The Sikhs (Gordon)/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SIKHS UNDER THE BRITISH CROWN.
The decisive element in ensuring future tranquillity and contentment in the Punjab after the annexation was the unequivocal nature of the British triumph, the liberal treatment of the vanquished, and the generous recognition of those sardars and others who had remained loyal to the treaty with the English protectorate. The great healing influence among the people was the knowledge that their lands were secured to them. The formidable Sikh army, which it had required so many hard-fought battles to subdue, was disbanded, and the turbulent soldiery settled down to industrial pursuits. They laid aside their national ambition and all schemes of hopeless political combination, and quietly accepted the new order of things; but their subjugation by no means signified their national annihilation. Religious liberty for all was proclaimed, and it was recognised to be a healthy and good thing for the Sikhs to maintain fidelity to the instincts and traditions of their religious convictions, which were not inconsistent with sincere allegiance to the British Crown; to maintain their sentiment of nationality in the form of subordinate patriotism; to keep in their recollection those elements which had contributed to the moral strength of the Sikh nation; and to preserve the character and enterprise engendered in their race by the trials they underwent in early times.
The Punjab recovered from the long-continued ravages of war with surprising rapidity. For good the old order changed, giving place to the new. Security for life and property following on disarmament soon reigned throughout the land. The growth of material prosperity among the people diverted their minds from the stormy past to assured hope of justice, peace, and plenty under a strong Government—to the protection afforded for the development of the many good qualities in them. Oppressive taxation was abolished, the land-tax reduced far below what it formerly was, and simple courts established in which the laws were administered with equal justice to all. Roads were made throughout the length and breadth of the province, and canals set agoing which made the waste places to blossom.
"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."
The ground-plan of the policy of Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner, was to maintain the status as he found it—to restore nothing that the Sikhs had taken. The chiefs were maintained in their states, and jagirs held were continued. By his character, firmness, and ability he soon won the confidence of all the people. He took them by the hand, he saw with their eyes, lie thought with their hearts, and gave them improvements that they really wanted, not those which it might be considered they ought to want. This was the secret of his great personal influence, which secured for him a grip over the affection of the people that the events of 1857 did not loosen, but on the contrary strengthened. He proved the truth of an old Persian proverb, "To a just king his rayats [peasants] are an army," when a few years later he called forth an army from among them. He could not have commanded the Punjab and given it its place in the Empire had he not thoroughly understood the people and been in the closest sympathy with their characteristic traits, although at the same time he never allowed his sensibility to run away with his sense. It was this firm foundation on which the Punjab administration was built that enabled it to weather the storm which beat so fiercely on it in 1857.
A happy consequence of our wars with the Sikhs was that we learned their great value as soldiers when mutual respect was won by valour in the field. After the first war some Sikh regiments were raised for our service, and after the annexation Sikhs were freely enlisted in the Frontier Force, and also in some regiments of the Bengal army, where they were not, however, welcomed by the Brahman fraternity, who resented intrusion on their own preserves as tending to break up their solidarity. One of the local Sikh battalions volunteered and was sent on active service to Burma during the war there in 1852, the vanguard of that movement for service over-sea to distant parts of the Empire which has characterised the Sikhs ever since.
In May 1857 occurred the great crisis of the revolt of the Bengal native army, which for a time threatened to overwhelm the British power in Upper India. Mischief was known to be brewing, but it was little suspected that the whole of that army was honeycombed with sedition and ready to throw off its allegiance. On the 12th of the month, "like a thunderbolt from a clear sky," a message was flashed along the wire to Lahore that the native troops at Meerut and Delhi had revolted, and that the ancient seat of Moghul empire was in the hands of the mutineers. At that time there were at scattered stations in the Punjab 10,500 English troops and 58,000 native; of the latter 36,000 were of the Bengal army, now known not to be trusted, the rest being Punjabi irregulars and military police, who not only stood true to their salt, but took a prominent part in suppressing the revolt.
