Master Tara Singh In Indian History Colonialism Nationalism And The Politics Of Sikh Identity J S Grewal full chapter pdf docx

Master Tara Singh in Indian History:
Colonialism, Nationalism, and the

Politics of Sikh Identity J.S. Grewal
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/master-tara-singh-in-indian-history-colonialism-nation
alism-and-the-politics-of-sikh-identity-j-s-grewal/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture and Identity

Neha Singh
https://ebookmass.com/product/literature-of-girmitiya-history-
culture-and-identity-neha-singh/
Food, National Identity and Nationalism: From Everyday

to Global Politics 2nd Edition Ronald Ranta
https://ebookmass.com/product/food-national-identity-and-
nationalism-from-everyday-to-global-politics-2nd-edition-ronald-
ranta/
Marginalized, Mobilized, Incorporated. Women and

Religious Nationalism in Indian Democracy Rina Verma
Williams
https://ebookmass.com/product/marginalized-mobilized-
incorporated-women-and-religious-nationalism-in-indian-democracy-
rina-verma-williams/
Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the

Former Yugoslavia Gorana Ognjenovic
https://ebookmass.com/product/nationalism-and-the-politicization-
of-history-in-the-former-yugoslavia-gorana-ognjenovic/
Cypriot Nationalisms in Context: History, Identity and
Politics 1st ed. Edition Thekla Kyritsi
https://ebookmass.com/product/cypriot-nationalisms-in-context-
history-identity-and-politics-1st-ed-edition-thekla-kyritsi/
The Snake and the Mongoose: The Emergence of Identity

in Early Indian Religion Nathan Mcgovern
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-snake-and-the-mongoose-the-
emergence-of-identity-in-early-indian-religion-nathan-mcgovern/
Anglo-Indian Identity: Past and Present, in India and

the Diaspora Robyn Andrews
https://ebookmass.com/product/anglo-indian-identity-past-and-
present-in-india-and-the-diaspora-robyn-andrews/
The Politics of Marriage in Medieval India : Gender and

Alliance in Rajasthan Sabita Singh
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-politics-of-marriage-in-
medieval-india-gender-and-alliance-in-rajasthan-sabita-singh/
Contemporary Orangeism in Canada: Identity,

Nationalism, and Religion 1st Edition James W. Mcauley
https://ebookmass.com/product/contemporary-orangeism-in-canada-
identity-nationalism-and-religion-1st-edition-james-w-mcauley/
Title Pages
Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Nationalism, and the Politics of Sikh Identity
J.S. Grewal
Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
Title Pages
J.S. Grewal
(p.i) Master Tara Singh in Indian History
(p.iii) Master Tara Singh in Indian History
(p.iv)
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered
trademark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries.
Published in India by
Oxford University Press
Page 1 of 2
PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020. All
Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use.
Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 20 June 2020
Title Pages
2/11 Ground Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002,
India
© Oxford University Press 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
First Edition published in 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as
expressly permitted
by law, by licence, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the
scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University
Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-946709-9
ISBN-10: 0-19-946709-9
Typeset in ScalaPro 10/13

by The Graphics Solution, New Delhi 110 092
Printed in India by Rakmo Press, New Delhi 110 020
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holder of

photographs 1, 16, 35, and 37.
The publisher would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner so
that proper
acknowledgement can be made in future editions.
Access brought to you by:
Page 2 of 2
Frontispiece

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
Frontispiece
J.S. Grewal
(p.ii)
Page 1 of 2
Frontispiece
Master Tara Singh, 20 September 1956

Source: FPG/Getty Images.
Page 2 of 2
Dedication

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
Dedication
J.S. Grewal
(p.v) To Punjabi University, Patiala,

with which I have remained closely
associated in several capacities
for over a decade (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1
Illustrations

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
(p.ix) Illustrations
J.S. Grewal
Photographs
Frontispiece image: Master Tara Singh, 20 September 1956 ii
1. Master Tara Singh as a young man 703

2. Master Tara Singh (in chair on the extreme left) as a member of the
hockey team, Khalsa College, Amritsar 703
3. Master Tara Singh (fourth from the right in the row of chairs),
Headmaster, Khalsa High School, Kallar, in 1917, with Sant Teja Singh on
the right 703
4. Master Tara Singh (second from the left in the row of chairs) with some
Akali leaders after their release from jail in September 1926. The chair in
the middle has a photograph of Sardar Teja Singh Samundri who had died
in jail 703
5. Master Tara Singh leading a jathā of 100 Akalis from Amritsar to
Peshawar amidst a huge crowd in 1930 704
6. Master Tara Singh leading the jathā for Peshawar near Khalsa College,
Amritsar 704
7. Master Tara Singh (in the middle) with Akali leaders at the time of a
meeting of the Central Sikh League at Amritsar on 8 April 1931 704
8. Master Tara Singh (third from left) listening to Sir Stafford Cripps in
March 1942. Sitting from left to right are Sardar Ujjal Singh, Sardar
Jogendra Singh, and Sardar Baldev Singh 705
9. Master Tara Singh at a party after meeting Sir Stafford Cripps 705
(p.x) 10. Master Tara Singh sitting in a rickshaw amidst a crowd of
people in Simla at the time of the Simla Conference in June–July 1945 705
Page 1 of 3
Illustrations
11. Master Tara Singh (third from right) in conversation with Jinnah while
Lord Wavell is talking to the other Indian leaders at the time of the Simla
Conference 705
12. Master Tara Singh (third from left) listening to Lady Wavell at the
time of the Simla Conference 705
13. Master Tara Singh talking to Maulana Azad at the time of the Simla
Conference 706
14. Master Tara Singh with Jinnah and Khizar Hayat Khan at the Simla
Conference 706
15. Master Tara Singh in discussion with Sardar Mangal Singh at the time
of the Simla Conference 706
16. Master Tara Singh (in chair in the middle) as Commander of the Akal
Regiment, with Jathedar Udham Singh Nagoke, Ishar Singh Majhail (on
the left), and Darshan Singh Pheruman and General Mohan Singh (on the
right) in 1947 706
17. Master Tara Singh (on the mike) addressing the annual conference of
the All India Sikh Students Federation at Ludhiana on 24 April 1948 707
18. Master Tara Singh (seated fourth from the right, facing the camera)
addressing a press conference at Delhi on 2 August 1948 707
19. Master Tara Singh after his release from jail in October 1949 707
20. Master Tara Singh with Jathedar Pritam Singh Khuranj on the right
and Sardar Gian Singh Rarewala on his left after the election of Jathedar
Khuranj as President of the SGPC in 1952 707
21. Master Tara Singh addressing a joint meeting (in connection with the
general election) sponsored by the Hindu Mahasabha, Jan Sangh, and the
Shiromani Akali Dal on 8 January 1952 708
22. Master Tara Singh with visitors from Pakistan in May 1955 708
23. Akali procession at Amritsar on 11 February 1956 at the time of All
India Akali Conference 708
24. Master Tara Singh welcomed by his friends in his native village,
Harial, in Pakistan early in 1960 709
25. On behalf of Master Tara Singh, Sardar Bakshish Singh is thanking
the residents of Harial 709
26. Master Tara Singh listening to C. Rajagopalachari during the latter’s
visit to the Golden Temple in March 1960 709
27. Master Tara Singh sitting by the side of Sant Fateh Singh on fast on 5
January 1961 709
28. Master Tara Singh accepting juice from Yadvindra Singh of Patiala
and Sant Fateh Singh to break his fast on 1 October 1961 710
29. Master Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh listening to the verdict of the
Panj Pyaras at the Akal Takht on 29 November 1961 710
(p.xi) 30. Master Tara Singh performing penance at the Golden Temple
after the verdict by the Panj Pyaras 710
Page 2 of 3
Illustrations
31. Master Tara Singh cleaning shoes of the sangat at the Gurdwara
Rakab Ganj in Delhi as part of his penance 710
32. Master Tara Singh cleaning utensils at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj in Delhi
as part of his penance 711
33. Master Tara Singh with U.N. Dhebar at the Golden Temple in
February 1966 711
34. Master Tara Singh having a walk in the park near the Post Graduate
Institute for Medical Education and Research at Chandigarh on 13
November 1967 711
35. Giani Bhupinder Singh and Sardar Atma Singh looking at the face of
Master Tara Singh before his funeral 711
36. The funeral procession of Master Tara Singh at Amritsar on 23
November 1967 711
37. Master Tara Singh busy writing in his home at Amritsar sitting on a
cot, the seat of his day-long routine 712
38. Master Tara Singh with his wife, Shrimati Tej Kaur 712
39. Master Tara Singh with his family 712
40. A popular portrait of Master Tara Singh 712
Maps
14.1 The British Punjab: The Radcliffe Line 367
20.1 The Punjab in 1956 513
25.1 The Punjab in 1966 613 (p.xii)
Page 3 of 3
Foreword

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
(p.xiii) Foreword
Jaspal Singh
I have a memory of an incident that introduced me in a way to Master Tara

Singh. As a young boy I saw people flocking to a railway station to have a
fleeting glimpse of Master Tara Singh who was travelling in a train that was to
stop there for a few minutes. My later awareness of his role in Indian politics as
a Sikh leader confirmed the impression that Master Tara Singh remained the
tallest leader of the Sikhs for several decades. I could think of no other leader
who caught the imagination of the Sikh people in the way that Master Tara
Singh did.
As a student of Sikh politics, and in touch with a number of friends among

scholars, including historians, I also became aware that much had been written
on Master Tara Singh, especially in Punjabi, but not enough to do justice to his
multifarious activities, which were underpinned by an intense desire to serve his
country and his community. I shared the feeling of several Sikh scholars that a
thorough study of Master Tara Singh was called for in the light of his importance
and the conflicting views of his admirers and opponents in politics among the
Indian leaders of his time, a crucial period in the history of modern India.
After becoming Vice Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, I began to think of

a project on Master Tara Singh. The first step was to identify a historian of
known competence to undertake a detailed study. There was a general
impression that Dr J.S. Grewal was best qualified to take it up. He had already
written a general history of the Sikhs (The Sikhs of the Punjab, a volume of the
New Cambridge History of India series) and a short history of the Akalis. As a
Visiting Professor at the Punjabi University during 2006–8, he had given public
lectures on the political, social, and cultural history of the Punjab (which the
University is publishing in four volumes). After a brief consultation, Dr Grewal
Page 1 of 2
Foreword
was invited to be Professor of Eminence in the Department of Punjab Historical

Studies and to formulate a project on Master Tara Singh with support from the
Punjabi University.
(p.xiv) The scope of the study expanded with the exploration of relevant
sources in Punjabi and English. Master Tara Singh was fond of writing about his
political, social, and cultural concerns in various forms. This evidence has been
used by Dr Grewal rather thoroughly for the first time. This is a most valuable
part of his study as it reflects Master Tara Singh’s response to the changing
situations in his life. Equally valuable is the evidence coming from the most
important leaders of the Indian subcontinent, such as Mahatma Gandhi,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, and M.A. Jinnah. It is not surprising that the
work took six years to be completed. I was keen to ensure that a book based on
such a wide range of evidence, and written by an eminent historian, should be
easily accessible to the readers the world over. I feel happy that the Oxford
University Press has agreed to publish this book within a year. I have no doubt
that it would be received well by the general reader as well as the social
scientists and researchers.
I am thankful to Dr Grewal for undertaking this project on behalf of the Punjabi

University. He had complete freedom to plan and pursue the project. He has
placed Master Tara Singh squarely in the wider context of Indian history in a
volume of over 400,000 words, touching upon all aspects of Master Tara Singh’s
long political life. The subtitle of the book aptly refers to its comprehensive
scope. It is a study of colonialism, nationalism, and the politics of Sikh identity. It
demonstrates that Master Tara Singh was a great Indian patriot, deeply
concerned with the welfare of the Sikhs as citizens of free India.
Jaspal Singh
Vice Chancellor
Punjabi University, Patiala
Page 2 of 2
Preface

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
(p.xv) Preface
J.S. Grewal
Dr Jaspal Singh, Vice Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, persuaded me in

2010 to undertake a study of Master Tara Singh who, he rightly thought, had
been neglected by historians though he could be regarded as the greatest Sikh
leader of the twentieth century. Since then I have worked on this study as
Professor of Eminence at the Punjabi Unversity, which provided the support
required for this project. Dr Jaspal Singh’s personal interest in this work has
enabled me to collect a wide range of sources for a comprehensive study of the
life of Master Tara Singh in the wider context of modern Indian history.
This book is divided into two parts due to the fundamental difference between
the era of colonial rule and the era of independence. During the first era, Master
Tara Singh contended essentially with the British rulers in collaboration with the
Congress. In the second era, ironically, he had to contend essentially with the
Congress Party and the Congress government at the centre and in the Punjab. It
needs to be underlined that he was not anti-Hindu but anti-Congress.
The first two chapters of the first part outline the colonial context up to 1919,
after which Master Tara Singh left the teaching profession for politics as a full-
time vocation. The first thirty-five years of his life, taken up in the third chapter,
are related to the colonial context and serve as the background to the
developments from 1920 to 1947, analysed later in eleven chapters. The larger
context of the region and the country is kept in view for marking the important
phases in his life.
The second part opens with a discussion of the new context from 15 August
1947 to the adoption of the new Constitution on 26 January 1950 in two
chapters. Master Tara Singh’s responses to this new situation are taken up in
Page 1 of 3
Preface
the third chapter. Before the end of 1950, he was in confrontation with the
Congress government and this confrontation lasted till his (p.xvi) death in
1967, except for a short period of truce in 1956–7. The fundamental demand of
the Shiromani Akali Dal under the leadership of Master Tara Singh was for the
creation of a unilingual state in the Punjab, which was ultimately created in
1966 under the leadership of Sant Fateh Singh. These developments are taken
up in nine chapters. In the last year of his life Master Tara Singh put forth the
idea of a ‘Sikh Homeland’ within India, with larger autonomy for the state.
The focus in the conclusion is on the political ideas of Master Tara Singh in
relation to Sikh identity, leading to his advocacy of pluralism in free India.
Photographs related to the life of Master Tara Singh from about 1907 to 1967
are given together after the appendices, followed by a glossary, a bibliography,
and an index.
For the collection of source materials, both primary and secondary, I am

indebted to Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha Library of the Punjabi University, the library
of its Department of Punjab Historical Studies, and the Punjab State Archives at
Patiala; Bhai Gurdas Library of Guru Nanak Dev University, the library of the
Research Department of Khalsa College, and the Sikh Reference Library at
Amritsar; the A.C. Joshi Library of the Panjab University, the Dwarka Das
Library, and the Punjab State Archives at Chandigarh; and the National Archives
of India and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library at New Delhi. Some archival
material acquired from the British Library at London and the Cambridge
University Library turned out to be relevant for this project. It is a matter of
pleasure for me to thankfully acknowledge the courteous help received from the
custodians and staff of all these institutions. I may particularly mention Dr
Devinder Kaur, Dr Saroj Bala, Dr Mehar Kaur, and Dr Harinder Singh Chopra. I
may add that Dr Lionel Carter and Professor C.A. Bayly were very helpful in
England.
The Sikh scholar Prithipal Singh Kapur and Dr Kirpal Singh, both of whom have
shown interest in Master Tara Singh, generously lent a number of rare books
and pamphlets from their personal libraries. Sardar Gurtej Singh, a former
member of the Indian Administrative Service, who is deeply interested in Sikh
history, provided some rare photographs as well as books, pamphlets, and other
materials from his own collection. Sohan Singh Pooni, author of the Gadri Babe,
sent me the private papers of Baldev Raj Nayar, mainly the records of his
interviews with a number of political leaders of the Punjab in the early 1960s.
Raghuvendra Tanwar, Professor Emeritus at the Kurukshetra University, a
professional historian who has written most empathetically on Master Tara
Singh, gave me one of his books based almost entirely on contemporary
evidence for the year of Partition. I am extremely thankful to all these scholars.
Page 2 of 3
Preface
I am grateful to Professor Indu Banga, Professor Emeritus, Panjab University,

