The rumblings of resentment

Book review of 'The Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848-49'

The Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848-49

Amarpal Singh

HarperCollins India

513 pages; Rs 899

Amarpal Singh’s first book on the Anglo-Sikh wars, The First Anglo-Sikh War 1845-46, ended with the East India Company’s conquest of Punjab a mere seven years after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and the posting at the Lahore court of a British resident with sweeping powers. The resident’s numerous district political agents reduced Sikh officials to ciphers, and in the sequel, The Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848-49, Mr Singh captures the sense of resentment that this gave rise to, leading to the killing in April 1848 of two young British army officers by a disgruntled soldier in Multan. The result was a localised mutiny that led to a wider conflict.

Having once again defeated the Sikhs, the Company annexed Punjab and began ruling it directly, with Ranjit Singh’s minor son and successor Duleep Singh signing away all his claims. The Company seized the Koh-i-Noor diamond (the world’s largest) and Ranjit Singh’s vast horde of gold and jewellery, estimated to be worth £2 million (£160-180 million in today’s money), his gold throne, and an immense collection of Persian carpets, Bukhara rugs and Pashmina shawls.

The British maintained the charade that they were intervening in Punjab only to put down a rebellion against the maharaja’s government. Yet, annexation was swift. Mr Singh writes that the Sikh government had no desire to throw off the British influence; it was the British resident’s lack of energy in tackling the nascent rebellion in Multan, triggered by demobilised local soldiers’ fears for their livelihoods, that allowed it to grow into a “war of independence” waged by regular Sikh troops.

British territory in India now stretched from Bengal in the east to the north-west frontier. The annexation of Punjab — and the availability of a large new catchment area for recruiting soldiers — hugely influenced the composition of the army. Over the preceding hundred years, the Company’s army had been drawn primarily from Bengal and parts of present-day Uttar Pradesh. After the second Anglo-Sikh war, and particularly after the 1857 uprising, Sikh and Muslim Punjabi soldiers would form the new backbone of the British Indian army. Indeed, when the Anglo-Burmese war broke out in 1852, former Sikh soldiers enlisted in the army in large numbers. They also fought on the British side in 1857, playing a key role in the recapture of Delhi and Lucknow from the rebels.

The main battles of the second Anglo-Sikh war took place in what is now Pakistan, only minor skirmishes having occurred in present-day India — in Jalandhar and Kangra. Three inconclusive engagements, at Ramnagar, Sadalpore and Chillianwala (the last at roughly the same site between the Jhelum and the Chenab where the armies of Alexander the Great and Porus, the ruler of Punjab, had clashed over 2,000 years earlier), preceded the final encounter at Gujarat, where the British won a comprehensive victory. Mr Singh bases his account of the battles substantially on eye-witness accounts by British army officers. He gives the GPS coordinates of the battlefields, along with period drawings and modern-day photographs.

The war was well covered by the press. Correspondents of news sheets like the Bombay Telegraph, Delhi Gazette, Calcutta Star and The Englishman reported from the frontlines, and the campaigns — including the questionable tactics of the British commander-in-chief, Hugh Gough, who was at one stage in danger of being relieved of his command — were the subject of spirited editorial comment. However, William Howard Russell, considered the modern world’s first war correspondent, would travel to India only during the 1857 uprising, having achieved fame while reporting on the Crimean War (1853-56) for The Times.

It is clear from the narrative that the logistics of warfare in that era were challenging, particularly for the British. Highway robbers and local villagers took a heavy toll of baggage animals, with the British army losing over 600 camels in one four-week period in late 1848; some of the British guns were so heavy that they needed to be hauled by three elephants; and ammunition had to be carried in hundreds of bullock carts.

Mr Singh must be commended for his superlative research. It yields a wealth of detail that, though sometimes difficult to process, enables readers to form mental pictures of the action, despite a wry, matter-of-fact style. He makes it a point to enliven the narrative with interesting anecdotes, quotes from private letters and official despatches, amusing accounts of conversations between Sikh and British soldiers (which reveal that this war saw none of the savagery that was to characterise the events of 1857), and other fascinating trivia.

To give but three examples: British swords, remarkably, were no match for the heavier Sikh talwars and would often shatter on impact with the latter; a Sikh mole was discovered in Hugh Gough’s own office, but managed to escape; and days before the battle of Gujarat in February 1849, the British uncovered — and foiled — a Sikh plot to abduct the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, who was camping on the banks of the Sutlej.

Military history buffs in particular will find that The Second Anglo-Sikh War 1848-49 makes for absorbing reading.