as a warrior, he helped negotiate the latter's retreat from Punjab. When cannons were lost in a river during Zaman's withdrawal, Ranjit retrieved and returned some of them to Afghanistan. In gratitude Zaman awarded him Lahore, though the Afghan ruler's hold on the city was weak. The chiefs who ruled Lahore, and their sons, refused to give up the city, but the local elite opened Lahore's gates and welcomed Ranjit, and he took over the city in 1799. Meanwhile, the power of the Sikh armies was increasingly impinging on the sovereignty of Punjab's Muslim chieftains.
At the beginning of the 19th century a nascent power struggle in the Punjab pitted Ranjit Singh against four allied Sikh chiefs from Amritsar, Gujarat, Wazirabad, and Ramgaon, along with the Muslim leader of Kasur. The alliance foundered with the death of Amritsar's ruler, and his army disbanded. But his widow, who inherited his position, assem- bled an army. Ranjit sought sovereignty over all Sikhs, and control of Amritsar, their holiest city, was essential for his quest. In 1802 the three other Sikh chiefs allied themselves with Ranjit in defeating the widow's forces. Over the next two decades Amri tsar's fortunes improved as Ranjit rebuilt its temple and improved its fortifications.
During the first years of the century the Marathas were engaged in battles with the British across the subcontinent. The Holkar, a powerful central Indian state and member of the Maratha confederation, sought an alliance with Ranjit against the British. Determined not to be on the wrong side in the war, in 1806 Ranjit instead signed a treaty with the British pledging not to aid the Holkar. In return the British promised not to interfere with the internal affairs of Ranjit's territory, leaving him free to expand his empire. Among his first subsequent conquests was Kasur, in 1807, a city about 55 miles (80 km) southeast of Lahore. Not only was it of cultural importance to Muslims, the city had long resisted the Sikhs. Such was Ranjit's growing power that in 1808 rival Sikh chiefs asked the British Resident — the EIC representative — in Delhi to prohibit Ranjit from attacking them. The British would soon have their own reasons for checking Ranjit's expansion.
International Affairs
In July 1798 French general Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt with the goal of cutting off England from India. A year later, in May 1799, the British fought their last battle against Tipu Sultan, defeating him at his fortress at Seringapatam, on an island of the same name in the Cauvery River. The British were now the major power in much of India, a position cemented by Napoleon's defeat in Syria that same month, ending the French threat to the British position in the subcontinent.
However, in 1807 Russia and a resurgent France signed a treaty to cooperate against the EIC's possessions. By 1808 the French army was advancing on Persia; Sindi rulers had granted the French access to their ports. The British mounted a diplomatic counterattack, dispatch- ing envoys throughout the region, including Sind, Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Afghanistan. Ranjit Singh was, of course, on the list for visits. He welcomed the approaching envoys by mounting a display of force, attacking Amritsar, Ambala, and Patiala in Punjab. Ranjit hoped his campaign would pressure the British into recognizing him as the leader of the Sikhs as well pledging nonintervention in actions he undertook in Afghanistan, in return for supporting the British against the French. But by the time the envoys reached Ranjit, the British felt less threatened by the French and were more interested in suppressing the growth of regional powers such as Ranjit represented. Siding with the other Sikh rulers, they forbade Ranjit from expanding his empire by force anywhere but northwest of the Sutlej River. Ranjit prepared to resist the ultimatum, gathering his forces at Ludhiana (in today's Indian state of Punjab) for a showdown with the British, but then agreed to a treaty rather than fight.
The 1809 Treaty of Amritsar that Ranjit signed left the Sikh community permanently divided. Some were vehemently opposed to capitulation to British demands and preferred a military response. Others felt Ranjit had taken a prudent course that preserved the kingdom. That same year statesman and historian Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), the first Englishman to visit Peshawar, went to the court of Shuja Shah Durrani, the Afghan ruler (r. 1803-09, 1839-42). Elphinstone was impressed with the reception and the tribal jirga, or council system of village government. (The clan jirga was called khel, and the loya jirga advised the emir of Kabul.) A few weeks after Elphins tone's visit, Shuja Shah was deposed by his brother Mahmud, who had previously ruled the kingdom. For the next 42 years Shuja Shah tried to regain the throne. His claims to the kingdom were used by Ranjit Singh and later the British to justify their own actions against the Durrani empire, which they claimed were undertaken on Shuja's behalf.