Now was reaped the "rich blessing of Lawrence's vigorous and beneficent rule." The people under him were prosperous and contented; at the same time the outlook at first for the British was almost hopeless, but by prompt decision and action he saved the day, and his assured resolute manner restored confidence. The Punjab was not only quiet but actively loyal. The men who had so recently been our stoutest foes were now our staunchest friends, and in their splendid loyalty side by side with English soldiers beat down the Mutiny.
Within twenty-four hours after receipt of the startling news from Delhi the Bengal troops at Lahore, watching for the signal to rise, were disarmed; the forts there and at Govindgarh, Amritsar (the key of the Manjha, the Sikh home-land), secured, as also those at Ferozepore and Philor with the arsenals, while Sir John Lawrence personally wrote to the ruling chiefs that now was the time to prove their loyalty. Nobly they declared for the British Government.
The Sikh Raja of Kapurthala led 2000 of his men to take the place of mutinied troops, and afterwards marched them down to Oudh to fight by our side. The Cis-Sutlej states were nearer Delhi, and within the influence of the insurrection; but their Sikh chiefs did not hesitate to cast in their lot with the British Government, which had in old times thrown its mantle of protection over them and preserved their independence. The Raja of Jhind was the first in the field, declaring that he would abide by the British, under whom he had lived happily for fifty years. He cleared the road for the English troops advancing on Delhi. The Maharaja of Patiala supplied 5000 men, and held the line of communication between the Punjab and the British army before Delhi for a distance of 120 miles. The Raja of Nabha, with 800 of his men, occupied for us the fort of Ludhiana and escorted the siege-train to Delhi. The petty Sikh chiefs complained of it as a grievance if they were not called on for our service.
In the eyes of the Sikhs, Peshawar was the barometer of the strength of British power. It was the force of old habit in looking to the north, whence storms were wont to roll down on Lahore. "If Peshawar holds firm," said a wise old Sikh sardar, "all is well." He knew from experience what power it required to hold it firm in fair weather: if the British could do so in foul weather, all was safe. Lawrence's trusted lieutenants there, armed with the powerful factor of personal influence, aided the general in striking strong and quick blows at mutiny. Then the border Pathans at once appraised the situation and flocked to our standard. Three hundred Afridis of an outlawed clan were the first to come in, armed, begging to be forgiven and to be allowed to fight for us. They were incorporated in a new regiment being raised. Sikhs also about Lahore and elsewhere came in to be enlisted.
A movable column of picked men, English and Punjabi, was formed to patrol the country and dash down on the mutineers wherever they showed themselves. Terrible was the punishment inflicted on them. It was soon seen that the rebels at Delhi would receive no help from the Punjab. There was no more trouble from revolt in June. There were still, however, some 18,000 men to be watched, 6000 of them armed, among whom mutiny again showed its head in July, when they were nearly all destroyed or captured. By the end of July no more regiments remained to mutiny. Far below Delhi British power had almost disappeared: the few points held were like islets on the face of the dark waters of rebellion which had deluged the land. The rebel force at Delhi was now at its maximum—over 40,000 trained men holding that city, with 120 heavy guns on its walls, besides 60 field-guns, all of our own manufacture, manned by artillerymen from the revolted army.
The hundredth anniversary of Plassey saw a small British force, under 4000 strong, holding the ridge overlooking Delhi. It was increased to about 7000 early in July; but as yet, though constantly engaged with the rebels, no impression had been made on the city or a single gun silenced. Strenuous efforts had been made to reinforce it from the Punjab. The first to reach were the famous Guides of the Frontier Force, which marched 580 miles in twenty-two days, and signalised their arrival on the ridge by at once going into action: other corps of cavalry and infantry from the same force followed, pushing on with feverish alacrity to be in time, all animated with enthusiasm, which even infected the retired soldiers. It is related of an old Sikh officer, lately retired from the service, that hearing at his home of the Mutiny, and that his regiment was hurrying off to Delhi, he determined to rejoin it. The commandant found him waiting on the road with two swords by his side. He said he had come to command his former company, and had brought two swords—one to break over the heads of the rebels in the service of the English Sarkar, and the other on his own account. He was allowed to resume his old position, and was badly wounded early in the siege. Having recovered, he was present at the final assault. His company fell in that morning at the head of the column, much to his delight; but, owing to certain movements between the camp and the walls of the city, lost its place for a time. He rushed up to the commandant and loudly begged that the previous order of the companies should be restored, and that he should lead the attack. This was conceded, and the brave old warrior was killed an hour afterwards fighting among the foremost.