Chandigarh, for her deep interest in this study from the beginning to the end;
she offered valuable suggestions on all aspects of this study. I am deeply
indebted to Dr Karamjit K. Malhotra, Assistant Professor in the Department of
Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, for her concern with the
progress of this project, her useful suggestions, and active support at all stages.
I am extremely thankful to Dr Sheena Pall, Professor of History, Panjab
University, Chandigarh, who has helped me in the pursuit of this study over
these years.
(p.xvii) Personal interest taken in this work by my daughters, Professor Reeta

Grewal and Dr Aneeta Minhas, and several other members of the family and
personal friends was gratifying in its own way.
Several drafts of this work were typed out and diligently corrected, particularly
by Komal and Savitri. I am thankful to them.
I greatly appreciate the interest taken by the team at the Oxford University
Press in the publication of this work.
Finally, I am thankful for the gracious permission received from Manohar

Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, for maps 14.1, 20.1, and 25.1; from
Singh Brothers, Amritsar, for photo 8; from Government of India (Photos
Division) for photos 10–13; from National Institute of Panjab Studies (Bhai Vir
Singh Sahit Sadan), New Delhi, for photos 15 and 21; from Sardar Manbir Singh
(son of the late S. Jaswant Singh), Amritsar, for photos 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 19, 22, 23, 24,
25, 28, 31, 32, and 38; from Sardarni Ajit Kaur (widow of the late S. Gur Rattan
Pal Singh) for photos 3, 7, 17, 18, 20, 27, 29, 30, 33, 36, and 39; and Sardar
Gurtej Singh for photo 34. I am thankful to Professor Chetan Singh, Director,
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and Dr Mohinder Singh, Director,
National Institute of Panjab Studies, New Delhi, for obtaining some of these
photos. I feel sorry that I could not use any of the photographs sent by S. Amarjit
Chandan but I am thankful to him nonetheless.
J.S. Grewal
Chandigarh
21 March 2017 (p.xviii)
Page 3 of 3
Introduction

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001
Introduction
Historiographical Legacy and Our Approach
J.S. Grewal
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199467099.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

Master Tara Singh became a subject of study in his lifetime. A wide range of
historical writing on Master Tara Singh has been produced in Punjabi and
English in the past three quarters of a century, both by his admirers and his
critics. However, this historiography has been based on a small part of the total
evidence now available on Master Tara Singh, including archival sources and his
own works. The range of evidence used in the present study is much larger.
Furthermore, ample space has been given not only to Master Tara Singh but also
to his opponents. Consequently, the image of Master Tara Singh that emerges
from this comprehensive study is likely to be more authentic and refreshing.
Keywords: Master Tara Singh, historiography, own works, range of evidence, image of Master Tara
Singh
Legacy
Master Tara Singh became a subject of study in his lifetime. Durlab Singh
published an account of the major events of Master Tara Singh’s life in a book of
about 40,000 words in 1942. He saw Master Tara Singh as a ‘remarkable man’
who fought for the people irrespective of their caste, creed, or profession. A
valiant fighter, he filled the heart of his community and the people of his country
‘with boundless hope and confidence’.1
Durlab Singh emphasized that Master Tara Singh became a remarkable man
despite having no privileges attached to birth. He came to occupy the most
responsible position in his community as its foremost leader. ‘We can safely say
Page 1 of 15
Introduction
that after the Sikh Raj no Sikh could ever capture such vast influence in the
community as has come to the lot of Master Tara Singh.’2
Master Tara Singh’s decision to become a Singh through initiation of the double-
edged sword was an event of great significance in his life. The name ‘Tara Singh’
was actually given to him by Sant Attar Singh who was believed to have said:
‘Young man, you are no more Nanak Chand: you are Tara Singh henceforth, may
God help you finding salvation for yourself and also for your community.’3 This,
indeed, was a genuinely sought conversion and it had a profound influence on
Master Tara Singh throughout his life.
In 1921, he was asked by some of the Akali leaders to take part in the Akali
movement as a full-time worker, and he continued to work for the Shiromani
Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and the Shiromani Akali Dal for the
rest of his life.4 In the Akali Leaders’ Case, Master Tara Singh stated in the court
that he was the person ‘most responsible’ for the Nabha agitation and for the
decision of the SGPC to take up the Nabha issue.5 The courage of Master Tara
Singh was equally evident from the support he gave to the Akalis of the Patiala
state against its Maharaja.6
(p.2) Durlab Singh appreciated Master Tara Singh’s stand against the Nehru
Report of 1928 and his decision to work with the Congress, unlike Baba Kharak
Singh who insisted on total dissociation. Master Tara Singh’s decision to take an
Akali jathā to Peshawar in sympathy with the Pathans who had been brutally
treated by the bureaucrats during the civil disobedience in 1930 marked the fall
of Baba Kharak Singh and the rise of Master Tara Singh to the top of Sikh
politics. Master Tara Singh was in jail when he was unanimously elected
President of the SGPC in 1930.7 Appreciating Master Tara Singh’s stand against
the Unionist premier Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, Durlab Singh observed that
Master Tara Singh was the one man and Shiromani Akali Dal the only
organization in the province to remain unshaken in spite of the harsh treatment
by the rulers of the province.8 Master Tara Singh groomed a large number of
Akali leaders who played an important role in Sikh affairs.9
Master Tara Singh’s autobiographical Merī Yād (My Recollections) was

published in 1945 at the instance of some friends. He had no time to search for
newspapers or other records, and he wrote solely from his recollection. He tried
to avoid talking about matters that were not of public interest.10 His
autobiography is largely a narration of political events in which he participated
or which had a close bearing on his life.
Soon after Independence appeared Mahinder Singh’s Sardār-i Ā‘zam (The Great
Leader) with its open admiration for Master Tara Singh. The whole of India was
indebted to Master Tara Singh for his contribution to the struggle for its
freedom. It was a great tragedy that he was put behind bars when he asked for
Page 2 of 15
Introduction
an honourable place for the Sikhs in free India. Mahinder Singh’s narrative was
meant to serve as a source of inspiration for the Sikhs to strive for a state within
India in which Sikh culture could prosper without any threat or constraint.
Mahinder Singh closes his book with the remark that Master Tara Singh’s
position in the Sikh community was the same as that of Mahatma Gandhi in the
Congress. Master Tara Singh was comparable indeed with the greatest leaders
of the world.11
A few months later, in 1950, Gurcharan Singh wrote about Master Tara Singh as
a self-respecting warrior (Aṇkhī Sūrmā) who had influenced Sikh history more
profoundly than any other Sikh leader after Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Just as
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhash Chandra Bose were known
throughout the world as Indian leaders, Master Tara Singh was known as the
leader of six million Sikhs. He was never prepared to dilute his love for the
Panth for any worldly consideration. No other leader was accorded so much
honour by the Panth as Master Tara Singh. He loved his country as a great
patriot, and he alone could guide the Sikhs in the right direction.12
These four works carry a peculiar relevance for the life of Master Tara Singh.
The three earliest biographers were highly appreciative of the Akali movement
and admired Master Tara Singh as by far the most important Sikh leader. His
autobiographical work has a significance of its own as a reflection of his self-
image and his understanding and assessment of the events in which he
participated or which he witnessed.
No such work on Master Tara Singh appeared in his lifetime after 1950.
However, the editor of the Sant Sipāhī started a series of new instalments of
Master Tara Singh’s recollections, starting with the Azad Punjab scheme and the
Sapru Committee. The (p.3) second instalment appeared in September,
followed by others in October–November 1950 and May–June 1951. In the Sant
Sipāhī of March 1955 the editor mentioned that a book entitled Merī Yād was
published covering the events up to 1954, and Master Tara Singh picked up the
old threads in March 1955.13 All such articles of Master Tara Singh were
incorporated by his elder son, Jaswant Singh, in his Master Tara Singh: Jīwan
Sangharsh te Udesh, published in 1972. Large extracts from contemporary
sources and his own longish notes, or even whole chapters, were added by
Jaswant Singh to the text of Merī Yād. Therefore, he refers to himself as the
‘editor’.14 Master Tara Singh’s younger brother, Niranjan Singh, had already
published a biography of Master Tara Singh entitled Jīwan-Yātra Master Tara
Singh, in 1968. It was based largely on his own experiences and observations
and some records in his possession.15
Only three more works written exclusively on Master Tara Singh in Punjabi have
appeared in the last fifty years. Prithipal Singh Kapur’s Srimān Master Tara
Singh (Itihāsik Pakh Ton) was published in 1968. In less than 25,000 words,
Page 3 of 15
Introduction
Kapur outlined the most important events of Master Tara Singh’s life (1885–
1967) with an appreciative appraisal of his achievement as the man-of-the-age
(yugpursh).16 Bimla Anand’s Master Tara Singh, published by the Punjabi
University, Patiala, in 1995 has the distinction of including Master Tara Singh’s
literary and journalistic activities and the use of some archival sources, but the
narrative is not free from factual errors.17 Surinder Singh Batra, in his Master
Tara Singh: Jīwan Te Rachnā, goes into greater detail of his autobiography, his
novels, his Safarnāma, his political articles and pamphlets, his essays on Sikh
faith, and other miscellaneous writings.18
In English, only essays and articles on Master Tara Singh have appeared in
recent decades.19 A biographical sketch of the whole life of Master Tara Singh in
an essay of about 15,000 words by Prithipal Singh Kapur is an English version of
his booklet in Punjabi published in 1968.20 The latest work on the subject,
Master Tara Singh and His Reminiscences, consists mainly of an English
translation of the whole of Merī Yād by Dharam Singh, with an elaborate
appraisal of Master Tara Singh by Prithipal Singh Kapur.21
Master Tara Singh figures prominently in Baldev Raj Nayar’s Minority Politics in
the Punjab. As a political scientist, Nayar sets out to study ‘the Indian case’ in
the context of the general problem of building a ‘nation’ out of the diverse
groups in the erstwhile colonies of Europe in Asia and Africa. Nayar notes that
the people of the Indian subcontinent suffered a setback in nation-building when
India was partitioned ‘on the basis of religion’ in 1947.
The new Constitution of India embodied a delicate balance between the need for
a strong central government and the recognition of regional diversity.
Furthermore, the Constitution established a ‘secular state’ in India, unidentified
with any particular religion. Equality of opportunity was provided for all in
public employment. The most important challenge to ‘national unity’ and ‘the
secular state’ came from the growth of regionalism based on linguistic and
cultural ties. Another type of threat to the existing political framework in India
was religion-based communalism. The examples of communal groups given by
Nayar are the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the All-India Hindu Mahasabha, and the
Muslim League.
However, Nayar was concerned primarily with the demand for a new state in the
(p.4) Punjab, its social and political context, and its nature: whether it was a
language-based regional demand or a region-based communal one. The basis
and the origin of the demand, and the motivating factors behind it, could throw
light on the future development of the political conflict in the Punjab.22 In
Nayar’s perspective, thus, ‘regional’ and ‘communal’ demands were obstacles in
the path of nation-building.
Page 4 of 15
Introduction
According to Nayar, the doctrine which provided the basic motive force for
reform among the Sikhs was that of ‘a separate political entity’. It was argued
that Sikhism was not a religion like other religions; it was concerned with the
whole activity of man in the context of this world. ‘Religion and politics are said
to be combined in Sikhism.’ Master Tara Singh maintained that the Panth was a
political organization founded upon religion. ‘Without political organization and
participation in politics, the Sikh religion cannot survive.’ Master Tara Singh was
also reported to have said that ‘the Khalsa Panth will either be a ruler or a rebel.
It has no third role to play’.23
Nayar argues that the Akali demand for a Punjabi-speaking province was a cloak
for objectives that were not cultural but political or rather communal. He refers
to a speech by Master Tara Singh during the elections of 1951–2 in which he
said that it was wrong to allege that he wanted ‘a Sikh state’; he desired only ‘a
state based on the Punjabi language’. But he also said frankly that his manifesto
was ‘the Panth’ and he wanted ‘Sikh rule’. In one of his articles Master Tara
Singh wrote that he wanted a Sikh majority state with internal autonomy like
that of Kashmir. On yet another occasion he said that the Sikhs wanted āzādī.
Nayar gives other instances where Master Tara Singh reveals more concern for
the Sikh religion and the Sikh Panth than for the Punjabi language.24 Master
Tara Singh made no secret of his motives even in 1961: ‘The Sikhs as a
distinctive community,’ he said, ‘must be preserved and they could be preserved
only in a “homeland” of their own.’ He asserted that in their present position
‘the Sikhs would be gradually “absorbed” by the majority community’. Thus, the
Sikhs needed political power for the protection of the Sikh symbols of
distinction.25
Nayar comes to the conclusion that the Akali demand for the Punjabi Suba was a
continuum of the Akali concern for preserving Sikh identity from the very
beginning of the Akali movement. The demand for Punjabi Suba represented ‘the
political aspiration of a religious group to nationhood, especially in view of the
historical memories of having been the sovereign rulers of the Punjab’. The
‘nationalist leadership’ opposed the demand as ‘a potential threat’ to the
‘secular regime’ and to ‘Indian national unity’. The conflict over the demand was
not merely a conflict between Hindus and Sikhs, but between two groups of
leaders among the Sikhs themselves: the Akali leaders, who made ‘communal
demands’ in the name of the Sikh community, and the Congress-Sikh leaders
who subscribed to ‘secular nationalism’.26
Nayar does recognize, however, that Master Tara Singh held a unique position
among the Sikh masses till 1962 as the only consistent and long-suffering
upholder of the doctrine of the Panth as a separate entity, and as ‘a selfless and
dedicated leader without personal ambition’. After 1962, Master Tara Singh’s
position changed, and his advancing age precluded the possibility that he could
offer the vigorous and determined leadership he had provided in the past.
Page 5 of 15
Introduction
However, Master Tara Singh’s political career did suggest that the Akali
leadership in the future might seek to (p.5) project his image to secure popular
support if it decided to persist ‘in the policy of challenging the forces of secular
nationalism’.27 The image of Master Tara Singh could inspire popular support,
but his ideas had no relevance for the future, according to Nayar. He was
inclined on the whole to see Master Tara Singh as a protagonist of communalism
and, therefore, an obstacle to nation-building in a secular state.
In contrast to Nayar, Sarhadi identifies himself with the ‘minority’ and his
primary concern is with the formation of a unilingual Punjab state. His interest
is in minority politics within the general political framework. He views Master
Tara Singh from a totally different perspective. His Punjabi Suba: The Story of
the Struggle was based mainly on a large number of documents in his
possession, as well as his personal knowledge. A lawyer by profession and an
Akali leader in his own right, Sarhadi places Master Tara Singh at the centre of
his story. After religious resurgence and the awakening of new consciousness
among the Sikhs, Sarhadi takes up their part in politics when transfer of power
was to take place. The main plot of the whole story began ‘with the great
holocaust and culminated with the carving out a “homeland” for these people’.
Master Tara Singh is at the centre of the story from 1942 to 1962. Sarhadi’s own
participation in the struggle gave him the opportunity to watch the course of
events and the men on the stage. Written without fear or favour, his narrative
was primarily factual. He points out that he does not agree with Chaudhary
Muhammad Ali, author of The Emergence of Pakistan, who held that the Sikhs
were responsible for the holocaust of 1947. Nor does Sarhadi agree with
Khushwant Singh who said that language was only the sugar-coating for the
Akali demand for a Sikh state.28
Significantly, no professional historian or social scientist has undertaken a