From 1809 to 1819 Ranjit Singh annexed all the territories allowed by his treaty with the British. Ever the opportunist, he conquered inde- pendent Muslim areas, claiming to be acting on behalf of the Durrani empire, though he kept most of the spoils of his conquests for himself. He did, however, mount a cooperative mission with Mahmud's Afghan forces to punish Kashmir for supporting one of Shuja Shah's attempts to regain his throne. The Afghans were the first to conclude a peace agreement with Kashmir and collect tribute, which they later refused to share with Ranjit's Sikh forces. But the Sikhs defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Haidaru in 1813, and in 1814 Rawalpindi came under Ranjit's rule.
The Jihad
Muslim reform efforts continued after the death of Islamic scholar and activist Shah Waliullah, carried on by his son and spiritual heir, Shah Abdul Aziz Muhaddith Dehlavi (1746-1823), and others. The downturn of the fortunes of the subcontinent's Muslims mirrored the decline of the Mughal Empire. In the early 19th century efforts by Christian missionaries to convert Muslims, and the loss of lands they had controlled for centuries to the Sikhs, roiled the Islamic commu- nity. Shah Waliullah's call for spiritual jihad, or holy struggle to live more piously, was now being supplanted by the military jihad urged by his descendants. Although Waliullah too had endorsed holy wars, he had directed Muslim rulers of his era to wage battle against the Hindu kingdoms; now Sikhs were the target of Muslim militancy. After Ranjit's conquest of Rawalpindi in 1810, rumors spread that the Sikhs were persecuting and attacking Muslims in Punjab. In response Shah Abdul Aziz launched a jihad. Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1786-1831), a military and religious leader noted for his organizational skills, was appointed to run the movement. Muslim mujahideens, or holy warriors, gathered throughout the region of today's Pakistan. Bands of volunteers made their way through Bahwalpur, Sind, and Baluchistan. In Peshawar, they overran and captured the town.
Ranjit Singh sent an army under the command of Jean-Baptiste Ventura (ca. 1792-?), a French mercenary of indeterminate back- ground whom Ranjit had made a general, against the mujahideens. Meanwhile, his agents spread rumors claiming that Ahmad Barelwi's reforms were un-Islamic and that he was a Wahhabi, a practitioner of a rigid form of Islam. (Wahhabism is followed in contemporary Saudi Arabia.) Other potential supporters were bought off with bribes and presents. The jihad began to lose support. Many Afghans deserted, and local Pathan chiefs killed many of the mujahideens, seeking either eco- nomic or spiritual gain. Ahmad Barelwi was driven to the foothills of Kashmir, and on May 6, 1831, at a battle at Balakat, Ahmad Barelwi and many of the movement's leaders were killed and his army vanquished. The movement went underground and continued to foment anti-Hindu and, increasingly, anti-British sentiment.
British Wars in Afghanistan
With the Russians continuing to make overtures to Afghanistan, George Eden, first earl of Auckland (1784-1849), arrived from England with orders to install a pro-British regime to keep the Russians at bay. He dispatched an army that marched through Sind on the way to Afghanistan, ignoring a treaty with the Mirs, as the Talpur chieftains of Sind were known. The 1832 treaty forbade passage of British forces or military stores along the Indus River or across Sind. Lord Auckland's army joined another British force in Baluchistan. Once in Kabul the British installed their puppet, Shuja Shah, on the throne, but in 1841, while the British were on their way back to Jalalabad, near the Khyber Pass, a rebellion broke out. The retreating British forces were attacked, and most were slaughtered. Lord Auckland was recalled to England, though not much changed under his replacement, Edward Law, earl of Ellenborough (r. 1842-44). The British returned to Afghanistan to take Ghazni and Kabul, then withdrew. This marked the conclusion of the First Afghan War, which lasted from 1839 to 1842.
The Mirs of Sind allowed the British to penetrate their territory unimpeded. Perhaps emboldened by the lack of protest, the British forced a new, more onerous treaty on the Mirs, reducing their property and income. Sir James Outram (1803-63) was sent from England to enforce the treaty. The Mirs protested strongly, but their objections were met with a brutal British response from an army dispatched by Lord Ellenborough under the command of Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853). The British assault sparked an uprising in Baluchistan that culminated in an attack on the British residency in Hyderabad, Sind. Napier used the attack as a pretense to attack the rebel forces nearby at Miani and Dabo (1842-43), thereby conquering Sind. The Mirs were exiled, and Napier became Sind's first British governor, provoking the anger of Muslims and Hindus alike.