Nothing could surpass the heroic daring, the dogged tenacity, and invincible fortitude under privation and disease of the little army, with its exposed flanks and open rear, so gallantly holding the ridge during the trying hot season. There was no question of falling back,—Delhi was the vital point of the struggle for supremacy. It was to be taken at all cost.
Lawrence now sent on his movable column under Nicholson, his siege-train from Ferozepore, and the last English and Punjabi soldier that he could spare, keeping only a very small garrison in the Punjab, and then made his boldest venture by calling upon all the Sikh sardars to furnish soldiers of the old Khalsa army, adding, with a note of quiet resolution and self-reliance, "There must be no hesitation or delay on your part." By his vigour in beating down the enemy in the Punjab, in safeguarding it from the revolted sepoys, and in keeping the frontier inviolate, he had clearly demonstrated that the English were yet strong to punish or reward.
The time had now come for bold action in raising a new army to take the place of the old—to employ the fighting elements and banish dangerous temptation. The spirit of the Khalsa was roused by the scent of battle. They responded promptly to the summons and flocked to the British standard, many of them bearing the scars of the recent struggle. Those who were too old to serve sent their sons in their stead. The new army rose phœnix-like amid the ashes of military revolt.[1] Regiments of cavalry and infantry were rapidly formed from the old Khalsa warriors and sent to the seat of war. A corps of Muzhabi Sikhs, 1200 strong, was raised from the workmen on the canals to serve as sappers before Delhi, and old Sikh artillerymen, who a few years before had fought against us, were sent down to work the guns in the trenches, where one of their officers astonished the captain of his battery by remarking that the rebels would not have made such fools of themselves if like him they had lived for a "month in Mere Street, Oxford Street"! He had been to London in the train of the Maharaja Duleep Singh, and had seen Britain's strength and resources, the object-lesson so epigrammatically expressed by Jung Bahadur, the great minister and ruler of Nepal, who had visited England, and who, when urged at that time to join in the effort to drive out the British, replied, "I have stood on London Bridge."
The army before Delhi having been reinforced by Nicholson's arrival, the assault was delivered with 5000 men on the 14th September, the anniversary of its capture by Lord Lake in 1803. After six days' severe fighting, endured with stern resolve, the British flag was on the 20th hoisted on the royal palace, and the whole city, which had been held by 40,000 of the enemy, was in our possession. The Sikhs at last, as triumphant victors with the English, stood on the spot where, 180 years before, their Guru, the father of Govind the Lion, met a martyr's death for refusing to abjure his faith. There was in existence among them a popular belief that they would, in conjunction with "hat wearers" (the British) who should come over the sea, conquer Delhi, and place the head of the Emperor's son on the very spot where the head of Guru Tegh Bahadur had been exposed by order of the Great Moghul. A Sikh officer who was present when the old King of Delhi was captured and his two sons shot, diligently remembering the legend, almost literally secured its fulfilment, and for three days the bodies of the king's sons lay on the spot foretold, close to the place where four months previously they had ordered and witnessed the massacre of forty-nine Christian captives, nearly all women and children.
The effect of the capture of Delhi was felt far and wide in the north, within and beyond the border. The Punjab had weathered the storm, and British prestige stood higher than ever. There was genuine rejoicing throughout the province, emphasised when the spoils of war from captured Delhi began to reach the villages. The pick of their men, old and young, came in crowds to join the new regiments, which were marched down as fast as they were raised to aid in restoring British power beyond Delhi. Upwards of 70,000 men were enlisted from the various races in the Punjab—Sikhs, Dogras, Pathans, and other Mahomedans, all differing in creed and customs, having little in common but a desire to fight for the English Sarkar, over one-third of this number being Sikhs, mostly trained warriors, the most valuable of them all. Never had the Punjab been so quiet. The border Pathans and the Sikhs had now, far from home, their fill of fighting, and freely they shed their blood for us.