detailed study of Master Tara Singh. The Akalis in power, who trace their
‘political ancestory’ to Sant Fateh Singh, maintain a studied silence about
Master Tara Singh even though he has been formally honoured by them as a
‘Panth Ratan’. There are the Sikh critics of Master Tara Singh who hold the view
that he betrayed the Sikhs because he refused to accept a Sikh state being
offered by the British, and by Jinnah. Among them is the most respectable Sikh
intellectual Sardar Kapur Singh.29
Sardar Gurtej Singh, who has great respect for Sardar Kapur Singh’s view, sent
on request a number of questions to indicate what went wrong with Master Tara
Singh’s politics. He should not have ‘leaned upon the Congress’ during the
Gurdwara Reform Movement, and then onwards up to 1947 he should have
retained an autonomous position. For instance, he himself should have
represented the Sikhs at the Round Table Conference. He should not have
accepted leadership of the Hindus because it diluted the idea of a distinct Sikh
identity. Master Tara Singh appears not to have been aware that Mahatma
Page 6 of 15
Introduction
Gandhi had accepted Pakistan much before 1946. He could have taken help from
the Sikh rulers like the Maharaja of Patiala and the leaders of the Chief Khalsa
Diwan ‘to negotiate more meaningfully with the British’.30 Soon after
Independence it was clear that the Hindus wanted ‘to annihilate the Sikhs’ but
Master Tara Singh does not appear to have been aware of this. When Nehru
asked Master Tara Singh in September 1947 whether the Sikhs wanted
Khalistan, he should have told Nehru that the Sikhs required political
safeguards. Master Tara Singh should not have allowed the Akali Dal to be
merged with the Congress first in 1948 and then in 1956. Finally, he did (p.6)
not understand that his agitational approach was wasteful and rather
counterproductive. In the present study, there is no attempt to address these
views directly but answers to most of these are built into its text.
The ‘nationalist’ historians have little appreciation for Master Tara Singh
primarily because they see him essentially as a ‘communalist’. Bipan Chandra,
one of the foremost historians of modern India, brackets the Gurdwara Reform
Movement with the struggle for temple entry in Kerala. Both illustrate for him
the influence of nationalism on the struggle ‘to reform Indian social and
religious institutions and practices’ leading to confrontation with the colonial
authorities. The struggle for reform tended to merge with the anti-imperialist
struggle. The Akali movement related initially to a purely religious issue but
ended up as ‘a powerful episode of India’s freedom struggle’.31 In other words,
the motivating force for the Akalis was the Congress.
Under the influence of the Non-cooperation Movement the Akali Dal and the
SGPC accepted complete non-violence as their creed.32 The government adopted
a two-pronged policy in view of the emerging integration of the Akali movement
with the national movement: to win over the moderates and to suppress the
extremists. Heartened by the support of the nationalist forces, the Akalis began
to see their movement as a part of the national struggle. The nationalist section
within the SGPC passed a resolution in favour of non-cooperation in May 1921.
Master Tara Singh at this time was one of the prominent ‘militant nationalist
leaders’ of the SGPC.33
The SGPC took up the cause of the Maharaja of Nabha who had been forced to
abdicate in July 1923. The Jaito morchā launched by the SGPC did not get much
support from the rest of the country. The government succeeded in winning over
the moderate Akalis with the promise of legislation, and the Gurdwaras Act was
passed in July 1925. Apart from its own achievement, the Akali movement made
‘a massive contribution’ to political awakening among the Punjab peasantry, and
the people of the princely states.34
The Akali movement was commendable for Bipan Chandra in so far as it was
aligned with politics of the Indian National Congress. But it encouraged ‘a
certain religiosity’ that was used later by ‘communalism’. While the moderates
Page 7 of 15
Introduction
went back to loyalist politics to become a part of the Unionist Party, and as the
nationalist Akalis joined the mainstream nationalist movement as part of the
Gandhian or the leftist Kirtī–Kisān and Communist wings, the ‘stream’ which
kept the title ‘Akali’ used the prestige of the movement and became the political
organ of Sikh communalism, ‘mixing religion and politics and inculcating the
ideology of political separatism from Hindus and Muslims’. The politics of the
Akali Dal constantly vacillated between nationalist and loyalist politics before
1947.35
In India after Independence, written jointly by Bipan Chandra, Mridula

Mukherjee, and Aditya Mukherjee, it is stated that the Akali leadership from the
very beginning had adopted certain ‘communal themes’, which became ‘the
constitutive elements of Sikh communalism’ in all its phases. This was reflected
in the movement for a Punjabi-speaking state. Denying the ideal of a secular
polity, the Akalis asserted that religion and politics could not be separated, and
that the Sikhs were being subjected to discrimination, humiliation, and
victimization. No evidence other than that of the denial of a Punjabi Suba,
however, was offered in support of the (p.7) charges. A significant feature of
Akali politics was the use of the institutions and symbols of Sikh religion in order
to harness religious sentiments and fervour to communal ends. Hindu
communalism was very active in the Punjab at the same time as a counterpoint
to Sikh communalism.36
For our authors, Nehru was ‘more than aware of the fascist character of extreme
communalism, including its Akali variety under Master Tara Singh’s leadership’.
At the same time Nehru was sensitive to the feelings of the minorities, and he
tried to conciliate the Akalis by accommodating, as far as possible, their secular
demands. The examples of this accommodation are the pacts of 1948 and 1956
when the Akali Dal agreed to shed its communal character. The pact of 1948 was
meant to absorb the Akali legislators into the Congress Party. It isolated Master
Tara Singh from the former Akali leaders. But this strategy failed to stem the
growth of communalism in the Punjab. Neither Prime Minister Nehru nor Chief
Minister Kairon took steps to launch an ideological campaign against
communalism, nor did they confront communalism directly at a time when it was
not difficult to do so.37
Bipan Chandra and his co-authors emphasize that Master Tara Singh gave ‘a
blatantly communal character’ to the demand for a Punjabi Suba. They contend
that the Sikhs wanted a state of their own in which they could dominate as a
religious and political community. Nehru refused to concede the demand
because of its communal underpinnings. When Sant Fateh Singh ousted Master
Tara Singh from the top leadership of the Akali Dal and declared that the
demand for the Punjabi Suba was based entirely on language, the ground was
prepared for its acceptance, and the Punjabi Suba was created in 1966. It was a
correct step, but no solution to the Punjab problem. The heart of that problem
Page 8 of 15
Introduction
was communalism and unless that was eradicated the problem would remain
and take new forms. The authors go on to discuss ‘Akali politics and militancy’
after the creation of the Punjabi Suba on the assumption that militancy was an
extension of Akali politics.38 Bipan Chandra and his co-authors represent
nationalist historiography with an explicit hostility towards Master Tara Singh’s
‘communalism’.
S.S. Bal wrote a booklet to discuss ‘Sikh communalism as channelised by the

Shiromani Akali Dal, 1920–1947’ as a topic of great contemporary relevance.
‘Properly studied, it helps us in understanding the travails, that the State of the
Indian Union bearing the name of the Punjab since 1 November 1966, had
undergone in the last decade or so.’39 Sikh communalism for Bal was not related
in any way to the pre-colonial Sikh past. ‘It has nothing to do even with Guru
Gobind Singh creating the Khalsa on the Baisakhi of 1699 or with the new form
he gave to the followers of the Great Nanak.’40 As elsewhere in India, British
rule provided the basis for communalism in the Punjab. It was reinforced by the
reform movements. Nevertheless, the Central Sikh League and the Akali Dal
acquired the image of ‘great freedom fighters’ early in the 1920s. The demands
of the Central Sikh League were addressed to the Congress and not to the
British Government. But the Akali leaders seldom missed the opportunity to
emphasize their separate identity from the Congress. At the end, Bal agrees with
Bipan Chandra that communalism was a phenomenon of modern Indian history.
It was not a religious but a secular phenomenon, catering to vested interests of
the feudal and the educated classes. However, Sikh communalism in the Punjab,
nurtured (p.8) and guided by the Akali Dal, was different from the Muslim
communalism promoted by the Muslim League. In the first place it was
addressed primarily to the Congress. The demands of Akali Dal were a
counterpoise to the demands of the Muslim League, and it did not act as a brake
on India’s fight for freedom.41 Despite these qualifications, Bal regards Sikh
communalism as the source of the travails of the Punjab in the 1980s, and
remains pretty close to Bipan Chandra’s Communalism in Modern India.42
Talking of the paradox of ethnic identities and statehood, Raghuvendra Tanwar

looks upon Master Tara Singh as an upholder of ethnic identity with an implicit
empathy with the movements led by him. Tanwar says that he does not subscribe
to the view that ‘the Sikhs had developed from a distinctive religious and ethnic
group to the level of a conscious nationality’. However, they had moved speedily
towards becoming ‘a more distinct, self conscious community’ before 1947,
drawing its bonding elements from symbols of heritage, shared history, culture,
and religion. There was an urge to protect the exclusive interests and specific
identity of which the Sikhs were increasingly becoming conscious as an ‘ethnic
group’.43
Page 9 of 15
Introduction
Master Tara Singh’s differences with the Congress over the Nehru Report were
resolved when the Congress gave assurance to the Sikhs in 1929 ‘that in future
no constitutional solution that did not give satisfaction to the Sikhs would be
acceptable to the Congress’. Master Tara Singh welcomed this assurance,
declaring that the Sikhs would stand at the forefront in the fight for freedom.44
Tanwar refers to Master Tara Singh’s ‘nationalist role’ in the 1930s even though
his rivals talked in ‘communal terms’. Master Tara Singh wanted the Sikhs to
join the British Indian Army for the sake of the Panth as the Sikhs in the army
could be ‘a great support’ when the struggle came. About the Azad Punjab
scheme, he made no secret of his purpose: to cripple the Pakistan scheme. His
own scheme was meant to ensure integrity of the Indian state.45
Tanwar outlines the events that indicate how the Sikhs saw their future in India,
and why Master Tara Singh insisted on the partition of the Punjab. He was not
happy with the 3 June 1947 Award which provided no political safeguards for the
Sikhs. Early in June he said: ‘It is not a matter of mere political power for us.
Our very existence is at stake.’ A fortnight later he said that the Sikhs were
facing extinction because ‘they have been thrown bound at the mercy of others’.
The plan for the partition of the Punjab was understood by Master Tara Singh
and the Congress leaders ‘to mean completely different things’. The Sikh
perception that they had actually made a sacrifice by siding with India was of no
concern to the Congress leadership. By the end of 1947, Master Tara Singh was
clearly an undesirable element as far as Nehru and Gandhi were concerned.46
The Akali leaders were disappointed with the indifference of the Congress
leaders to the promises made before 1947. Nehru declared at Jalandhar on 24
February 1948 that ‘in this country weightage is not to be given to anybody’. He
frankly told the people that it was ‘nonsense’ to demand weightage. Master Tara
Singh reacted: ‘I want the right of self determination for the Panth in matters
religious, social, political and others. If to ask for the existence of the Panth is
communalism, then I am a communalist and I am prepared to face repression.’
Repeatedly he spoke of a space for preserving ‘our culture and traditions’. What
the Sikhs sought (p.9) was a ‘province within the federation of India’.47
Master Tara Singh’s arrest for the first time in free India on 19 February 1949
according to Tanwar was unwarranted. Master Tara Singh was to be in and out
of jail in the years that followed, and the problem of the Congress in the Punjab
was that it had no one to rival Master Tara Singh in popularity. Tanwar outlines
the developments leading to the inauguration of the Punjabi-speaking state on 1
November 1966. But as soon as it was done, the Akalis led by Sant Fateh Singh
condemned the common links like Chandigarh and the Bhakra works. Several
new dimensions came to be added to the politics of the Punjab.48
Page 10 of 15
Introduction
Tanwar concludes that the Sikhs as a minority with a strong sense of identity did
not fall in line with a homogeneous national identity which they did not find to
be sufficiently reassuring. Indeed, he makes the general observation that pride
in one’s culture, ethnic identity, and participation in the political system of the
region and the nation are natural processes that need to be appreciated in
multiethnic states like India The ‘setting of “pan-Indian” goals was and would be
even today completely out of the pace with liberal, democratic, secular and
federal ethos, which are important concerns of Indian polity’.49
Tanwar is far more empathetic than Bipan Chandra and his co-authors. He has
an inkling that there could be honest differences of outlook and political
attitudes among leaders with different historical and cultural heritage. For him,
the construct of ‘communalism’ does not clarify issues. ‘Unity’ is not to be
confused with ‘uniformity’. Tanwar presents Master Tara Singh as a patriot who
was seriously concerned about the interests of his community within the
constitutional framework of the country.
Approach
The range of evidence used in this detailed study of Master Tara Singh is far
wider than in the published historical literature on Master Tara Singh, whether
in Punjabi or in English. Master Tara Singh’s own writings, other than Merī Yād,
are most important for our purpose. This material consists of essays on Sikh
religion and Sikh ethics, historical novels, pamphlets, public addresses, and a
posthumously published travelogue. These writings reveal his thoughts, values,
and attitudes rooted in the Sikh tradition as he understood it. Apart from some
fresh information, his writings also reveal his perspective on important historical
situations and events. To these sources are added the autobiographies of some
of his older and younger contemporaries, both in English and Punjabi.
The second category of important materials that have been used systematically
in this study comprises the collected and selected works of some of the most
eminent leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra
Prasad, and M.A. Jinnah. These works contain significant evidence on the Sikhs
and the Sikh leaders in general, and Master Tara Singh in particular. A close
reading of these sources reveals the assumptions of these leaders about the Sikh
faith and the Sikh past. Significantly, they regarded Master Tara Singh as the
most important Sikh leader even when his independent stance was not to their
liking. Over 200 in all, these volumes add new dimensions to our understanding
of the situations which Master Tara Singh had to face. Equally important are
over two scores of volumes of published official documents. Much smaller in
volume but (p.10) nonetheless significant are the documents of the SGPC and
the Shiromani Akali Dal. Thus, the use of published and unpublished primary
sources in this study is comprehensive. It has a strong empirical base.
Page 11 of 15
Introduction
Some scholars have reminded me that Master Tara Singh is a highly

controversial figure in modern Indian history. Paradoxically, this makes him all
the more important as a subject of historical study. Partly due to the supposedly
controversial subject, ample space is given in this study to what Master Tara
Singh has said and also to what has been said by his antagonists. This may
enable the reader to appreciate the viewpoints of all the actors in the story.
Inevitably, interpretation is involved in the selection of evidence. This selection
has been made quite deliberately, keeping in view the whole range of available
evidence. All the time Master Tara Singh is sought to be placed in the context of
Indian history, with special reference to the Punjab.
The image of Master Tara Singh that emerges from this voluminous and varied
evidence is understandably quite different from what we see in the published
historical literature on him. Master Tara Singh was undoubtedly a devout Sikh
and a staunch patriot. Faith and patriotism were two sides of the same coin for
him. In his own words, to be a Sikh was to be a patriot. He loved the Sikh Panth
and he loved his country. Service of the Panth was service of the country, and
service of the country was service of the Panth. He firmly believed that this was
the legacy left by the Sikh gurus for their followers down the centuries. This
basic conviction and commitment underpinned Master Tara Singh’s political
activity. For about four decades he sympathized with or participated in anti-
British movements to free the country from foreign rule. His cherished wish was
that the Sikhs should fight at the forefront for the freedom of the country. His
basic concern—service of the Panth and service of the country—remained
operative after 1947 when the Congress came into power. The Sikhs had been
partners in the struggle for freedom and Master Tara Singh wanted them to be
partners in power. Only this could ensure an honourable position for the Sikhs in
free India.
Notes:
(1.) Durlab Singh, The Valiant Fighter: A Biographical Study of Master Tara
Singh (Lahore: Hero Publications, 1942), p. 13.
(2.) Durlab Singh, ‘Master Tara Singh: The Valiant Fighter’, in Verinder Grover
(ed.), Master Tara Singh (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 1995), p. 176.
(3.) Durlab Singh, ‘The Valiant Fighter’, p. 9.
(6.) Durlab Singh, ‘The Valiant Fighter’, pp. 41–8.
Page 12 of 15
Introduction
(10.) Master Tara Singh, Merī Yād (Amritsar: Sikh Religious Book Society, 1945).
(11.) Mahinder Singh, Sardār-i Ā‘zam (Jīwan Master Tara Singh Ji) (Amritsar:
Panthak Tract Society, 1950), pp. 6–8, 149–50, 176.
(12.) Gurcharan Singh, Aṇkhī Sūramā (Jīwan Master Tara Singh Ji) (Amritsar,
1950), pp. 9–10, 13–14.
(13.) Sant Sipāhī (August 1950): pp. 38–44; (September 1950): pp. 31–5;
(October 1950): pp. 27–9; (November 1950): pp. 47–50; (May 1951): pp. 7–9;
(June 1951): pp. 58–61; (March 1955): pp. 15–18.
(14.) Jaswant Singh (ed.), Master Tara Singh: Jīwan Sangharsh te Udesh
(Amritsar, 1972).
(15.) Niranjan Singh, Jīwan-Yātrā Master Tara Singh (Amritsar: Singh Brothers,
1968).
(16.) Prithipal Singh Kapur, Srimān Master Tara Singh (Itihāsik Pakh Ton)
(Amritsar: Singh Brothers, 1968).
(17.) Bimla Anand, Master Tara Singh (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1995).
(18.) Surinder Singh Batra, Master Tara Singh: Jīwan Te Rachnā (n.p.: n.d.).
Besides the blessings (ashīrvād) of Giani Bhupinder Singh and Giani Gurmukh
Singh, who praise Master Tara Singh as a leader, the foreword by S. Bharpur
Singh, Registrar, Guru Nanak Dev University, highlights Master Tara Singh’s
deep interest in the Sikh faith and Sikh history.
(19.) For an anthology of essays and articles, see Master Tara Singh, edited by
Verinder Grover. A number of other articles are listed in the bibliography of the
present study.
(20.) Prithipal Singh Kapur, ‘Master Tara Singh—A Biographical Sketch’, in