The Sikh Wars
Ranjit Singh died in 1839. After his death Punjab fell into chaos under the brief reigns of a succession of rulers. In response to the anarchy of the post- Ranjit years, the army played a growing role in political affairs. The degree to which the EIC was seeking an excuse to gain more con- trol in the region has been debated, as has the notion that it was only concerned about the effects of instability on its nearby settlements. But whatever the EIC's motives, the Sikh army's growing assertiveness pro- vided a spark that ignited armed conflict between the British and the Sikhs known as the Anglo-Sikh, or, simply, Sikh Wars.
Ranjit Singh had signed a treaty with the EIC pledging to keep Sikh forces northwest of the Sutlef River. As the Sikh kingdom began to crumble, the EIC had built up its military forces along the river, to which the Sikhs objected. After negotiations broke down, and the EIC sent a large force to reinforce the area, in late 1845 the Sikh army crossed the Sutlef, igniting the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46).
The Sikh army was well equipped and had been trained by European mercenaries. Still, ultimately the British resoundly defeated the Sikh army, and the war officially ended with the Treaty of Lahore, signed in March 1846. Under the terms of the treaty the Sikhs paid the British an indemnity and ceded them Kashmir, and the British kept the current ruler, Ranjit's son, the young Dalip Singh (r. 1843-49) on the throne. But the British Resident controlled policy. The Sikh's army was reduced to 20,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry, retained primarily to keep the region from falling to Afghanistan. The British sold Kashmir to Raja Gulab Singh for 8 million rupees, the equivalent of about US$2,640,000 at the time.
The defeat, terms of the treaty, and British presence bred anger and resentment among many Sikhs. In August 1848 Sikh forces stationed in Hazara, in what is now Pakistan's NWFP, rebelled, as did those in Multan the next month when the British tried to choose the successor to the ruler of the Sikh territory. Two British officers sent to Multan to install the ElC-backed governor were killed, precipitating the Second Sikh War (1848-49). The Sikhs initially won several battles, but the British rebounded to win a decisive victory under the command of Lord Hugh Gough (1779-1869), formerly Sir Hugh. The uprising ended with a second Treaty of Lahore, signed March 9, 1849, under which the Sikhs ceded Punjab to the British, and the Sikh army was dis- banded. Raja Dalip Singh moved to England in 1854. Sir John Lawrence (1811-79), later Lord Lawrence, was named chief commissioner of the Jullundur district, in today's Indian state of Punjab.
The British were led at the time by James Broun Ramsay, first mar- quis of Dalhousie (r. 1848-56). Young, short-tempered, and arrogant, Lord Dalhousie had boundless energy and willpower despite his frail constitution. Convinced of the superiority of Western ways and the need for British rule on the subcontinent, he pursued a policy of bringing princely states under British rule through the doctrine of lapse. According to this policy rulers without sons and under the direct control, or paramountcy of Great Britain surrendered their right to appoint a successor to the British. This alienated the feudal aristocracy and sparked a revolt by deposed princes. British support for missionaries, who were seen by some as corrupting Hindu reli- gious and cultural traditions, exacerbated popular opposition to the British. Hindus also objected to the mixing of religions and castes in prison, which was contrary to their faith, as well as to laws prohib- iting sati, the practice of burning widows alive on their husbands' funeral pyres. Muslims were angered by the exclusion of Arabic and Persian from schools.
However, under the modernization efforts spearheaded by Dalhousie, roads, schools, and canals were built. British administrators John Lawrence in Punjab and the frontier, and Henry Bartle Frere (1815-84) in Sind and Baluchistan, played a large role in these projects. Sikh lead- ers were given jagirs, and relations with them gradually normalized. Only the Muslim state of Oudh, now part of Utter Pradesh in north India, was still intact, the last vestige of the Mughal Empire. This too would be annexed by the British. First, though, the growing antipathy toward the British and their policies would erupt in an uprising. The short-lived Indian Revolution would profoundly change British gov- ernance in the subcontinent and further set back the fortunes of its Muslim population.