While the battle was raging at Delhi the indomitable Havelock was fighting his way into Lucknow to relieve the beleaguered garrison there, a regiment of Sikhs forming part of his small devoted band. He effected this five days after Delhi fell. Sikhs from various mutinied Hindustani corps in Oudh had joined the little British force in the Residency and took their part in the famous defence. In far Bengal, Sikhs with our English troops were at the same time fighting against great odds, and the fine defence of a house at Arrah by some fifty of them with a few English civilians against vastly superior numbers of mutineers earned a special record for conspicuous gallantry. Even Sikh political exiles in Bengal aided our Government. Wherever the Sikhs were, they identified themselves with our cause and fought as lions of their race.
Towards the close of the year Lucknow, which had become the great stronghold and focus of rebellion, was finally relieved by a force under Lord Clyde, including in it troops sent down from Delhi after its fall. On that occasion, in the magnificent rush on the Secundra Bagh, a strong position held by the enemy in great force, the Khalsa war-cry was heard mingled with the Highland pibroch summoning to the onset, when stern Scots and Sikhs, intent on coming to close quarters with the foe, raced together to be the first in at the breach, a mere hole in the wall, than which, in the words of Sir Colin Campbell, who witnessed the assault, "there never was a bolder feat of arms." Until the close of the long campaign in 1859 the Sikhs were everywhere engaged alongside their British comrades in crushing out the rebellion.
As to the part the Punjab played in the great crisis of 1857, when the rebels 
93RD HIGHLANDERS AND SIKHS STORMING THE SECUNDRA BAGH, LUCKNOW, 1857.
made a leap for empire, Lord Canning well expressed it when, after peace was restored, he addressed the chiefs at Lahore, saying, "In other parts of India I have received many distinguished chiefs of ancient lineage who have proved themselves faithful feudatories of the Crown, and many of lower degree who have been dutiful subjects in the midst of great discouragements and danger, but in the Punjab I find a whole nation of brave and loyal men." And the late Sir Charles Aitchison, a former Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, in his Life of Lord Lawrence wrote: "Certainly no troops ever fought more bravely or covered themselves with more glory than did the Punjab troops in our cause against the rebel sepoys. They shared with us the privations and diseases and dangers of the ridge, soldiers all day and sentinels all through the night. They shared in the glory of the assault. In the Oudh and Rohilkhund campaigns they were shoulder to shoulder with the best and bravest. They have sustained their reputation in many a hard-fought field since then. And what is more, there has sprung up in the Punjab a feeling of brotherhood to England and of loyalty to the Crown, which it will be our own fault if we alienate. In the spring of 1885, when war with Russia was imminent and preparations were begun for an expected campaign, many of the war-worn veterans of the Mutiny days came—with white hair and bent with the weight of years—to the present writer and laid their swords at his feet, recounting the favours and honours they had received, and begging, though too old and battered to go themselves, that their sons might not be forgotten when the roll for service was called." The subordinate patriotism of the Sikhs then came strongly to the front, and a wave of enthusiastic loyalty animated them at the prospect of war to oppose any attempt in India's direction.
The military revolt of 1857, one of almost unequalled magnitude, was a gigantic effort to throw off our supremacy, which in the interests of civilisation it was our duty to maintain, and it needed the great struggle to bring home to all India the full significance of our mission there. The magnificent behaviour of the Punjab at that time, which so materially aided our cause, was a reflection of the generous treatment accorded to brave enemies and of their belief in our prestige, their loyalty being a matter of conviction and of genuine feeling.
When the Bengal army was reconstructed in 1860, the majority of the new regiments raised in the Punjab were incorporated in it. The Sikhs now started on a new extended career. In that year they formed part of the force sent to China, a field which ever since has had great attractions for them. Wherever during the last forty years the Indian army has served they have formed a valuable part of it. China, Abyssinia, Afghanistan, far Chitral, and Africa have been the scenes of their warlike exploits, where they proved that their martial ardour is as great as ever it was. They have penetrated to many parts of the vast African continent, East and West, where the British flag now flies, forming the backbone of local forces as legionaries of the Empire. Recently on the torrid plains of Somaliland a detachment of 200 of them fell to a man fighting against overwhelming numbers. To-day they are to the front amid the icy solitudes of high Thibet advancing our standard.