Master Tara Singh, ed. Verinder Grover (New Delhi: Deep and Deep
Publications, 1995), pp. 116–48.
(21.) Prithipal Singh Kapur, Master Tara Singh and His Reminiscences (Amritsar:
Singh Brothers, 2015).
(22.) Baldev Raj Nayar, Minority Politics in the Punjab (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1966), pp. 1–9.
(23.) Nayar, Minority Politics in the Punjab, pp. 68–70.
Page 13 of 15
Introduction
(27.) Nayar, Minority Politics in the Punjab, pp. 143–4, 149.
(28.) Ajit Singh Sarhadi, Punjabi Suba: The Story of the Struggle (New Delhi:
U.C. Kapur and Sons, 1970), Preface.
(29.) Kapur Singh, Sikhs and Sikhism (Amritsar: SGPC, 2002), p. 20. See also his
Sāchī Sākhī (Amritsar: Gurmat Pustak Bhandar, n.d.), pp. 101–23 and his ‘Panjab
dā Batwārā te Sikh Netā’, in Bikh Meh Amrit (a collection of essays by Kapur
Singh), ed. Baldev Singh (Kapurthala: Published by Editor, 2013, fourth edition,
first published in 1972), pp. 68–74.
(30.) The Chief Khalsa Diwan was an organization working generally in

cooperation with the government.
(31.) Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, Sucheta Mahajan,

and K.N. Panikkar, India’s Struggle for Independence (New Delhi: Penguin Books
India Ltd, 1989, reprint), p. 224. The chapter discussed here was written by
Bipan Chandra.
(32.) Chandra, M. Mukherjee, A. Mukherjee, Mahajan, and Panikkar, India’s

Struggle for Independence, pp. 225–7.



Struggle for Independence, p. 229.
(36.) Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, and Aditya Mukherjee, India after
Independence 1947–2000 (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2003, fifth
impression), pp. 324–5.
(37.) Chandra, M. Mukherjee, and A. Mukherjee, India after Independence 1947–

2000, pp. 325–6.
(38.) Chandra, M. Mukherjee, and A. Mukherjee, India after Independence 1947–

2000, pp. 326–8.
Page 14 of 15
Introduction
(39.) S.S. Bal, Political Parties and Growth of Communalism in Punjab (1920–47)
(Chandigarh: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, 1989), p.
1.
(40.) Bal, Political Parties and Growth of Communalism in Punjab, p. 7.
(41.) Bal, Political Parties and Growth of Communalism in Punjab, pp. 57–8.
(42.) Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India (New Delhi: Vani

Educational Books, 1984).
(43.) Raghuvendra Tanwar, The Paradox of Ethnic Identity and Statehood:

Reassessing the Role of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Master Tara Singh
(Kanwar: Indian History Congress, 2008), ‘Presidential Address’, Contemporary
History of India, p. 5.
(44.) Tanwar, The Paradox of Ethnic Identity and Statehood, p. 9.
(45.) Tanwar, The Paradox of Ethnic Identity and Statehood, pp. 9–10.
Page 15 of 15
The Colonial Context

J.S. Grewal

Print ISBN-13: 9780199467099
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199467099.001.0001

(1849–1919)
J.S. Grewal
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199467099.003.0002
Abstract and Keywords

The British evolved an elaborate administrative structure to ensure peace and
order for exploiting the material and human resources of the Punjab. The new
means of communication and transportation based on western technology
served their economic, political, and administrative purposes. A new system of
education was introduced chiefly to produce personnel for the middle and lower
rungs of administration. The Christian missionaries were closely aligned with
the administrators in this project, primarily for gaining converts to Christianity.
The socio-economic change brought about by the colonial rule led to a number of
movements for socio-religious reform, followed by a new kind of political
awakening in the Punjab as in the rest of British India. The political aspirations
of Indians were met only partially by the Government of India Act, 1919.
Keywords: Punjab, administrative structure, communication and transportation, education, Christian

missionaries, socio-religious reform, political awakening, Government of India Act, 1919
After annexation, the Punjab was increasingly integrated with the rest of British
India and, consequently, with the global political economy. A new imperial ethos
informed the policies and measures of the colonial administrators of the Punjab
after 1858. They introduced Western education and brought about technological
and economic changes to serve imperial interests, resulting in an unprecedented
social change that marked the emergence of new middle classes in the province.
Their responses to the colonial situation led to a widespread cultural resurgence
among all the major religious communities of the Punjab. This resurgence
Page 1 of 25
became the basis of political articulation, particularly by the middle-class

leaders. The growing political concerns of the people of the Punjab were
recognized to some extent by their new rulers, and embodied in the Government
of India Act of 1919.
The Punjab Administration

In its hierarchy and functioning the Punjab administration tended to be
centralized and autocratic. The key functionary was the Deputy Commissioner in
charge of the district as the most important administrative unit. It generally
consisted of four tehsils, and was placed in a division under a commissioner. The
Lieutenant Governor was at the head of the three branches of the provincial
government: executive, judicial, and revenue. He had a strong secretariat,
controlled only by the Governor General in Council, thus giving ‘the advantage
of one man government’ to the Punjab, according to James Douie, an
experienced administrator of the province. The Commissioner combined revenue
powers with the executive and was under the Financial Commissioner. While the
Deputy Commissioner and the Tehsildar exercised (p.16) executive, revenue,
and judicial (criminal only) powers, the Assistant Commissioner, the Extra
Assistant Commissioner, and the Naib Tehsildar performed all the three
functions. Thus, there was a tendency ‘for powers in all the three branches to be
concentrated in the hands of single individuals’.1
The other departments under the Lieutenant Governor were irrigation, roads
and buildings, forests, police, medical, and education. The departments of
railways, post offices, telegraphs, and accounts were under the Government of
India. The judicial administration functioned independently, with a chief court
consisting of two subdivisions: civil and criminal. Established in 1865 with two
judges, it came to have five in 1909. The number of divisional and sessions
judges increased from twelve to sixteen. In both the subdivisions, there were
district judges, subordinate judges, and munsifs.2
Half a century of effort, admits the British administrator Douie, had failed to
make local self-government a living thing in towns and districts. In 1911–12
there were 107 municipalities and 104 ‘notified areas’. About 90 per cent of
their income came from octroi. It was spent largely on public health and
convenience. The effect of the British administration had been a weakening of
self-government in villages. Even the district boards were treated as consultative
bodies. Their income was derived mainly from a surcharge of one-twelfth of the
land revenue. About 60 per cent of the income was spent on public works and
education. Public spirit was lacking and, generally, the franchise for the
members to be elected was regarded with indifference except when party or
communitarian considerations were involved.3
In its financial relations, the Punjab province was subordinate to the

Government of India. The income from railways, post offices, telegraphs, salt,
Page 2 of 25
and sale of opium went entirely to the Government of India. The total revenue of
the Punjab in 1911–12 was Rs 75,856,000, out of which the province got only Rs
39,933,000. Assignments of Rs 3,777,000 from the centre raised the total
income of the Punjab to Rs 43,710,000. The total expenditure in 1911–12 was Rs
40,379,000. Of the gross income of the province, more than 75 per cent was
derived from land, 46 per cent from land revenue, 29 from irrigation (chiefly
canal water rates), and 1.75 per cent from forests. The rest came from excise,
stamps, income tax, and other heads.4
Douie takes pride in the roads and railways developed by the British, resulting in
2,000 miles of metalled and more than 20,000 miles of unmetalled roads, and
over 4,000 miles of open railway lines by 1912. Railways beyond the Salt Range
and the Sind Sagar railway were built primarily for military considerations.5 As a
historian of both the Punjab and the Indian Railway system, Ian J. Kerr has
recently suggested that it would be useful to see the development of railways in
the province as ‘an integral part of the colonial project to master the Punjab and
Punjabis’. Along with other innovations, it helped to ensure the security of
British rule in the Punjab, to integrate it with the British Indian Empire, and to
develop its commercial potential. Increase in agrarian production in the region
on an unprecedented scale was reflected in the huge volume and value of trade.
Agrarian production was geared largely to the needs of export not only through
Bombay (present-day Mumbai) or Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) but also
through the new port of Karachi which was linked up with the Punjab.6
Equally important was the fact that the railways, roads, telegraphs, and post
offices (p.17) were interdependent, contributing significantly to the making of
the colonial ‘dominant space’. This mega structure of transportation and
communications was closely tied to the needs and concerns of the British
Empire. These ‘revolutionary technological changes’ accelerated the pace of
change. Places which took twenty hours to cover in the 1840s took only one hour
by the end of the century. This ‘space–time compression’ had effects on all
aspects of the colonial situation.7
Among the greatest achievements of British rule in the Punjab, says Douie, was
‘the magnificent system of irrigation canals’. The network of canals in the
province irrigated more than eight and a quarter millions of acres in 1911–12.
From 1850 to 1880 the government had constructed new canals to shore up
petty commodity production. Their principal function was to even out seasonal
differences in rainfall to give greater security to small proprietors of the thickly
populated central Punjab. These early canals came to be called ‘protective’. In
the 1880s the colonial government began to make massive capital investment in
agricultural production to enhance the land revenue and export trade. With
British capital and indigenous labour, ‘protective’ irrigation was replaced by
‘productive’ irrigation in largely uninhabited wastelands. In 1904, the Lower
Chenab Colony alone had 1,800,000 acres allotted to peasants and yeomen. The
Page 3 of 25
great part of the colony was covered by the Lyallpur district which had a
population of 857,511 in 1911. Before 1892, when colonization had started, it
had only a few nomad owners of large herds of cattle.8
Richard G. Fox looks upon these irrigation projects as more important than the
railways for bringing about a fundamental transformation of agrarian production
and labour in colonial Punjab. During the first fifty years of their rule, the British
harnessed the region’s agricultural production and labour to the world system
without radical transformation and major capital investment. Peasants in the
central districts of the Punjab began to produce wheat for export and became
‘petty commodity producers’. In this manner, a precapitalist system of family
labour and domestic capital was geared to the capitalist world economy. By the
1920s, over 10 million acres of desert land were under irrigation. The canal
colonies had become a new recognizable ‘region’ which specialized in the
production of export crops. Apart from the export of wheat and cotton, the canal
colonies produced a large amount of revenue. Not controlled or threatened by
merchant capital, the canal colonies grew stronger in contrast with the
worsening condition of the cultivators of central Punjab. In the first decade of
the twentieth century, net outmigration from the central districts increased from
1.52 to 4.72 per cent, a percentage higher than that in the south-western and
south-eastern districts.9
Outmigration was linked up with the growing indebtedness in the late

nineteenth century. Merchants and moneylenders had been advancing cash to
cultivators for payment of the land revenue and for purchase of the factors of
production in the market. The moneylenders made such loans against jewellery,
crops, land, or even against premature rights of purchase. The high interest
rates made it extremely difficult for the peasant to repay the capital. The
creditors took land on mortgage in payment of defaulted loans, and reduced the
small proprietor to a tenant on his own land. As the petty commodity producers
became increasingly debt-ridden, the merchants and moneylenders became
increasingly affluent. Thus, prosperity and debt went hand in hand. Debt
bondage and (p.18) the tyranny of the market made military service more
attractive and also obliged the Punjab cultivators to seek opportunity of wage
labour abroad.10
The colonial authorities intervened to protect the system of agrarian production,

their own creation, through legislation. The Alienation of Land Act of 1900
prevented cultivators from transferring their lands or mortgaging them for
extended periods to non-agriculturists. This legislation addressed at least the
immediate threat of transfer of land to non-agriculturist moneylenders. Dungen
goes into the details of transformation of official opinion in the Punjab from 1869
to 1909 in which the Punjab administration exercised a decisive influence on the
Government of India and the India Office with regard to the revenue policy and
measures. The loyalty of the peasantry to the British was taken for granted, even
Page 4 of 25
though the peasant proprietors were seen as a political force. The Alienation of
Land Act, which came into force in June 1901, has been called ‘a landmark in the
Punjab political tradition’.11
James Douie regretfully observed the dismal progress of modern education after
six decades of British rule in the Punjab. There was one boy in six and one girl in
thirty-seven at school. However, the old indifference was weakening and interest
in education was increasing in towns and cities. The government was directly or
indirectly responsible for education. At the headquarters of each district there
was a high school, controlled by the Education Department. In each district
there were Anglo-vernacular and vernacular middle schools, and primary
schools managed by municipalities and district boards. An institution of a special
kind was the Punjab Chiefs’ College at Lahore for the sons of princes and men of
high social position. For girls of the upper middle class there was the Victoria
May School in Lahore, founded in 1908, which developed into the Queen Mary
College. The Government Arts College, the Oriental College, the Medical
College, the Law School, and the Central Training College at Lahore were in
place before the Punjab University was established in 1882. Founded in 1864,
the Government College, Lahore, grew to be the premier educational institution
in the Punjab. The veterinary college at Lahore was the best of its kind in India,
and the agricultural college at Lyallpur was expected to play a very useful role in
agrarian production.12
Douie refers to the ‘honourable connection’ of the Christian missionaries with

the educational history of the Punjab. Indeed, they were closely connected with
the British administrators of the province. The Political Agent at Ludhiana had
invited the Presbyterian missionaries from the USA in 1834 to take charge of a
school started by him. Before the end of the year, John C. Lowrie arrived in
Ludhiana to establish a missionary centre and a printing press. Another centre
was started in 1846 at Jullundur which had been taken over by the British after
the Sikh War of 1845–6. Soon after annexation in 1849 a missionary centre was
opened in Lahore. New centres were established at Sialkot, Rawalpindi, and
Peshawar in 1856. Thus, the missionaries characteristically followed the British
flag. After 1858 the missions expanded, founding new churches, hospitals, and
orphanages, as well as schools and colleges in cities and towns all over the
Punjab.
Education was an important area of cooperation between the missionaries and

