The Dalrymple Trilogy and the long gap in the Anglo-Sikh war

2012-12-16T19:49:00.000+05:30

The following dates are very important in the Indian history, for how British subdued India lies somewhere around the events that took place around them.

1757: Battle of Plassey- Clive defeats Siraj –ud-Dawla, gains control of Bengal.
1760: Battle of Wandiwash- French lost their control of Deccan to British.
1761: Third Battle of Panipat- Marathas were defeated by Ahmad Shah Abdali. This does not wipe out the Maratha influence, but seriously cripples their reputation as an unconquerable force, who once ruled India, even beyond Punjab, to Attock in Pakhtoonistan. This war was an eye opener for the British, who were no longer scared of the Marathas.
1764: Battle of Buxar- British defeated Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud- Daula the Nawab of Awadh, Shah Alam II the Mughal Emperor. Treaty of Allahabad was signed, which gave Diwani Rights to the British East India company, to collect and manage revenues from the vast estate, that forms today’s West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Bangladesh.
1799: Fourth Anglo-Mysore war- British Defeated Tipu sultan. Having fought four wars with the Mysore rulers since 1767, British finally defeated Tipu Sultan in Srirangapattam, and gained control over the Empire of Mysore. Somewhere around 1790, British also succeeded in making the Nizam of Hyderabad, their puppet, leaving him and his descendants to rule Hyderabad till 1947 and to toe the British line.
1817-19: Third Anglo-Maratha war- British fought the first war with the Marathas in 1775-82
1848-49: Second Anglo-Sikh-war- British defeated the Sikhs and Annexed Punjab. The first Anglo-Sikh war was fought in 1845-46
1857: First war of Indian independence- British had already established themselves comfortably in India, North to South and East to the West. This war brought the country under the crown, bailing the East India Company out (I wonder if this was the first ever act of bailouts!).

I must say, there is something that has bothered me for a long time. Why is it that the British found it suitable to fight the rulers of Punjab so late? Look at the gap between the two major wars – almost 30 years (1817 – 1845). Annexation of Punjab would have given a complete control to the British long ago, as they could have well fought the Sikhs, two to three years after defeating the Marathas in 1819. Why did they take so long? In fact, British never had a conflict with the Sikhs in the 18^th century, whereas they had a major conflict with all the other major players, whether it was Marahas, Tipu or Nawabs, around the mid 18^th century.

The answer to this, I think, can be found in the interview of William Dalrymple – ‘A dress rehearsal for 1857’ by Mukund Padmanabhan, published in The Hindu Magazine on 16^th December 2012, that I have just finished reading. William Dalrymple in his latest work – ‘Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839- 1843’ Bloomsbury India, has highlighted the concern of the British on the growing influence of the Tsarist Russia in Afghanistan. According to him the British had exaggerated concerns that Russia, by backing Dost Mohammad Khan, would later on look forward to form an alliance with the Sikhs in Punjab to uproot the British from India. This may sound farfetched today. Russians, Afghans, Sikhs, who else Eskimos?! But British had reasons to feel sceptic. In 1799 they did intercept a letter from Napoleon to Tipu Sultan, in which Napoleon expressed his desire to help‘Tippu Sahib’ to ‘deliver you from the yoke of England’. Napoleon was stranded in Egypt at that time and was frantically looking for allainces. This letter of course never reached Tipu.

The British supported Shah Shuja against Dost Mohammad, and hoped he would act as their puppet, and Afghanistan will remain a buffer zone between Russia and British India (of 1830s). They did succeed in making Shah Shuja take over the throne for some time, but it did not last long. The first Anglo-Afghan war was fought in 1839-1843. In 1838, the British approached Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, to assist Shah Shuja to regain his throne in Afghanistan. He agreed, and a tripartite alliance was formed. However the Maharaja died in 1839. The British lost the war in 1843. Now is when the nightmare for the British would have begun. The rulers of Punjab were not their puppets, unlike Nizam of Hyderabad. In Nizam’s case the British had a complete control of his army, and he was content living a life of a debauch. This was not the case with the Sikh rulers of Punjab. And remember the gyan that Machiavelli gave long ago ‘...no permanent friends and ...No permanent enemies...’ Good rulers know the Machiavellian sutra instinctively and too well. It was now imperative for the British to fight and defeat the rulers of Punjab, for they could have formed a Russian- Afghan-Sikh alliance at their own convenience. So just within two years of their defeat in the first Afghan war, the British attacked Punjab in 1845, and finally defeated them in 1849 in the second Anglo-Sikh war, taking over the entire Punjab.

The British had territorial interests in Punjab. In 1831 they signed a treaty with Maharaja Ranjit Singh that would allow the British traders to use the waters of Sutlej River. So annexation of Punjab benefitted British in at least three different ways. First, now they can protect their interest in India on their own. Second they got a very fertile area which they could now use the way they wanted. And third, they got a very formidable human resource of the Punjabi-Sikh warriors, whom they deployed strategically in the second Anglo- Afghan war in 1878, along with Gurkhas. The glory earned by the Sikh warriors in the Battle of Saragarhi of 1897 draws parallels with the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae. Their valour is still celebrated by the Indian Army and their descendants are honoured till date.

However I must say in the end that Dalrymple doesn’t say this directly, but it’s just my strong hunch. I have another strong hunch however, that it may just be true!

Laptop's Password

2012-12-05T14:43:00.001+05:30

I take my laptop’s security a bit casually, largely because there is nothing particularly curious to be found in my laptop. At least nothing of the sort that once it becomes public can blow up that fragile thing called reputation. So when I bought my laptop in mid 2008 I casually set the administrator’s password as ... well .. ‘password’, and felt like it was the smartest act of the day. Who could have guessed that somebody’s password could be ‘password’? I was alright, that eureka moment became a fading memory over the course of some four years and I did many such ‘smart’ things all along the way.. until .... Until I came across an article in the TIME magazine ‘These Are the 25 Worst Passwords of 2012’ by Olivia B. Waxman, Oct. 25, 2012. This article has revealed a list of 25 ‘worst’ passwords compiled from the common passwords posted by hackers, by a company called SplashData, which makes password-management applications. Well the heartbreak of the day was that my ingenious little ‘password’ has topped the list. Yes pappu pass ho gaya! .. The article opens up as ‘If any of your passwords are on this list, then shame on you — and go change them now.’ I felt like, something between, the Spanish Knight whose inner sense of glory went crashing down and spilled, like an egg on the hard floor, when he was rudely told that the evil knights that he has overwhelmed were actually windmills ... and the proud Nazi POW who was the incharge of encrypting Third Reich's naval gameplans, suddenly came across Prof. Turing who greeted him by juggling the Bombe and the Enigma Machine .. Mein Gott ..schrecklich Katastrophe ..!!

P.S. In the wake of such disturbing events I have categorically changed my ‘password’ to ********* so rest assured it wont figure up in any TIME top 25 list for the next 25 years!

Random Reflections

The Dalrymple Trilogy and the long gap in the Anglo-Sikh war

Laptop's Password