In almost every coast town in the Malay States and in China they are engaged as soldiers and police, being in great demand there as courageous and reliable men. For service they will go anywhere, being without fear of the unknown.
Though the Khalsa has ceased to be a political power, it has entwined its military, force with a strong chord of loyalty and sympathy for the British Crown. The profession of arms remains within the stream of their national life, and the title "Singh" is still with them what it was in their palmy days, one of military honour and glory and a badge of independence in religious thought. Their religion unquestionably encourages high moral and physical qualities. Whatever fighting they have set themselves to do for us they have done well. There is always an expectancy of great things from them, and they have done nothing to dispel this.
A tragic but glorious incident of the Tirah frontier campaign five years ago was the fall of the picket post of Saragurhi on the Samana ridge, with its noble garrison of twenty-one Sikhs, who belonged to a regiment lately raised and then in action for the first time. Attacked and cut off by an overwhelming force of well-armed Afridis, the little band fought for six hours, holding the walls, and with steady fire repulsing the enemy again and again with much slaughter. They were well supplied with ammunition, but it was only a matter of time with the thousands of the assailants to crush them out. Slowly but surely reduced in numbers by the Afridi marksmen, they fought on till the walls fell and only one Sikh was left. He defended the guard-room door, and alone shot down twenty of the enemy. Fighting with his face to the foe, the guard-room being set on fire behind him, he perished in the flames. The Pathans admitted having had about 200 killed and many more wounded. Nobly did these sons of the Khalsa uphold the traditions of the race in a locality where in bygone years the Singhs had so often fought the Pathans, and where hereditary animosities still hold remorseless sway. Well may the Khalsa be proud of their children, and Britannia also of such brave soldiers who know how to die in her cause. A cairn on the site of the post, a prominent obelisk close by, and memorials at Amritsar and Ferozepore, keep alive the memory of 
SIKH CAVALRY AND INFANTRY OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS—INDIAN ARMY, 1903. (Service Dress.)
that signal proof of Sikh bravery and boundless devotion to duty.
They give far more proportionately to the Indian army than any other class of the population of India, and pass far more into the reserve after a few years' service with the colours. They are to be found in about eighty regiments, including those wholly Sikh and those in which they form a part. As military material they are admirable. Possessing a strong individuality, inured to hard labour and exposure from their early youth,—leading a healthy open-air life in their hamlets and villages, for they do not affect towns,—their home training is one to develop physical powers and to fit them for the hardest service in the field as soldiers. They combine a fine physique with energy, due to climate, occupation, and the northern strain in their character, the legacy of the old stock from which they sprang. Freedom from the trammels of superstitious caste ceremonies as inculcated by their spiritual guides, the stem and warlike nature of the iron creed of Guru Govind, the baptism of fire through which the nation passed in its early days, and the coherent rule of Ranjit Singh have undoubtedly stamped them with a national character, a marked trait in which is their reserved and self-respecting pride. Like Britons, the fighting spirit is built into them, and they do not lose it by years of peace. They still stand pre-eminent for military spirit and enterprise, proud of their order.
They are genial in disposition and independent in character, from their associates being their equals and from living on the products of their own lands,—more earnest and stubborn, after the manner of ploughmen, than impetuous,—better fitted for deeds requiring unflinching resistance, being gifted with a spirit which increases with adversity, and with bone to overcome difficulties. Frugality is very marked among them. A large part of the money spent on the army finds its way to the Punjabi villages, which, with what also comes from well-paid foreign service, are being steadily enriched, for the Sikh is too fond of his own country to settle abroad. All that can be saved goes to the homes. They do not waste money on the occasion of domestic ceremonies, as in other priest-ridden parts of India. As sons of the soil, the goal of their home ambition is land—more land and oxen to work it. Sikh wives are as free and independent as the men, and during the absence of the husbands remain at home in charge of affairs. On the annexation of the Punjab they were the first to appreciate the advantages of being subjects of the British Crown. When it became known that the English, who had conquered the Sikhs, were ruled by a Queen who was now their sovereign, they went in strongly for woman's rights and became a terror to tyrannical husbands. It is said that many a hard-fighting Sikh who had survived the battlefields found the scene of war shifted to his rebellious house, and again suffered grievous defeat.
