Multan to Gujrat

A kingdom ruled from the Residency

At the end of 1846 Lal Singh was caught encouraging resistance to Gulab Singh in Kashmir, and he was removed. Under the Treaty of Bhairowal of 16 December 1846, a Council of Regency would govern until Duleep Singh came of age, and it would answer to the British Resident, Henry Lawrence.

The Maharaja still sat on the throne. But the decisions were now made at the Residency.

ਸ਼ਾਹ ਮੁਹੰਮਦਾ ਨਹੀਂ ਮਾਲੂਮ ਸਾਨੂੰ,
ਅਗੇ ਹੋਰ ਕੀ ਖੇਡ ਰਚਾਵਣੀ ਜੀ ।

Shah Muhammada nahin maloom sanu, agge hor ki khed rachavni ji.

“Shah Mohammad, we do not know what game is still to be played.”

Taking a son from his mother

One person still spoke with the authority of the old kingdom, and the British knew exactly who she was. Maharani Jind Kaur was stripped of the regency. In August 1847 she was taken from her nine-year-old son and confined at Sheikhupura. In 1848 she was sent out of Panjab altogether, to Benares and then to the fortress of Chunar.

British letters from those years read almost like fear. They did not worry about her armies, because she had none. They worried about what her name could still do.

They were right to. In April 1849 she slipped out of Chunar in disguise and made her way to Nepal. They had not seen the last of her.

The spark at Multan

The trouble began far to the south. Diwan Mulraj, governor of Multan, had resigned rather than accept harsh new terms. In April 1848 two British officers arrived to take over the city, Patrick Vans Agnew and William Anderson. Within days both were dead.

Did Mulraj order it, or simply fail to stop it? Historians still argue. But Multan rose, the British laid siege, and the fire began to spread.

The Attariwalas ride out

In Hazara, Sardar Chattar Singh Attariwala took up arms. In September 1848 his son, Raja Sher Singh Attariwala, sent with Durbar troops to help the British at Multan, turned his army around and joined the rising. Thousands of Khalsa veterans came to his standard. Panjab was at war again.

Chillianwala: the day the Khalsa held

After a costly clash on the Chenab at Ramnagar on 22 November 1848, the two armies met at Chillianwala on 13 January 1849. Lord Gough attacked late in the afternoon, through thick scrub.

It became the bloodiest battle of either war for the British. More than two thousand of their men were killed or wounded. Regiments broke. Guns and colours were lost. When night fell, the Sikh army was still standing. In London the news caused such alarm that Gough was replaced.

Gujrat: the last battle

But the tide was turning. Multan fell on 22 January 1849, and its besieging army marched north to join Gough. On 21 February, at Gujrat, the British brought their full weight of artillery to bear. The Sikh lines were pounded for hours, then broken, then pursued without rest.

ਸ਼ਾਹ ਮੁਹੰਮਦਾ ਇਕ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਬਾਝੋਂ,
ਫੌਜਾਂ ਜਿੱਤ ਕੇ ਅੰਤ ਨੂੰ ਹਾਰੀਆਂ ਨੀ ।

Shah Muhammada ik Sarkar baajhon, faujan jitt ke ant nu haariyan ni.

“Shah Mohammad, without the one Sarkar to lead them, the armies won, and lost in the end.”

“Today Ranjit Singh has died”

In mid-March 1849, near Rawalpindi, the Attariwala sardars and the last of the Khalsa army laid down their arms. The old soldiers came forward one by one, placed their swords on the growing pile, and stepped back. One of them is remembered saying the words that every Sikh history repeats: today Ranjit Singh has died.

ਅੱਜ ਰਣਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਰ ਗਿਆ।

Ajj Ranjit Singh mar gaya.

“Today Ranjit Singh has died.”

29 March 1849: the last Durbar

On the morning of 29 March 1849 a Durbar gathered in the Lahore Fort. The courtiers came in quiet, sombre clothes, as if to a mourning. Maharaja Duleep Singh, ten years old, took his father’s throne for the last time.

A proclamation from the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, was read aloud. The kingdom of Panjab was now part of British India. The Maharaja would receive a pension and live where he was told. The Koh-i-Noor would go to the Queen of England. The boy signed.

Dalhousie said the Durbar had broken the treaty. Even in Britain there were critics, Major Evans Bell among them, who said plainly that it had not, and that a child had been punished for a war he could never have stopped.

The last coins of the Khalsa Raj

With the annexation, the mints of Lahore, Amritsar, Multan and the rest fell silent. For half a century they had struck rupees in the name of the Gurus. Some of the very last were made in Samvat 1905 and 1906, the years of the siege of Multan and of the annexation itself.

The kingdom was gone. Its Maharaja was ten years old. And the British had already decided what to do with him.

The last three years in dates

Pride that was never surrendered

The kingdom was signed away, but the spirit of the Khalsa was not. Chillianwala is still remembered as the day the Sikh army held its ground against everything the Company could send, and the British themselves raised a memorial on the field to the fallen. The craftsmanship of the Sikh Durbar, its arms, jewels, textiles and paintings, now draws crowds to museums from Lahore to London.

Did you know? Sikh-era rupees are among the most collected coins of India. Many carry the Persian couplet of the Gurus, not the name of any ruler: a kingdom that put the Guru’s name on its money, even to the very last year.

Up next · Part 4 of 4 Maharaja Duleep Singh and Maharani Jind Kaur, 1849–1893 The last Maharaja is taken from Panjab and raised as an English gentleman. Then, after thirteen years apart, his mother finds him. Read part 4 →

Missed the last one? Part 2: The First Anglo-Sikh War, 1845–1846

Sources and further reading

• Shah Mohammad, Jangnama Singhan te Firangian (c. 1846). Panjabi text as given on Panjabi Wikisource
• SikhCoins.in: The Sikh Empire
• Sohan Singh Seetal, ਸਿੱਖ ਰਾਜ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਗਿਆ (Sikh Raj Kiven Gia), in English as How Fell the Sikh Kingdom (1970)
• Khushwant Singh, How the Sikhs Lost Their Kingdom (1996)
• Joseph Davy Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs (1849)
• Major Evans Bell, The Annexation of the Punjaub and the Maharajah Duleep Singh (1882)
• SikhCoins.in: The Fall of the Sikh Empire