the Punjab administrators. The system of grants-in-aid for private initiative in
education was introduced initially to help the mission schools. The missionaries
were (p.19) pioneers in women’s education and the education of the
Untouchables, later called the Depressed Classes and subsequently Dalits. The
missionaries promoted English language, literature, and Western education; held
compulsory classes in Christianity; and made participation in Christian worship
obligatory for their students. Indeed, the primary aim of Christian institutions
Page 5 of 25
was evangelistic. The missionaries subscribed to the view that God had saved
the British in 1857–8 for the spread of Christianity. In the early decades of
British rule there were a few conspicuous conversions to Christianity in the
Punjab, but the total number of Christians till 1881 was only about 4,000. Their
number shot up to 163,994 in 1911. By far the largest number of converts were
Dalits, especially the Chuhras of the countryside, who wished to be free of the
social and economic tyranny of the landholders. The mass conversions by the
Christian missionaries gave a jolt to the social reformers of the province and
goaded them into action.13
In higher education, English literature and the social sciences were combined
with the natural sciences to form the core of the new, essentially Western,
education. The medium of higher education was English. Urdu was introduced
as the medium of instruction up to matriculation, and Urdu literature as a
subject of study. The sole criterion for this measure was administrative
convenience, because soon after annexation the British had adopted Urdu as the
language of administration at the lower rungs. Most of the literate Punjabis
came to know the Urdu language and literature, and used it as the medium for
public communication, both written and oral.
Though a large province, the Punjab did not have the same status as the older
provinces. Instead of the Governor it only had a Lieutenant Governor, and
instead of a High Court only a Chief Court. The Governor General in Council had
greater control over the province than in the Governors’ provinces. A Legislative
Council was formed in the Punjab rather late, in 1897, consisting of only nine
members, all of whom were nominated by the Lieutenant Governor. The council
was enlarged in 1909. It consisted of twenty-four members, of whom only eight
were elected, one each by the Punjab University and the Chamber of Commerce,
and three each by the officially controlled Municipal and Cantonment
Committees and District Boards. At least six of the other sixteen nominated
members were from outside the Government service.14 Direct election was
introduced only in 1919, with a much larger number of members but a limited
franchise.
The colonial rulers felt gratified to think that they had introduced the rule of law
in the Punjab, but their rule was based essentially on force. For the maintenance
of law and order, police administration was developed as distinct from the army
and placed under the civil authorities. The army could be called whenever the
situation appeared to be critical in their eyes. The Punjab administration came to
be called ‘paternal’ with reference to the authority and power exercised by the
colonial administrators. They were proud of this tradition and keen to retain it as
long as they could.
Page 6 of 25
On the whole, colonial rule in the Punjab had a great impact on the life of its
people. In the first place, the old jāgīrdārī system was replaced by a bureaucratic
system. Europeans, mainly British, occupied the top positions, with a much
larger number of educated Indians at the middle and lower rungs in each
department, selected and promoted by and large according to rules and paid
monthly (p.20) salaries in cash. The Europeans received far higher salaries
than the Indians. In the early decades after annexation, the Indian personnel
came mostly from the United Provinces (UP) and Bengal. In due course educated
Punjabis began to compete with them to serve the new rulers. Apart from
various other departments, Indians educated in the law in India or England
came to be associated with the administration of justice, and a substantial
number of Punjabis took to the profession of law.15
The network of transportation and communications was used by the people as

well as the civil administrators and military authorities. The printing press was
similarly put to use by all for various purposes. Its importance was enhanced by
its use, particularly for the dissemination of information and ideas by an
individual or an organization interested in influencing the public or the
bureaucracy. The printing press encouraged journalism and publication of books
and pamphlets. For example, in 1911, nearly 600 books were published in Urdu,
over 450 in Punjabi, and 80 each in English and Hindi. These books included the
new literary forms of drama and fiction. Both literature and journalism largely
reflected the emerging concerns of the Punjabis, like religious and social reform,
history and biography, and the sciences and arts. It is interesting to note that
more than half of the total publications came out from Lahore. Next in
importance was Amritsar, though it brought out only a fourth of the number of
books published in Lahore.16
Commercialization of agriculture in the Punjab added two more components to

the new middle classes. Both the petty commodity producers in the countryside
and the merchants and moneylenders in urban centres can be seen as
constituting the middle class. Though unconscious and unrecognized, the
merchants and moneylenders were the most important accomplices of
commercialization; they were unofficial agents of the British. Till the end of the
nineteenth century they were the greatest beneficiaries of the agrarian policies
of the colonial state.
Thus, bureaucracy, the rule of law in principle, new forms of transportation and
communication, canal irrigation, agrarian policies, commercialization of
agriculture, and a new system of education led to a social transformation in
which the middle classes emerged as the most important segment of the social
order in the Punjab. The professional middle class consisted of two broad
categories: individuals in the service of the colonial state and persons in
professions outside the state service such as law and journalism, and private
enterprise in education. The commercial middle class consisted of members of
Page 7 of 25
the urban trading communities and the rural commodity producers. The middle
classes played an increasingly important role in the social, cultural, and political
life of the province.17
Socio-religious Movements in the Punjab

As a region numerically dominated by Muslims but having substantial
proportions of Hindus and Sikhs,18 the Punjab came to have a very large number
of movements for socio-religious reform. While the Nirankaris and the
Nāmdhārīs among the Sikhs had started their reformist endeavours before
annexation, the Singh Sabha, Sanatana Dharma, and the Ahmadiya movements
emerged during the last three decades of the nineteenth century essentially in
response to the colonial situation. Indigenous to the (p.21) Punjab, these
reform movements may be differentiated from the Arya Samaj originating in
western India and the Muslim associations (anjumans) drawing inspiration from
the Aligarh Movement located in the United Provinces. Though numerically not
very important, the Brahmo Samaj was the earliest to find a foothold in Lahore,
the provincial capital.
A few Bengalis and Punjabis founded the Lahore Brahmo Samaj in 1863 under
the leadership of Babu Navin Chandra Roy. He was a paymaster in the North-
Western Railway office in Lahore and an advocate of socially radical Brahmoism
and Hindi. From 1867 to 1874 Lahore was visited by the leading Brahmos like
Keshab Chandra Sen, Debendranath Tagore, and Pratap Chandra Majumdar.
They upheld Upanishadic thought and appreciated Western science and the
Christian ethic. With their rational yet theistic outlook and their socially liberal
attitude, the Brahmos stood for the freedom of the press and English education,
and they espoused the cause of the low castes and the Hindu women. Though
willing to make use of Urdu and Punjabi for the propagation of their own ideas,
the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj had a decided preference for Hindi in
Devanagri script. The Brahmo monthly Harī Hakīkat, launched in 1877, was one
of the earliest periodicals to be published in the Punjab.19 Some of the Hindus
and Sikhs of the Punjab, like Sardar Dayal Singh Majithia, Lala Harkishan Lal,
and Professor Ruchi Ram Sahni, came to be associated with the Brahmo Samaj
and played an important public role.
However, the Dev Samaj, an offshoot of the Brahmo Samaj, proved to be

relatively more lasting in the Punjab. It was founded by Pandit Shiv Narayan
Agnihotri who had joined the Brahmo Samaj, and who used to expound its
rationalistic and eclectic doctrine, and speak in favour of marriage reform and
vegetarianism. In 1880 he was ordained as a missionary of the Sadharan Brahmo
Samaj established in Calcutta. In 1882, he took sanyās and changed his name to
Satyanand Agnihotri. In 1886 he left the Brahmo Samaj, and founded on 16
February 1887 a new organization called Dev Samaj (Divine Society). He
rejected rationalism and initiated the dual worship of God and the gurū (he
himself). In 1895 the worship of God was dropped and the founder became the
Page 8 of 25
sole point of attention as Dev Bhagwan Atma for members of the Dev Samaj.
They were expected to abandon all caste restrictions, practise intercaste dining
and intercaste marriage. Widow marriage was made acceptable. In 1899 a co-
educational school was started at Moga in Ferozpore district. Much later, a Dev
Samaj College for Women was opened in Firozpur city. In 1921 there were 3,597
members of the Dev Samaj, with a good proportion of graduates, magistrates,
doctors, pleaders, moneylenders, landlords, and government servants. The
influence of the Dev Samaj was greater than what the number of its members
would suggest.20 Ruchi Ram Sahni, a contemporary who knew Agnihotri well,
talks in some detail how a person who used to appeal vehemently in the name of
reason and conscience came to believe in his own extraordinary powers and
decided to form a new centre for his activities.21
Swami Dayanand Saraswati came to the Punjab in 1877–8. The first edition of
his Satyārth Prakāsh (The Light of Truth) had been published in 1875,
elaborating his concept of true Hinduism in Hindi in Devanagri script. He
denounced orthodox Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, and
Sikhism as false in comparison with Vedic (p.22) Dharma, the only true faith.
For him all truth was found in the Vedas as he understood them. The Vedas, and
the texts based on a proper understanding of the Vedas, provided the yardstick
for judging all other scriptural texts. Swami Dayanand rejected almost all
aspects of contemporary Hinduism: the Puranas, polytheism, idolatry, the role of
Brahman priests, pilgrimages, nearly all rituals, and the ban on widow marriage.
For the propagation of ‘purified’ Dharma, he had founded the Arya Samaj at
Bombay in April 1875. The Lahore Arya Samaj, founded in June 1877, held its
first meeting on 24 June at which ten simple principles were adopted as the
basic creed of the Samaj. In a short time, Arya Samajes were organized in
different cities of the province before Dayanand’s death at Ajmer on 30 October
1883.22
The Arya Samajes in the Punjab had agreed on founding a school as a memorial
for Swami Dayanand to impart Arya Dharam. The Lahore Samaj drafted a plan in
1883 and set up a sub-committee to raise funds. Lala Hans Raj offered to serve
as principal of the school without any pay. The Dayananda Anglo-Vedic Trust and
Management Society held its first meeting on 27 February 1886, and the school
was opened in June. On 18 May 1889, the Punjab University granted affiliation
to Dayanand Anglo-Vernacular (DAV) College. However, the concrete shape
being given to the Anglo-Vedic system of education became a source of internal
tension. Pandit Guru Datta, who looked upon Swami Dayananda as a divinely
inspired sage (rishi) and considered the Satyārth Prakāsh as a text to be taken
literally without any questioning, wanted the school to focus on Arya ideology,
the study of Sanskrit, and the Vedic scriptures. He was supported by Pandit Lekh
Ram and Lala Munshi Ram (later Swami Shraddhananda). By 1893 the Arya
Samaj was formally divided between the moderates, known as the ‘College’
party, and the militants, known as the ‘Gurukul’ party. The latter also insisted on
Page 9 of 25
vegetarian diet while the former left it to the discretion of the individual to eat
or not to eat meat.23
The moderates remained focused on the Managing Committee, with education

as their primary concern. Slowly they were able to expand the DAV College. The
Lahore school run by the Committee became the model for other Aryas in the
Punjab. By 1910, the Managing Committee had a number of schools affiliated to
it, and it became the formal head of a growing educational system. In 1903 was
founded their own Arya Pradeshak Pratinidhi Sabha. In due course, they added
other forms of service, notably orphanages and famine relief. The militants had
gained control over most of the local Arya Samajes and the Arya Pratinidhi
Sabha of the Punjab. They laid emphasis on Ved-prachār for propagation of the
new message. Pandit Guru Datta had died in March 1890, and leadership of the
party was taken over by Lala Munshi Ram and Pandit Lekh Ram. They laid stress
on shuddhī or reconversion of Hindus who had converted to Islam or
Christianity. In view of the then current notion of ‘Hindus as a dying race’, the
scope of shuddhī was extended to ‘purifying’ anyone whose ancestors had once
been Hindus (Indians). Pandit Lekh Ram wrote books against Islam, portraying it
as a religion of murder, theft, slavery, and perverse sexual acts. Angered
Muslims appealed to the courts but failed to silence him. On 6 March 1897,
Pandit Lekh Ram was assassinated by a Muslim, leading to communal tension.
The programme of shuddhī included the Sikhs and a number of Rahtias (Sikh
weavers from outcaste (p.23) background) who were ‘purified’ at Lahore, and
their heads and beards were shaved in public.24
In addition to Ved-prachār and shuddhī, the militant Aryas turned their attention
to education. A girl’s school, the Arya Kanya Pathshala, was established in
Jalandhar in the early 1890s. A women’s hostel, Kanya Ashram, was also
founded. In June 1896 the Kanya Mahavidyalaya was founded, which finally
became a women’s college. It published literature for women’s education and
founded the Hindi monthly Panchāl Panditā in 1898 to propagate the cause of
female education. The purpose of this education was to produce a new ideal
Hindu woman. The militants advocated widow remarriage, restricting it initially
to virgin widows. In 1898 the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha voted to establish an
institution where the student would lead a life of celibacy (Brahmacharya),
discipline, and Vedic learning. This institution opened in March 1902 in the form
of Gurukula Kangri in Hardwar, with Lala Munshi Ram as its manager and moral
guide. With this, the militant Aryas completed their own system of religiously
oriented education for both women and men.25
The two wings of the Arya Samaj created a wide variety of institutions, offered
new forms of worship, introduced proselytism, a conversion ritual, and a simple
statement of their fundamental creed. The Arya Samaj reinforced the lines
Page 10 of 25
drawn between Hindus and others, with an aggressive promotion of Vedic

Hinduism.
A defender of Hindu orthodoxy against attacks from Christianity had appeared in

the early 1860s in the person of Pandit Shardha Ram Phillauri. He started
preaching Vaishnava Hinduism, denounced Christianity as ‘trivial and gross’,
and organized a Hindu Sabha in 1867–8 to sustain sanātana dharma. In 1872–3
he preached at the Guru ka Bagh in Amritsar and spoke against the Namdhari
programme of Anand marriage, the killing of Muslim butchers, and the rejection
of Brahmans for the rites of passage. The Sikhs who heard him carried the
impression that he denied the sanctity of the Sikh Gurus. For the remainder of
his stay in Amritsar he required police protection to ensure his safety. He had
written his Sikhān de Rāj dī Vithiā (An Account of Sikh Rule) for the British
bureaucracy in 1866. In 1876 appeared his Dharma Raksha, a defence of
sanātana dharma against the Brahmos, arguing that scriptural authority was
above human reasoning. At the same time, Phillauri rejected the practice of Ras
Lila on his own reasoning. He broke his alliance with Kanhiya Lal Alakhdhari
who was a critic of traditional Hinduism. Pandit Shardha Ram was not overawed
by Swami Dayananda’s knowledge of Sanskrit. He countered the Swami’s call
for restructuring of Hinduism in 1878. Pandit Shardha Ram died early in 1881
after founding a few sanātana dharma institutions for worship and Sanskritic
education.26
Pandit Din Dayalu Sharma of Jhajjar (in present-day Haryana) formed an

association at Hardwar in 1886 and toured the Punjab to organize Sanatana
Dharma Sabhas, goshalas (cow-houses), and Sanskrit schools. In April 1887 he
organized a meeting at Kapurthala to plan a new organization to represent all
Hindus and bring together the leaders of Hindu orthodoxy. A new society called
Bharat Dharma Mahamandala met at Hardwar from 29 to 31 May 1887 and
passed resolutions on the need to protect varnashrama dharma in general, and
on the urgency for religious preaching, establishment of Sanatana Dharma
Sabhas, and the defence of Hinduism against its critics. The office of the
Mahamandala (p.24) was established in Delhi (which was then in the Punjab)
under Din Dayalu’s supervision. Its conferences were held in Amritsar in 1896
and at Kapurthala in 1897. The Hindu College at Delhi was opened in 1899. In
March 1901 the Nigama Mandali, founded by Swami Gyanananda in 1896,
became part of the Mahamandala. In 1902 Pandit Din Dayalu resigned from the
secretaryship of the Mahamandala. Under Swami Gyanananda’s leadership, its
headquarters moved to Benares (present-day Varanasi) in 1903. In the next
three decades the Mahamandala developed as a subcontinental organization
which it was meant to be.27 The Bharat Dharma Mahamandala presents an
interesting case of an organization originating in the British Punjab and
becoming pan-Indian.
Page 11 of 25
New Islamic influences reached the Punjab from Delhi and the United Provinces.
Abdul Minan Wazirabadi brought back from Delhi the ideology of Ahl-i Hadis
(laying emphasis on the practices associated with the Prophet). Another
prominent supporter of Ahl-i Hadis was Maulavi Muhammad Husain of Batala
near Amritsar. In Lahore, Abdullah Chakralwi founded the Ahl-i Qurān, rejecting
traditional Islam and all movements based on any authority other than that of
the Qur’ān. Understandably, the Ahl-i Qurān clashed with all other groups. New
types of Islamic organizations began to appear in the late 1860s and became
widespread in the last two decades of the century, largely under the influence of
Syed Ahmed Khan. These associations were concerned with education, social
reform, religion, and politics. Schools were established with Western education
as an essential component of their programme; orphanages for boys and girls
were founded; preachers were sponsored; pamphlets and tracts were printed
and distributed; and memorials and petitions were presented to safeguard and
promote Muslim interests. The influence of Syed Ahmed Khan was palpable in
the Punjab in the fields of education and politics. His call to the Muslims to
remain aloof from the Indian National Congress proved to be effective in the
province. There was a general fear among Muslims that representation based on
elections and employment based on open competition were not in their
interest.28
A new movement, called Ahmadiya after the name of its founder Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad (1835–1908) of Kadiyan near Batala, aimed at rejuvenating Islam as a
world religion on the basis of a fresh interpretation of the Islamic tradition.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was familiar with Sunni and Shia‘ Islam, and with the
position of the Ahl-i Hadis, before he came into contact with Christian
missionaries. In his Burāhīn-i Ahmadiya (Proofs of Ahmadiya), published in four
volumes between 1880 and 1884, he refuted the doctrines of other religious
leaders both within and outside Islam, especially the Arya Samajists. He
announced in March 1882 that he had received a divine command to become a
mujaddid (a renovator of Islam). In 1890–1, he claimed to be the promised
messiah, popularly called the Mahdi, the future saviour of both Islam and
Christianity. The ‘ulamā of Batala, Amritsar, and Delhi got a decree (fatwa)
issued against him. A meeting of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s adherents was held in
1891. At their second general meeting in 1892, the Ahmadiyas declared their
goals: ‘To propagate Islam; to think out ways and means of promoting the
welfare of new converts to Islam in Europe and America; to further the cause of
righteousness, purity, piety and moral excellence throughout the world, to
eradicate the evil habits and customs; to appreciate with gratitude the good (p.
25) of the British Government.’ In one of his publications Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
argued that Guru Nanak was in fact a protagonist of Islam. This was refuted by
the Sikh leaders, and a protracted controversy started. The contribution of
Ghulam Ahmad to religious controversy was out of all proportion to the number
of his followers. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians reacted to his
Page 12 of 25
publications so that the last decade of the nineteenth century became the
highest watermark of religious controversy in the Punjab.29
New Political Awakening in the Punjab