During the last decade the Sikh population has become more numerous—by 13 per cent; and as the result of greater numbers of them being now enlisted, there has been an increase of those called Govindi Sikhs who have taken the pahal. They are held to make the best soldiers, the stern religious discipline enjoined by Govind engendering self-command, self-respect, and obligation to duty unto death through the talismanic influence of the Khalsa. When such as have not taken the pahal enlist, they generally do so at the hand of the Granthi or Scripture reader attached to every regiment in which Sikhs are in any numbers, and supported by them. They are the home missionaries of the Durbar Sahib, the headquarters church at Amritsar, who conduct religious services, read out the precepts of the 'Granth,' collect money for the income of the church, and keep alive the Sikh national and religious sentiment.
There was a remarkable demonstration of this sentiment at the great Durbar 
MORNING PRAYERS AT THE SIKH CHAPEL IN THE REGIMENTAL LINES.
assemblage at Delhi in January 1903, when representatives of all races and castes were gathered together to hear King Edward VII. proclaimed Emperor of United India. At the suggestion of the venerable Raja of Nabha, a devout and devoted adherent of the Khalsa, the Sikhs decided to hold a memorial service to mark their peculiar sense of the deep significance of the Durbar by a solemn act of worship at the shrine of the martyr Guru Tegh Bahadur, who, they said, 228 years before foretold in the hour of his death the coming of the British Empire under which they enjoy religious freedom and personal prosperous liberty. It was a spontaneous act of loyalty managed all among themselves. As the birthday of Guru Govind Singh, the son of the martyr, occurred on the 6th January, it was decided to mark the day signally. The story of the martyr's death and prophecy was retold, and how this was the time and place to repledge their loyalty to the British, who under the guidance of God fulfilled the prophecy.[2]
A small temple in the chief street of Delhi marks the site of Tegh Bahadur's execution in 1675. A procession in all the panoply and pageantry of old feudal Sikh days proceeded to this spot. It was formed of horsemen, banner-bearers, and the Sikh levies accompanying their chiefs, being followed by a carriage in which under a covering of gold was the sacred 'Granth.' the holy book. This was reverently lifted out and conveyed into the shrine, whilst to mark the special importance of the occasion the English national anthem, "God save the King!" was played by the musicians. All the Sikh chiefs, sardars, and church dignitaries were there. It was a gathering of the nation, called together by their own leaders, and all knew what they were there for. Standing by the holy book, they, on behalf of all the Sikhs, with their martyred Guru present in spirit (they all believed that), renewed in each other's presence their vows of fealty to the King-Emperor. A sacred chant was then sung in which all joined, closing with their invocation to the Supreme Being, which was responded to by the loud shouts of the crowd. On the sacred 'Granth' being replaced in the carriage, "God save the King!" was again played, to emphasise the meaning of the ceremony which typified their loyal and sacred bond to British rule and the compelling force of the union which, according to their ideas, had been miraculously brought about.
This striking incident is a significant proof of Sikh veneration and affection for the British Crown, the effect of which has doubtless been widespread. It marked their sense of identity of interest in being a coordinate unit in the majestic whole of the Empire, treading the same path under the guidance of Providence. It followed the important ceremonial of the Durbar, the outward form of the great idea which so profoundly impressed them and touched their imaginations.
The aged Baja of Nablia, who initiated the memorial service, was unable from the state of his health to come to the King-Emperor's coronation in London as a representative of the Punjab. He was a notable figure in the Sikh procession. Simply clad in white from head to foot, his long snowy beard adding to the dignity of his features, he alighted from his carriage 
His Highness Raja Sir HEERA SINGH of Nabha, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E.,
Colonel of 14th Ferozepore Sikhs, Indian Army, 1903.
