Friendship and the Sutlej line

A fugitive at Amritsar

In December 1804 the Company’s armies defeated the Maratha chief Jaswant Rao Holkar at Fatehgarh and Dig. In 1805 he crossed into Panjab with his ally Amir Khan and a force of about fifteen thousand men, and the Company’s commander-in-chief, Lord Lake, followed him. Holkar moved through the Jalandhar Doab and reached Amritsar. Lake’s army camped on the banks of the Beas.

Ranjit Singh, then campaigning near Multan, hurried back to Amritsar. He received Holkar with courtesy, but he would not let Panjab become a battlefield for two foreign armies. Instead he made himself the go-between, and brought Holkar and the British to terms.

The treaty of 1 January 1806

The agreement was signed on 1 January 1806. On the Sikh side, Sardar Fateh Singh Ahluwalia of Kapurthala signed for himself and as plenipotentiary for Ranjit Singh. On the British side, Lieutenant-Colonel John Malcolm signed under the authority of Lord Lake.

• The Sikh chiefs would make Holkar withdraw at least thirty kos from Amritsar and give him no further help, while letting his followers return home safely.
• The British army would then leave its camp on the Beas, and any future peace with Holkar would require him to leave Sikh territory without harming it.
• As long as the Sikh chiefs stayed friendly, the British would never enter their territories or seize their possessions.

It was a short document, and an honest one on its face. It kept Panjab out of a war that was not its own, and it brought Ranjit Singh into direct contact with the British for the first time.

ਨਾ ਕੋ ਬੈਰੀ ਨਹੀ ਬਿਗਾਨਾ ਸਗਲ ਸੰਗਿ ਹਮ ਕਉ ਬਨਿ ਆਈ ॥

Nā ko bairī nahī bigānā sagal sang ham kau ban āī.

“No one is my enemy, and no one is a stranger. I get along with everyone.”

Guru Arjan Dev Ji’s line describes friendship without calculation: no enemy, no stranger. The Company’s friendship was of a different kind. It was offered for a purpose, measured against interest, and written down so that its limits could be enforced.

Metcalfe comes to Kasur

In 1807 Napoleon made peace with Russia at Tilsit, and the Company began to fear a French march on India through Persia and Afghanistan. It sent a young officer, Charles Metcalfe, to win Ranjit Singh’s friendship. They met at Khem Karan, near Kasur, on 12 September 1808. Metcalfe brought gifts and a draft treaty.

Ranjit Singh doubted that Napoleon was the real reason for the visit. He offered cooperation on one condition: that the British recognise his authority over the Sikhs of both the Majha and the Malwa, the lands north and south of the Sutlej. Metcalfe would not agree. While the talks went on, Ranjit Singh crossed the Sutlej and took territory on its southern bank, with Metcalfe looking on.

The Company answered with force. It declared the Sikh chiefs south of the river under its protection, and Colonel David Ochterlony marched through Buria and Patiala to Ludhiana. Ranjit Singh moved troops and guns to Phillaur and mounted cannon on the Gobindgarh Fort at Amritsar. Then the danger from Napoleon faded, and Metcalfe returned with a smaller treaty.

Four articles at Amritsar

The Treaty of Amritsar was signed on 25 April 1809 by Metcalfe and Ranjit Singh, and ratified by the Governor-General, Lord Minto, on 30 May.

• Article 1: perpetual friendship. The Lahore state would be treated as one of the most favoured powers, and the British would have no concern with Ranjit Singh’s territories north of the Sutlej.
• Article 2: on the southern bank, Ranjit Singh would keep no more troops than his internal duties needed, and would not encroach on the lands or rights of the chiefs there.
• Article 3: any breach of these terms would make the treaty null and void.
• Article 4: the treaty would bind both sides once ratified, in English and Persian copies.

Ranjit Singh kept the lands south of the river that he had held before Metcalfe arrived. Agents were exchanged: Nand Singh Bhandari for Lahore at Ludhiana, and Khushwaqt Rai for the British at Lahore. Encyclopaedia Britannica says the treaty settled relations between the two powers for a generation.

A river that became a wall

The settlement gave Ranjit Singh a safe southern frontier, and he used it. With the Sutlej closed, he turned north and west, to Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar, and built the empire told in The Sikh Empire, 1799–1839. He never broke the treaty.

But a border drawn by an outside power does more than mark the edge of a map. The Sutlej line divided the Sikhs of the Malwa from the Sikhs of the Majha, and ended any hope of a single Khalsa state uniting them. The chiefs south of the river, Patiala, Nabha, Jind and their neighbours, stayed under British protection, and their lands stayed apart from Lahore. The river that was meant to keep the peace became a wall through the middle of one people.

This is the first lesson of the treaties. A people can lose part of its structural existence without losing a battle. The Company did not conquer the Malwa in 1809; it simply drew a line and declared which side of it each Sikh belonged to.

Read also: The treaties at a glance · Part 2: Rivers, trade and the road to Kabul · The Sikh Empire, 1799–1839

Sources and further reading

• B. J. Hasrat, “Anglo-Sikh Treaty (1806)”, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Punjabi University, Patiala.
• B. J. Hasrat, “Anglo-Sikh Treaty (Amritsar, 1809)”, The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Punjabi University, Patiala.
• “Treaty of Amritsar”, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• Sikh Museum Initiative, “The Anglo Sikh Treaties” project (2015).
• J. D. Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs, from the Origin of the Nation to the Battles of the Sutlej (first published 1849; 1918 edition), Internet Archive.
• Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 1299 (Raag Kaanraa, Guru Arjan Dev Ji), SriGranth.org.