As in the case of socio-religious resurgence, political developments in the rest of
British India quickened the pace of a new kind of political awakening in the
Punjab. Ruchi Ram Sahni observed in 1885 that the only organization ‘worth
mentioning’ in the Punjab was the Lahore Indian Association that provided a
common platform for all sections of the society. After 1885 it began to work in
tandem with the Indian National Congress. A number of political conferences
were held in the Punjab for its ‘political regeneration’. One of the demands of
the conferences and the Congress was met in 1897 when the Punjab Legislative
Council was created. Sahni recalled that the first session of the Congress at
Lahore in 1893 had ‘created a sensation’ which he found difficult to describe.30
However, it was no index of the popularity of the Congress in the province.
Generally, most of the delegates from the Punjab to the annual sessions of the
Indian National Congress were Hindus, mostly Brahmos and Aryas. They were
interested mainly in provincial issues.31
In 1899, twenty-six delegates from the Punjab went to the Congress session at
Lucknow. This relatively high number was due to the fact that the Punjab
Alienation of Land Bill had been introduced in the Central Legislative Council. At
the suggestion of the Punjab delegates, a resolution was passed for a suitable
amendment. The Punjab delegates invited the Congress to hold its session at
Lahore in 1900. Meanwhile, the Bill was passed, and the Congress did not pass
any resolution against the Punjab Alienation of Land Act. The session was
important for another reason. The Bradlaugh Hall had been constructed in
Lahore as ‘emphatically the people’s own Hall’ for the Congress and other
similar organizations to hold conferences. Furthermore, delegates from the
Punjab continued to participate in the sessions of the Congress in considerable
numbers. On an appeal from Lala Lajpat Rai, the leading Arya of the ‘College’
party, 104 delegates from the Punjab attended the session at Benares.
Incidentally, the highest participation of the Punjab delegates in the Congress
was at Surat in 1907 when there was a split between the moderates and the
extremists. The Punjab Swadeshi Association was formed in October 1905,
followed by the Swadeshi Vastu Pracharak Sabha to propagate the idea of using
Indian goods. Lajpat Rai declared that he was ‘an out and out Swadeshist’ and
equated Swadeshi with patriotism.32 However, the movement remained confined
to urban centres, and it slowed down after 1907.
The year 1906 was marked by agitation in the Punjab over the Punjab
Colonization Bill which was meant to amend the Colonization of Land Act of
1893. Actually, it abrogated some of the terms and conditions which were in the
interest of the colonists. The powerful Punjab administrators like Denzil (p.26)
Ibbetson and Charles Rivaz tried to push it through with a minor modification.
Page 13 of 25
On 25 October 1906 it was introduced in the Punjab Legislative Council of nine

members, all nominated. In November 1906 a drastic increase in the charge on
canal water in the districts of Amritsar, Lahore, and Gurdaspur was announced
by the Punjab Government. A systematic protest against the Bill was initiated
early in 1907 by the Bar Zamindar Association. Mass meetings were held and
memorials were sent to the government. The Bill was passed nevertheless in
March 1907. A mammoth meeting was called by the leaders of the agitation on
22 and 23 March at the time of the annual cattle fair in Lyallpur. About 9,000
colonists responded to a printed invitation. It was on this occasion that Prabh
Dayal, editor of the Jhang Siyāl, recited the well-known poem with the refrain,
‘Pagṛī sambhāl jattā’. The main speakers on this occasion were Lala Lajpat Rai
and Sardar Ajit Singh (Bhagat Singh’s uncle). Both of them were deported in
May 1907. However, Lord Minto, the Governor General, abandoned Curzon’s
policy of coercion and adopted conciliation. He vetoed the Act before the end of
May. The agitation subsided, and before the end of the year Lajpat Rai and Ajit
Singh were brought back to Lahore and released. Lord Minto’s policy of
conciliation culminated in the grant of proprietary rights to the colonists which
had been the bone of contention.33
During the agitation in 1907 the tone of Ajit Singh’s speeches was more anti-
British and his ideas more radical than those of Lajpat Rai. Hira Singh Dard,
who had heard the speech of Ajit Singh at Rawalpindi on 21 April 1907 and
witnessed the ‘Pindi riots’, gives the title ‘revolutionary torch’ to the chapter on
this episode in his autobiography. The conference at Rawalpindi and Ajit Singh’s
speech, he says, were a turning point in his own life. To his interest in matters
religious was now added a lasting interest in political issues.34 Significantly,
boycott and haṛtāl were employed for the first time in the Punjab in this
agitation which was essentially rural and non-communal. It is important to note,
however, that Ibbetson was exceptionally concerned with the Sikhs. He wrote in
his Minute that the danger was especially great in the case of the Sikhs who had
been ruling over the Punjab only sixty years earlier. The ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 had
been put down largely with their help. They occupied the centre of the province.
A religious movement among them was a source of solidarity, and it would
render them more powerful. The Punjabis were more difficult to move than the
Bengalis, but when they were moved they were far more dangerous. If the
loyalty of the Jatt Sikhs of the Punjab was ever materially shaken, the danger
was greater than any that could possibly arise in Bengal.35
After 1907 the Government at the centre, and consequently the Punjab
administration, took greater interest in the activities of Ajit Singh and his
associates than in what Lajpat Rai and the other Arya Samajist or Swadeshi
leaders were doing. Lala Harkishan Lal, the arch-rival of Lajpat Rai, became the
most important leader in the Punjab Congress and, like the Indian National
Congress, the Punjab Congress remained inert for over a decade. Unnerved by
the Government’s repressive measures, the Arya leaders made public
Page 14 of 25
declarations that the Arya Samaj had no political agenda, and that Lajpat Rai as
a political activist did not represent the Samaj. If Lajpat Rai was an extremist in
favour of agitational mobilization, Ajit Singh was a revolutionary who favoured
the use of violence to throw out the British. The Deputy Commissioner (p.27) of
Lahore made a clear distinction between ‘Ajit Singh and his gang’ and the
‘respectable men’ like Lala Lajpat Rai and other Arya Samajist and Swadeshi
leaders. Of all the publications of the revolutionaries circulated in the Punjab,
three were identified as a reliable basis for prosecution: Unglī Pakṛate Pahunchā
Pakṛā and Divide and Conquer for charges against Ajit Singh, and the Bāghī
Masīh (Rebel Prophet) for charges against Amba Parshad. While the Government
was making preparations for prosecuting them, they managed to evade the
police and joined the Indian revolutionaries abroad.36
The Ghadar Movement had its greatest impact on the people of the Punjab.
Among Indian migrants to Canada and the USA, all known as ‘Hindus’ (which
simply meant ‘Indians’), the Sikhs represented no less than 90 per cent. The
centres of their religious and social life were gurdwaras which were useful for
the formation of community networks. The Indians in Canada were seen as
‘interlopers’ and an ‘unmitigated nuisance’. They were also the targets of violent
attacks. The upholders of ‘White Canada for Ever’ demanded the exclusion of
Indians from Canada. The Canadian Government was inclined to take adequate
measures for this purpose. The Government of India was keen to ensure that the
loyalty of the Sikhs was not affected by ‘seditious’ influences. The Indian
revolutionaries abroad were keen to give a revolutionary direction to the new
political awakening among the Sikhs in the USA and Canada. They were playing
a considerable role in the ‘promotion of disaffection among the Sikhs’. Har Dayal
was highly impressed with the pious Sikhs. With ‘a keen sense of patriotism’,
they were prepared to do much for the good of their people and their country.37
Ghadar, a weekly in Urdu, was launched from San Francisco on 1 November