(a notable sikh chief.)
some distance off from the shrine and walked on barefooted, with slow and solemn steps, through the crowd, who bowed reverently as he passed. A few days before, at the great Durbar held to hear the proclamation announcing the Coronation of his Majesty the King-Emperor of India, when all the chiefs tendered their felicitations and assurances of homage to the Crown, he added to his the few eloquent words, "Now I can die in peace, as I have discharged the three duties of a true Sikh—I have lived according to the precepts of the Gurus, I have aided the State with my sword, and now I have paid personal homage to my sovereign."[3]
The Sikhs are no longer illiterate as they were in the old days, when they despised the pen and looked on the sword as the one power in the land. Now they see that the pen is sometimes the more powerful of the two, and at least that education does not weaken the hand that wields the sword. Though nominally a minority—a powerful one—among the mass of the population in the Punjab, which in fact is more Mahomedan than Hindu, they are socially and politically of the highest importance, as they constituted the dominant class at the time of the annexation, and still form the great majority of the gentry in the regions of the five rivers. Their military aristocracy supply the Indian army with excellent officers. They gather thickly in the districts round Amritsar, the Mánjha, or middle home of the Sikh nation, the nursery of their most revered Gurus, their most powerful sardars, and Ranjit Singh′s most redoubtable warriors. There a third of their numbers are now found, the rest being scattered in the Sutlej states and throughout the province; large colonies of them, having also recently settled along the new canals taken off from the rivers, running south through the extensive plains where the Jat tribes from time immemorial roamed with their flocks and herds—plains of dormant fertility, which now with the magic touch of water produce splendid crops of golden grain. Railways have been made through the irrigated lands, and there numerous villages and towns have risen from which on a gala day, when a Viceroy or a Lieutenant-Governor visits them, thousands of old soldiers come forth wearing their be-medalled uniforms,—men whose sons follow their fathers as soldiers of the King-Emperor. These settlements form extended lines of defence, where the many owners of the small farmsteads may be depended on to fight for their own should the day ever come of invasion again from the north. They have no fear of invaders, whoever they may be. It remains true for all time that on a hardy spirited peasantry an empire's strength is stayed.
Though the Punjab is not blessed by nature like the rich tropical Gangetic valley, it is fruitful in bold and enterprising men. This is the secret of its great prosperity at the present day. Nowhere in India are the peasantry more flourishing and contented, as it was Lord Lawrence's policy fifty years ago to make them—to become the bulwark of the Indian Empire in the north. His Royal Highness the late and lamented Prince Albert Victor of Wales, on his visit to Lahore in 1890, when replying to the address presented to him there, felicitously referred to the Punjab as "the soldiers' land," adding, "There is no province in India that can boast, as the Punjab can, that it is the bulwark of defence against foreign aggression, or that can be termed with the same significance the guard-room of the Eastern Empire."
- ↑ This army was clad in the now familiar "khaki"-coloured uniform which has been adopted by the British army.
- ↑ According to Sikh tradition, Tegh Bahadur surrendered himself into the hands of the Moghul Emperor with full knowledge that he was about to lay down his life for his people. But Aurungzebe hesitated to kill him, and sought by promises and threats to induce him to embrace Islam. At last, all such proving fruitless, he was brought before the Emperor on the charge of having raised his eyes from the prison walls to the latticed windows of the palace zenana. He knew that this meant death, but he fearlessly answered, "If I have raised my eyes in the direction of thy zenana, it was not to look upon its forbidden windows but far beyond them into the mist, whence I saw armies of a fair-haired race pouring forth from beyond the seas who shall tear down thy purdahs and overthrow thine empire." This prophecy, according to the Sikhs, was fulfilled to the letter in 1857, when the small British force—5000 to 40,000 of their foes—shook down the treacherous throne of the Moghuls, an avenging act in which they also played a part.
- ↑ Contingents from the armies of the Sikh states have ever, from the days when they came under our protection, aided their suzerain in war.