1913 for revolutionary propaganda. The Ghadar in Punjabi was started on 9
November. After Har Dayal’s departure from the USA five months later, the
weekly was given a new name, Hindustan Ghadar. Its first issue appeared on 7
April 1914. Before the end of May the steamship Komagata Maru reached
Vancouver with its 376 passengers, mostly Sikhs, and after a tug-of-war for two
months the Komagata Maru was pushed out of the Canadian waters on 23 July
by a highly provocative display of military power. By then war had broken out.
The passengers of the Komagata Maru were not allowed to disembark on its
voyage back to Calcutta where it reached towards the end of September 1914.
At the Budge Budge harbour, the Sikh passengers refused to be transported to
the Punjab. A violent confrontation took place in which the police killed nineteen
passengers. Already on 4 August, the Hindustan Ghadar had sounded the
‘trumpet of war’, and its issue of 11 August called for soldiers prepared to die
for the freedom of India. By the end of October 1914 eight ships carrying large
groups of Ghadarites had departed from the ports of Victoria and San Francisco
Page 15 of 25
on the West Coast of North America. Their destination was the Punjab, the
theatre chosen for initiating the revolutionary war for the freedom of India. The
Punjab was the obvious choice because the overwhelming majority of the
Ghadarites were Sikhs of the Punjab.38 They were confident of getting support
from the soldiers in the Army, which had a substantial number from the Punjab,
most of them Sikhs.
The Government of India, fully informed of the temper and designs of the Sikh
Ghadarites, scrutinized over 3,000 returned Indians, detained 189 of their
leaders, and (p.28) restricted 704 of them to their villages. All the prominent
leaders of India and almost all the princely rulers had committed themselves to
support the Government in its war effort. The Sikh organizations in the Punjab,
either on their own, or under the influence of the Punjab Government, declared
their opposition to the ‘American Sikhs’, who were characterized as renegades,
dacoits, and thieves. Only a few individuals, like Bhai Randhir Singh of
Narangwal, and a few revolutionaries in places like Lohat Baddi in the Nabha
state responded to the call of the Ghadarites. Through infiltration in the
Ghadarite leadership, almost all their plots became known to the authorities in
time for them to take prompt action. Out of a total of 299 Ghadarites who were
tried, 46 were sentenced to death, 69 to life imprisonment with deportation, and
125 to other terms of imprisonment. This was a heavy price to pay. However, the
moral conviction, commitment, and sacrifices of the Ghadarites proved to be a
lasting legacy.39
The literature of the Ghadar Movement provides some clues to the sources of
the moral conviction and commitment of its members. The political subjugation
of India to the British was seen as the cause of the discriminatory treatment they
received in Canada. Their disillusionment with the Government of India appears
to be relevant for their hostile attitude towards the colonial rule. The ideas and
influence of the Indian revolutionaries would largely account for their passion
for the freedom of India. Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence made the
‘Ghadar of 1857’ a reference point for the new struggle for independence. Unity
among all the religious communities and the peoples of the provinces of India
was necessary for a war of Indian independence. The word qaum is used in the
Ghadarite literature clearly to refer to the Indian nation. However, the Ghadar
poets draw upon the various religious traditions of India in order to take
inspiration from the cultural roots of the people. Understandably, they are
selective and give their own orientation to the elements seen as relevant to their
purpose. It is interesting to note in this connection that a poem of over 100
verses is addressed to the Khalsa Panth. It refers to the Ghadar of 1857 and Rani
Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, and talks of the second Ghadar in the offing. Har Dayal is
mentioned in this connection. The poet regrets that the Sikhs did not participate
in the Ghadar of 1857. Had they done so, the country would have been free. The
Singhs should now appropriate their true vocation of fighting for freedom and
take up the sword. The Guru had created the Khalsa Panth for ensuring the
Page 16 of 25
welfare of others (par-upkār). He had removed all oppression from Bharat Varsh;
he had suffered for the country and had made sacrifices for the protection of
India. Several martyrs and heroes of Sikh history are mentioned as the
upholders of freedom. Thus, the Sikh tradition is projected as a struggle for
freedom.40
Another important development of the war years was the Lucknow Pact between
the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League, which had been
founded in 1906 essentially in response to the activities of the Congress. Two
Muslim Leagues were formed in the Punjab in 1906 and 1907 by two different
leaders, Mian Muhammad Shafi and Mian Fazl-i Husain, but they were merged
together before the end of 1907. In 1915 Tilak and his supporters were allowed
to enter the Congress. Both the Congress and the Muslim League set up
committees to draft common constitutional demands. Nineteen non-official (p.
29) members of the Imperial Council jointly petitioned the Viceroy in October
1916, calling for representative government and dominion status for India.
Later, a common demand for elected majorities in provincial councils was made.
Hindu–Muslim differences were sought to be resolved. The Congress conceded
separate electorates and weightage for Muslims. Fazl-i Husain was satisfied with
50 per cent seats to be reserved for Muslims in the Punjab, but Fazlul Huq could
not satisfy the Muslims of Bengal where they were in majority but only 40 per
cent seats were to be reserved for them. In the United Provinces, which had a
much smaller percentage of Muslims than Bengal or the Punjab, as high as 30
per cent of the seats were to be reserved for them. This was a reflection of the
influence exercised by the Muslim leaders of the United Provinces.41 The
Lucknow Pact became a point of reference for the Sikh leaders to put forth their
demands.
Some important developments took place in India and the Punjab after the
Congress–League rapprochement in 1916. A declaration by E.S. Montagu as the
Secretary of State for India on 20 August 1917 was followed by the ‘Montague-
Chelmsford Report’ of 1918 and the Government of India Act of 1919. Montagu
had announced in the House of Commons that the policy of His Majesty’s
Government was ‘the increasing association of Indians in every branch of
administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a
view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an
integral part of the British empire’. The joint report of the Secretary of State and
the Viceroy reinforced the intention embodied in Montagu’s announcement but
accepted the Congress–League decision on separate electorates and
reservations for Muslims. The privileges conceded to the Muslims were not to be
extended to any other community except the Sikhs who had hitherto been
‘virtually unrepresented’ though they were ‘a distinct and important people’ and
everywhere in a minority.42
Page 17 of 25
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
brought with him a number of native auxiliaries, paid and equipped at
his own expense; the Raja of Goa also furnishing a large number of
men for the expedition, who were armed by our government. The
ships of war were attended by a number of transports; so that the
fleet presented a very imposing appearance.
On the 16th of March the fleet sailed from Bonthian Bay, and passing
through the straits of Salayer, entered the Bay of Boni, without
incurring injury from the numerous coral reefs that were scattered
along our route. A melancholy accident occurred soon after our
departure from Bonthian. A detachment of three officers and ninety-
three light infantry men, had been embarked on board a prahu,
totally unfitted for a transport. Some vessels having been perceived
by the people on deck, they called out that some pirates had hove in
sight, on which those who were below rushed up, and climbing on
one side of the vessel, capsized her, only the three officers and
thirty-three of the men being saved.
Our operations commenced at Sengey, where the troops were
landed, and the enemy not only driven helter-skelter out of their
intrenchments, but forced also to evacuate the neighbouring country.
The portion of our force which marched overland having joined us,
we pushed forward to Batjua, the capital of the kingdom of Boni,
taking and destroying the stockades of the enemy as we advanced.
Batjua consists of a chain of beautiful villages, defended by
stockades erected in the water and well provided with guns. It is
considered as the seat of the court of Boni, although the king resides
about an hour and a half's journey in the interior. Being the chief
commercial depôt of the kingdom, the trade is considerable. We
found a large number of prahus here, the greater number of which
had been hauled up on the beach to prevent our destroying them.
General Van Geen determined to effect a landing here, and the
enemy having been drawn away from the beach by a clever ruse,
the troops were put on shore without difficulty. The Boniers fled
before the advance of our courageous soldiers, sustaining great loss
in their retreat. The town was found to have been evacuated by the
enemy, although two-hundred pieces of cannon of small calibre were
mounted on the walls. The troops brought to the field by the
Panambahan of Samanap behaved very well in the attack.
Notwithstanding their defeat, the enemy obstinately refused to enter
into negotiations with us.
The armed boats of the squadron were constantly employed in
landing the troops, and in attacking the batteries of the enemy. On
one of these occasions we had the misfortune to lose Lieutenant
Alewyn, the commander of the brig Siwa, an officer universally
esteemed.
I will pass over in silence many other particulars of minor
importance, connected with this expedition. As the westerly
monsoon was now drawing to a close, and the number of our sick
had become very great, we found it impossible to pursue the enemy
into the interior. Macassar had been freed from danger, Supa had
been taken, and the island of Celebes placed in a state of more
tranquillity; but not a single native chief had been brought under the
subjection of our government, so that the expedition had produced
no other useful effect than that of affording a new proof of the total
inability of the natives to withstand the courage and military skill of
Europeans.
On the departure of the fleet from the Bay of Boni, my brig, together
with the Nautilus and the Daphne, sailed for Amboyna, touching at
Buton on the way, to obtain refreshments. Every ship that had been
employed had a large number of their men sick, one fifth only of the
crew of my brig being fit for duty. My officers and myself also
suffered much; indeed, on our arrival at Amboyna there was not a
healthy man on board. This prevalence of sickness is to be attributed
to the fatigues we had endured, and it should act as a warning to our
government to deter them from undertaking expeditions like these
except in cases of urgent necessity, or when they have very
important objects in view.
I will now proceed to give an account of the more agreeable duties
entrusted to my charge, which I was fortunate enough to carry into
execution to the satisfaction of the government, and within a
tolerably short period of time.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] The yard in which these vessels were built, was subsequently
burned by the rebels; Mr. Waller, the shipwright, losing all the
property he had collected by his diligence.
[3] This name, unfamiliar to European ears, is derived from a
fable of the Bramins, whose religion once obtained in Java.
Dourga was the consort of the god Siva, in fact the Juno of the
Jupiter of the Hindoos. Many images of this deity are to be met
with among the ruins of the temples scattered over the island.
[4] The kriss is a short dagger of a serpentine form; the klewang,
a sort of hanger or short sword; and the lelah, a cannon of small
calibre, usually composed of brass.
[5] Panambahan is a Javanese title, the possessor of which takes
precedence of a Pangeran or Prince, but ranks below a Raja or
Sultan.
CHAPTER II.
TIMOR.
Object of the Voyage.—Sail for Timor.—Arrive at the
Portuguese Settlement of Dilli.—Poverty of the
Inhabitants.—Mean Reception.—Agriculture much
neglected.—Slave Trade.—Symptoms of Distrust on the
Part of the Portuguese.—Discontented state of their
Native Subjects.—Departure for the Island of Wetta.
I was permitted by the Government to remain a considerable time at
Amboyna, as the greater part of the brig's crew were forced to enter
the hospital, while the vessel herself was in want of considerable
repair. The fine climate of this agreeable island, coupled with the
attendance of a skilful physician (M. Zengacker), soon restored my
brave crew to their former health and vigour, and the fresh air of Batu
Gadja, the residence of the much-respected governor, M.P. Merkus,
with the kind hospitality of its owner, soon caused me to forget the
fatigues and hardships I had undergone. When my health was
sufficiently restored to permit me to resume active duties, I made
preparations for a voyage to the Arru, Tenimber, and the other
islands lying between Great Timor and New Guinea, the conduct of
which had been entrusted to me by an order of the Government.
These islands were formerly possessions of our old East India
Company, who had created small forts on many of them, the better
to secure to themselves the entire trade in spices. Well known
events connected with the state, which undermined the monopoly of
the East India Company, caused these islands to decrease in
importance, until at length the communication with them ceased, and
had continued so for a long series of years. During the period in
which the English had possession of the Moluccas these islands
were disregarded, so that their inhabitants were scarcely aware that
they had changed masters, and still continued to view themselves as
subjects of the Dutch, hoisting their flag on all festive occasions. It is
also a well-known fact, that at our factory in Japan (thanks to the firm
conduct of the chief, H. Doeff), our flag was never hauled down;
while the Dutch, therefore, ceased to exist as a nation, our colours
continued flying, and our authority acknowledged in several of the
remote possessions acquired by the courage and enterprize of our
forefathers. I trust we may again be actuated by the desire, not to
conquer new countries, but to maintain and increase our power in
those bequeathed to us by our ancestors.
With reference to the above-mentioned islands, the fifth article of my
instructions contained the following passage:—"And further, you will
inquire as to what remains exist of the forts erected by the East India
Company on the islands, especially on those of Arru, Tenimber, and
Kessa, noting down with correctness the particulars you may obtain
concerning them, subjoining your own observations on their
positions, and other points." A second object of my expedition was:
"to kindle and renew friendly relations with the natives, and to invite
them to visit Banda for the purpose of trading, this being an object of
importance to the islanders themselves, since they would there
obtain the goods they might require in exchange for their produce,
on more advantageous terms than from the traders who have
hitherto supplied them." By my instructions I was also requested, not
only to note down answers to the points of inquiry contained in them,
but also to embody in a report any observations I might make on
subjects of importance to the Government, that the information
concerning these possessions might be as full as possible.
M. Dielwaart, a gentleman in the employ of the Government,
accompanied me for the purpose of assisting in the examination; and
M. Kam, a clergyman, was also attached to the expedition, his object
being to promote the interests of Christianity, and to arrange all
matters connected with church affairs and public instruction. An
interpreter for the Malayan language, and another acquainted with
the dialect spoken by the mountaineers, were furnished to me,
together with a guard of seven soldiers.
On the 26th of May we sailed from Amboyna, and soon cleared the
bay—this being sometimes attended with much difficulty—when we
steered to the southward towards the town of Dilli, on the north-west
coast of Timor. Having to contend against squalls and contrary
winds, we did not reach the roads of Dilli until the 2nd of June. On
arriving outside the reefs which shelter the roads, we hove-to, and
were boarded by a Portuguese naval officer, who acted as harbour-
master, and conducted us into the inner roads by a narrow channel
to the westward of the town, which forms the only entrance. A ship
may come to an anchor outside the reefs, but the water is very deep,
and she would be quite unsheltered.
We found a large ship from Macao at anchor in the roads, but no
other vessel, not even a native prahu, was to be seen. After having
anchored we saluted the fort with thirteen guns, which the latter
returned with only eleven. On my demanding the reason of this
deficiency, it was attributed to the carelessness of the officer of
artillery, for which it appeared he was to be punished. Soon after
entering the roads, I sent Lieutenant Bruining on shore to inform the
Governor of our arrival. This gentleman having just retired to take his
siesta, his people had the incivility to allow M. Bruining to walk in
front of the house from noon until three o'clock, before being
admitted into his presence. The Governor expressed himself much
gratified at our arrival, and wished me to call upon him in the
evening, when I went to his house in company with several of the
gentlemen who were embarked with me, and experienced a more
hospitable reception than could have been expected from the
poverty-stricken appearance of the place.
The Governor of the Portuguese possessions in the north coast of
Timor usually resides at Dilli, and pays himself and the other officials
out of the revenue derived from the trade. They are all engaged in
mercantile pursuits. Their pay, indeed, is extremely small, the officers
receiving only eleven guilders,[6] and the soldiers three guilders per
month. Their dwellings are miserable, dirty, and poor.
The Governor resides in a small wooden house situated at the back
of the fort, which contains no other furniture than a few tables,
benches, and old chairs. When dining at his house the following day,
we plainly perceived that the chairs, dishes, plates, and even the
table-linen, had been lent for the occasion by various individuals, all
being of different make and fashion; and our opinion on this point
was afterwards confirmed.
The Governor appeared to be much pleased on finding that I was in
want of some cattle and various articles, with which he offered to
supply me. He charged me seven dollars a head for the buffaloes,
and eighty-six guilders for half a picul (sixty-six pounds and a half) of
wax candles, that I purchased from him, in addition to which I paid
six per cent. export duty at the custom-house. Slaves were
frequently offered to me on sale, the Commandant, among others,
wishing me to purchase two children of seven or eight years of age,
who were loaded with heavy irons. The usual price of an adult male
slave is forty guilders, that of a woman or a child being from twenty-
five to thirty. These unfortunate people are kidnapped in the interior,
and brought to Dilli for sale, the Governor readily providing the
vender with certificates under his hand and seal, authorizing him to
dispose of the captives as he may think fit.[7]
In addition to the slave trade, from which the government officers
appeared to derive the greater part of their income, a commerce is
also earned on in wax and sandal-wood, which the natives are
forced to deliver up at a small, and almost nominal price. The trade
is entirely engrossed by the governor and officials, no other
individual being permitted to embark in commerce. This, with other
abuses, caused so much discontent, that many of the inhabitants of
Dilli, both natives and Chinese, expressed to me their strong desire
to be freed from the hateful yoke of the Portuguese. Scarcely had we
anchored in the roads, when several came on board the brig and
gave vent to their joy, supposing that we had come to take
possession of the place.
The fort, a square inclosure, without bastions, containing within it a
house and a magazine, is constructed of stone and clay. Several
pieces of cannon are mounted on the walls, but the greater number
are unprovided with carriages. Some of our officers wished to
inspect the interior, but orders had been issued to the sentry not to
allow us to enter; at all events, our officers were refused admission
on the plea, that our visiting the fort would be viewed with
displeasure by the Governor. We did not think it worth while to make
a formal request for permission to visit this pitiful fortress, as the
appearance of the exterior gave us a good idea of what we might
expect to meet with inside.
Excepting the wife of the master of a merchant ship, we did not meet
with a single European woman here. Even those of the mixed breed
were scarce, two or three only being encountered by us during our
stay.
When the Portuguese go abroad to pay a visit or to take the air, they
are carried by two or three slaves in a canvass hammock,
suspended from a bamboo pole, over which an awning is extended
to protect the rider from the sun and rain. There are excellent horses
in the place, but very little use is made of them, neither carts nor
carriages being employed by the inhabitants. The Portuguese,
indeed, betray no activity, and appear to have given themselves up
to an indolent mode of life, all their actions being redolent of laziness
and apathy.
The population appeared to be numerous, but no signs of prosperity
were visible. The dwelling-houses, small, dirty and ruinous, and built
without order or symmetry, were scattered irregularly over the town.
On each side of the quarter inhabited by the Portuguese two
redoubts have been erected, on which some old iron guns of small
calibre were mounted. The sentinels were half naked, and their
muskets were for the most part without locks, so that they could only
be carried for show. In addition to their muskets they carried long
poniards or daggers.
A large plain extended to the eastward of the town, on which
appeared an exceedingly high gallows. A short distance inland to the
south-west the chief of the native inhabitants resided, to whom I
would willingly have paid a visit, had it not been so much against the
inclination of the governor, who pretended that the chief was
seriously indisposed. A feeling of distrust on the part of the
Portuguese was apparent throughout our intercourse with them, and
they evidently wished us to hold no intercourse with the natives.
The land around the settlement is highly fertile, and fruit, which here
as in other parts of India, is produced without the assistance of
human industry, was plentiful; but culinary vegetables were very
scarce. The land would produce abundantly were the indolent
Portuguese to turn their attention to agriculture, or to encourage the
natives to do so; but they prefer seeing the innocent natives carried
off from their peaceful homes in the hills, that they may profit by their
sale, to allowing them to better their condition by their labour and
agricultural skill.
On two occasions some of the gentlemen of the settlement came off
to pay us a visit, appearing to be much surprised by the interior
arrangements of the brig. I had also invited the Governor, but he
made some trifling excuses for remaining on shore. Having thus
doubly requited the attention I experienced from these gentlemen, I
made preparations for my departure, and sent the Governor a
present of a thousand Manilla cigars, with a quantity of fishhooks, in
return for which he sent me off some sheep, and a number of
shaddocks. We therefore parted on the best terms.
Having now fulfilled the orders of the Governor of the Moluccas, we
weighed anchor on the 6th of June, and were piloted out by the
same lieutenant who had taken us into the roads. No fees being
demanded, I presented him with some provisions and trifles, which
were received with thanks. The day previous to our departure having
been the birthday of their king, a general promotion had taken place,
by which this gentleman had received the rank of first lieutenant, with
a monthly increase of pay of three guilders, his salary now
amounting to fourteen guilders per month.
The Portuguese possessions lie on the north side of Timor, and
consist of several small posts or factories, the principal of which are
Batu-Gede to the west, and Manatatu to the east of Dilli, the capital.
On the west and south-west sides of the island the Dutch
settlements are situated, the town of Coepang being the seat of the
Residency. As this part of Timor was beyond the limits of my
intended voyage, I steered a direct course from Dilli towards the
Island of Wetta.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] A guilder is 1s. 8d. sterling.—Trans.
[7] When Captain King first visited Melville Island, on the north
coast of Australia, the natives appeared on the beach and called
out to our voyager, "Ven aca," the Portuguese term for "Come
here." From this, coupled with many circumstances that came
under his observation during his stay at Melville Island, Major
Campbell, in an excellent account of that island inserted in the
journal of the Royal Geographical Society, states it to be his
opinion, that the Portuguese sometimes touch here and carry off
the natives as slaves. When this part of the world is better known,
similar scandalous transactions will, probably, be brought to light.
—Trans.
CHAPTER III.
THE SERWATTY ISLANDS.
Arrival at the island of Wetta.—Productions.—Trade.—
Interview with the natives.—Destruction of the chief
village.—Depart for Kissa.—The Christian inhabitants.—
The fort Vallenhoven.—Friendly reception by the natives.
—Beauty of the landscape.—State of agriculture.—
Attachment of the people to the Dutch government.—
General assemblage of the people.—Performance of
divine service.—Native hospitalities.—Order, neatness
and industry of the people of Kissa.
During the existence of the Dutch East India Company, a garrison
of their troops occupied the village of Sau, on the south coast of
Wetta, an island situated opposite the north coast of Timor. We
directed our course thither, and stood close along shore to search for
the village in question. The shores of the island were steep and hilly,
but luxuriantly clothed with trees, among which appeared at intervals
the huts of the inhabitants, the whole presenting a most picturesque
view. The natives appeared to be extremely shy, none of them
making their appearance on the beach, nor indeed seeming to wish
to look at us.
On the 10th of June we arrived off Sau, and came to an anchor in
fifty fathoms water, about a cable's length from the shore, in a small
bay, where we lay tolerably well sheltered from the south-east winds
by a point of land. Having fired a gun, and hoisted the Dutch flag,
two natives made their appearance on the beach, to whom I sent
one of the interpreters, who soon brought them on board. They
proved to be Christian native chiefs, Hura, the Orang Kaya, and Dirk-
Cobus, the Orang Tua of the village.[8] Their appearance betokened
great poverty, and they complained bitterly of the miserable state into
which they had fallen since they had lost the protection of the Dutch.
They informed me that four years previously their village had been
plundered and burned to the ground, and several of their people
killed, by the inhabitants of Lette, since which occurrence they had
deserted the sea-coast, and had taken up their residence in the hills.
With the view of inspiring them with confidence, I went on shore
entirely alone, and landed near the remains of what had been a fine
walled village, containing a church and a guard-house. The number
of the fruit trees, and the luxuriant growth of the various plants, gave
evidence that the ground over which I walked possessed exceeding
fertility. A crowd of unconverted natives, who recognized the above-
mentioned Christian chiefs as their rulers, now joined us. They were
all armed with spears, bows, arrows, and parangs or chopping
knives; but they soon laid these aside, and gave many tokens of
friendship and confidence. A small quantity of arrack and tobacco
which I distributed among them, put them in high spirits. With the
exception of the two chiefs, none of the natives spoke the Malayan
language, nor were my interpreters acquainted with their dialect.
On the beach I met with two sheds belonging to the people of Kissa,
who had been in the habit of coming here to barter cloth, iron and
gold, for sandal-wood, rice and Indian corn or maize. Coin is not in
use as a currency among the natives. Buffaloes, hogs, sheep and
fowls may be obtained here at a very cheap rate in exchange for
cloth, but not in very large numbers.
Having wandered for some time over this very beautiful country, we
approached the eastern extremity of the village, and sat down on the
banks of a river, which there emptied itself into the sea. They
appeared much pleased by this, and with much energy of manner
expressed their ardent desire to live once more in peace and
quietude under the rule of the Dutch, at the same time offering up
thanks to heaven on finding that the Company, (as they always
styled our government) after having so long abandoned them, had
now again appeared. Although both the chiefs spoke the Malayan
language, I could not correctly understand the answers to all the
questions I put, but they clearly expressed their desire to take up
their residence again on the sea shore, and requested that one or
two European soldiers, with a teacher to instruct them in the tenets
of Christianity, might be left among them. For the latter in particular
they appeared to be extremely anxious. They also made several
other requests; on which I promised that the Netherlands'
government should watch over their interests, but that their
prosperity must depend chiefly on their own exertions.
From the account of the natives themselves, the sea coast
population of the island is far from being numerous, many of the
inhabitants having retired to the other islands after the destruction of
Sau. On the other hand, the mountaineers, who are called Arafuras,
are in great numbers, these simple people considering themselves
as the subjects of the inhabitants of the coast. The natives of the
north and east coasts of Wetta have a bad character, having
plundered and murdered the crews of two prahus a short time
previous to my visit to the island.
The Arafuras of the interior had been in a very unsettled state some
time past, all regularity of government having been put an end to by
the death of the Raja, Johannes Pitta, whose heir had retired with his
mother to the island of Kissa. The natives besought me in the most
earnest manner to summon this young man back to his native island,
and install him as their chief.
The two chiefs and several of the people, returned with me to the
brig, where I presented them with some cloth and a Dutch flag,
promising to promote their interests to the best of my power at Kissa,
towards which island, having nothing more to detain me here, I now
steered.
Kissa possesses only two anchoring places, one on the west, and
the other on the south-east side of the island. When seen from a
distance the land does not appear to be much elevated above the
level of the sea, but on a nearer approach it will be perceived that
the shores rise abruptly from the water, and are of a very rocky
nature. Small creeks and inlets are to be seen here and there, but
these will only admit prahus of a small draught of water. In former
times Kissa was the seat of the Dutch Residency of the south-west
islands,[9] and it is still the most populous of the group, the people
being also farther advanced in civilization than their neighbours.
In standing westward towards the roads, we ran close along the
south-west side of the island, where the violent breaking of the sea
against the steep shore, presented a very picturesque appearance;
but to us, who were at a very small distance from the land, the sight
was combined with something of the terrific. On the 13th of June we
anchored in a bight to the northward of the south-west point, on a
strip of sand and rocks, with very irregular soundings on it, and
moored the brig with a hawser made fast to the steep shore. The
beach was here flat and sandy, but was fronted by a reef, steep to
on the outer side, over which small prahus can go at the time of high
water. The inhabitants haul up their jonkos (trading prahus of about
twenty tons burthen) on the beach.
The natives hoisted a Dutch flag on our arrival, and several of the
chiefs came off to welcome us to their shores shortly after we had
come to an anchor. I soon went on shore, accompanied by M. Kam
and several of the gentlemen, when we found a multitude of natives
assembled on the beach to receive us, provided with litters to carry
us up into the country. The proofs of joy at our arrival, evinced by the
assembled crowd, were indeed striking in the extreme.
My attention was first directed to the fort Vollenhoven, which was
situated a little to the northward of our anchorage, in the middle of an
extensive level plain. The fort consisted of an inclosure about ninety
feet square, formed by stone walls ten feet high and three feet in
thickness, with a gate on the east side, and a bastion with four
embrasures on the south-west and north-east corners. This portion
of the fort was still in a good and serviceable state, but the interior
works and the building had all fallen to the ground, the greater
portion of the materials having been destroyed by the white ant.[10]
We found five dismounted cannon lying on the sea bastion, one a
one-pounder, and the others four-pounders, which were still in good
condition. The fort, with all its contents, were considered by the
natives as the property of the old East India Company, and for this
reason had been preserved untouched by the natives, who viewed
them as relics. They eagerly offered to put these, together with the
Residency House, which was much decayed, into repair, if a Dutch
garrison were again placed among them.
Marna, the chief village, which lies inland about half an hour's
journey from the fort, is approached by means of a pathway, shaded
by high trees, running along a deep valley. The village has an
appearance of great neatness, the houses, many of which have the
sides constructed of planks, being surrounded by gardens kept in the
greatest order; and, although the buildings are of different heights
and sizes, the village has by no means an irregular appearance. It is
enclosed on one side by a stone wall, and on the other three by live
hedges, or pagga fences. All the inhabitants profess the Christian
religion, and the large and well-built church in which they perform
their devotions is kept in a state of perfect order. The village
altogether presents a charming proof of the order, neatness, and
industry of the inhabitants, by which they have naturally arisen to a
greater state of prosperity than will be found in most other native
places. The whole island consists of clusters of hillocks, luxuriantly
clothed with herbage, the summits of which we often ascended to
enjoy the delightful prospect afforded by the villages and cultivated
fields spread over the country, the scene being enlivened by the
presence of men, women and children, busily pursuing their
avocations. Agriculture, however, is not so much attended to as
could be wished, as the natives are obliged to import rice and maize
from Wetta, but cattle and stock are in the greatest abundance.
The people of Kissa devote themselves chiefly to commercial
pursuits, carrying on a brisk trade with the neighbouring islands; and
in this point of view Kissa must be considered as the most important
in the group. Their commercial propensities, however, have been
disadvantageous to them as far as the improvement of agriculture is
concerned.
It had been arranged that a general meeting of the inhabitants
should take place on the 14th of June, to give me an opportunity of
making known to them the purport of my visit. At nine o'clock in the
morning of the day fixed on, I sent forward a detachment of twenty
armed European seamen to the village, under the command of one
of my officers, and soon afterwards I left the brig for the shore,
accompanied by Messrs. Ram and Dielwaart, with the officers of the
brig, the clerk and the interpreters, under a salute from the guns. The
natives received us on the beach with much ceremony, and
conveyed us in litters towards the town, amid the firing of lelahs and
the joyous shouts of the natives; these proofs of friendship being the
more agreeable from their evident sincerity.
To my great satisfaction, I found that nearly every chief of the island
was present at the meeting, and I was heartily welcomed by the
upper Orang Kaya in the name of them all. Immediately after this,
the entire multitude cried out simultaneously, "Tarima kasipada tūhan
Alla, Compania būlūm lūpa sama kami orang," ("Thanks be to God,
the Company have not yet forgotten us.")
The letter sent to them by the Governor of the Moluccas was now
read in a loud voice by the interpreter, under a salvo from the small
arms, according to the custom of the natives; and soon afterwards I
distributed among them the presents with which I had been furnished
for them by the Government. I have frequently observed, that the
natives never decide on any point at the moment, but consult with
each other until they have come to a determination. I therefore left
them for a time, that they might have their deliberations to
themselves. On my return, as I had expected, they expressed
themselves very thankful for the good wishes of the Government,
and earnestly requested that a small detachment of troops might be
established among them as formerly, and that the Government
would send them also a missionary or teacher to instruct them in the
tenets of Christianity, for whose maintenance they would amply
provide. I now, in the name of the Government, confirmed the
authority of the various chiefs, in token of which I delivered the
staves of office[11] formerly presented to their chiefs by the old East
India Company, into the hands of their successors. The chief Orang
Kaya, Zacharis Frederick Bakker, had in his possession a certificate
of chieftainship furnished him by the present Government, which he
requested me to inspect. I then presented him with one of the silver
knobbed staves I had brought with me, promising that the
Government would afterwards replace it with one provided with a
golden knob.
At this meeting, the fugitives from Wetta, (among whom was the heir
of the above-mentioned Orang Kaya, Pitta) were present. The chiefs
of Kissa promised henceforward to interest themselves in the affairs
of Wetta, in doing which they would be promoting their own welfare. I
also suggested to them how advantageous it would prove were they
to bring their productions to Banda and Amboyna, and gave them
much advice as to the best means by which they might increase their
prosperity. After this the assembly was broken up, amid a continued
firing of lelahs in all parts of the village.
In the meantime a long table had been laid out in the European
fashion, with plates, knives, forks and spoons, on which were placed
pastry, and other refreshments for our entertainment. The natives of
these parts are generally very partial to our national customs, and
are also desirous of following the Dutch fashions in their mode of
dress. I took my place at the table with the chiefs, while the seamen,
who were not forgotten, partook of a separate repast. I had brought
on shore several bottles of wine and liqueurs, which added greatly to
the conviviality of the meeting, many toasts applicable to the
occasion being given. Many of the natives, especially the more
respectable, spoke a few words of Dutch, and they took care to
make their knowledge apparent at every opportunity.
M. Kam having expressed a wish to perform divine service at the
church after the conclusion of the meeting, we entered this neat and
substantial building, where we found that every auditor was provided
with a proper seat, although, owing to our presence, the church was
very full. M. Kam gave a discourse in Malayan and Dutch. The
unbroken silence maintained by the auditors, their deep attention,
and the truly religious gravity which sat upon every countenance,
rendered the scene highly solemn and impressive. When the service
was over, about sixty of the natives, old as well as young, were
christened by M. Kam, who also united twelve couples in marriage.
The village church is ninety feet in length and forty in breadth, the
roof being elevated about, sixty feet from the ground. The costume
of the natives was rather singular. They had naturally clothed
themselves in their best on this important occasion, some wearing
old fashioned-coats with wide sleeves, and broad skirts; others
garments of the same description, but of a more modern cut, while
the remainder were clad in long black kabyas, or loose coats, the
usual dress of native Christians. The costume of those who were
clad in the old fashioned coats, was completed by short breeches,
shoes with enormous buckles, and three-cornered or round felt hats,
of an ancient description. Many of the women wore old Dutch chintz
gowns or jackets, the costume of the remainder being the native
sarong and kabya. The heads of the women were adorned with
ornaments of gold and precious stones, but the men wore their long
hair simply confined with a tortoise-shell comb, after the mode
adopted by the native Christians of Amboyna. These quaint
costumes acted as a considerable foil to the sedateness of the
meeting; but even the unpolished seamen did not commit
themselves by giving vent to their mirth, and the whole service was
performed amid the most perfect order and regularity.
After leaving the church we were invited with much kindness into
many of the private houses, and always found small tables laid out
with refreshments, the hosts endeavouring, to the best of their
power, to receive us with hospitality.
The people of Kissa are far in advance of those of Amboyna in point
of industry. Every house that we visited was surrounded by a garden,
laid out with much care, in which were planted Indian corn, tobacco,
cabbages, siri (piper betel), and various sorts of culinary vegetables,
while large herds of cattle were grazing in the valleys.
It was late in the afternoon when we made preparations to return on
board. We left the village attended by a multitude of the people, the
seamen walking in advance, with drums beating and colours flying,
while the officers and myself were carried in litters as before, the
kind-hearted and thankful islanders greeting us with blessings and
shouts of joy, accompanied by the firing of their lelahs.
On my return on board, I judged it inadvisable to remain under the
coast during the night, as we were anchored with a cable of gumuti,
(the hairy bark of the borassus gumutus), which is more liable to
chafe over the rocks than those of European hemp. Indeed, towards
evening the cable parted, which obliged us to stand off and on during
the night. Ships navigating these seas should always be provided
with chain cables. While the eastern monsoon prevails, the current
sets to the eastward, or to windward through these islands, from Dilli,
or Timor, as far as the island of Baba. This remark will be of value to
navigators, as by taking advantage of this weather current they may
work to windward through these islands with facility.
On the morning of the 15th I again went on shore, and, after visiting
the village, penetrated farther into the interior than I had previously
been. Proofs of the industry and orderly habits of the natives were
encountered at every step. My attention was particularly drawn to the
course of instruction adopted at the schools, where all the children,
under nine or ten years of age, assembled to learn reading and
writing, and the rudiments of Christianity.
I observed a strong partiality for a military life among the young men,
and there can be no doubt that, if well disciplined, they would prove
excellent auxiliary troops for the Government.
Having confirmed the appointment of several chiefs, and fulfilled my
duties in every particular, I took a friendly leave of the Orang Kayas
and the people, who brought on board a quantity of provisions and
fruit as presents, and firing some guns as a last farewell to these
good-hearted islanders, we shaped our course for the adjacent
island of Lette.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] These two native titles, the first of which signifies literally "rich
man," and the other "old man," or "elder," are the usual
designations of the chiefs among the Moluccan and the
neighbouring island. When these have become Christians, they
usually adopt European names, as Dirk-Cobus (Diderik-Jacobus),
the chief mentioned in the text, had done.
[9] This group is named in our charts the Serwatty Islands,
probably a native corruption of the Dutch term "Zuid-wester"
(south-western). As this name has long been recognized, we
have continued it here to avoid confusion.—Trans.
[10] These insects, which abound all over India, are very
mischievous, sometimes eating through and destroying a chest
and its contents in a single night. To prevent this the chests are
usually provided with feet, which are placed in small cups of
water, the ants having great dread of this element. On the other
hand, these insects do good service by destroying the carcases
of dead animals, and thus preventing them from polluting the
atmosphere.
[11] These staves of office were canes with silver or golden
knobs, on which were engraven the arms of the East India
Company and the name of the chief to whom they were delivered,
together with an appropriate inscription.

Master Tara Singh In Indian History Colonialism Nationalism And The Politics Of Sikh Identity J S Grewal full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Master Tara Singh In Indian History Colonialism Nationalism And The Politics Of Sikh Identity J S Grewal full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Master Tara Singh in Indian History:

Colonialism, Nationalism, and the

Literature of Girmitiya: History, Culture and Identity

Food, National Identity and Nationalism: From Everyday

Marginalized, Mobilized, Incorporated. Women and

Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the

The Snake and the Mongoose: The Emergence of Identity

Anglo-Indian Identity: Past and Present, in India and

The Politics of Marriage in Medieval India : Gender and

Contemporary Orangeism in Canada: Identity,

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

(p.i) Master Tara Singh in Indian History

(p.iii) Master Tara Singh in Indian History

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

© Oxford University Press 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

First Edition published in 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Typeset in ScalaPro 10/13

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holder of

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

Master Tara Singh, 20 September 1956

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

(p.v) To Punjabi University, Patiala,

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

1. Master Tara Singh as a young man 703

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

I have a memory of an incident that introduced me in a way to Master Tara

As a student of Sikh politics, and in touch with a number of friends among

After becoming Vice Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, I began to think of

was invited to be Professor of Eminence in the Department of Punjab Historical

I am thankful to Dr Grewal for undertaking this project on behalf of the Punjabi

Punjabi University, Patiala

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

Dr Jaspal Singh, Vice Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, persuaded me in

For the collection of source materials, both primary and secondary, I am

I am grateful to Professor Indu Banga, Professor Emeritus, Panjab University,

(p.xvii) Personal interest taken in this work by my daughters, Professor Reeta

Finally, I am thankful for the gracious permission received from Manohar

21 March 2017 (p.xviii)

Access brought to you by:

Master Tara Singh in Indian History: Colonialism,

Print publication date: 2018

Abstract and Keywords

Master Tara Singh’s autobiographical Merī Yād (My Recollections) was

Significantly, no professional historian or social scientist has undertaken a

In India after Independence, written jointly by Bipan Chandra, Mridula

S.S. Bal wrote a booklet to discuss ‘Sikh communalism as channelised by the

Talking of the paradox of ethnic identities and statehood, Raghuvendra Tanwar

Some scholars have reminded me that Master Tara Singh is a highly

(3.) Durlab Singh, ‘The Valiant Fighter’, p. 9.

(4.) Durlab Singh, ‘The Valiant Fighter’, p. 25.