The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia Read online

  First published in Tranquebar by Westland Publications Private Limited in 2019

  1st Floor, A Block, East Wing, Plot No. 40, SP Info City, Dr. MGR Salai,Perungudi, Kandanchavadi, Chennai 600096

  Tranquebar, the Tranquebar logo, Westland and the Westland logo are the trademarks of Westland Publications Limited, or its affiliates.

  Copyright © Sarbpreet Singh, 2019

  ISBN: 9789388689472

  All rights reserved

  The views and opinions expressed in this work are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publisher is in no way liable for the same.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  THE CAMEL MERCHANT OF PHILADELPHIA

  GAME OF THRONES: THE AFGHANS AND THE SIKHS

  THE RISE OF THE SUKERCHAKIAS

  THE TIMELESS WARRIOR

  THE DANCING GIRL OF LAHORE

  ‘LAHURE’

  FROM WATERLOO TO LAHORE

  THE RISE OF THE DOGRAS

  A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

  MURDER MOST FOUL: THE TRAGEDY OF SHER SINGH, PRINCE OF LAHORE

  THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE SIKH EMPIRE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  REFERENCES

  INTRODUCTION

  The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia came into being quite serendipitously. Growing up in Gangtok, Sikkim, far from Punjab, the Sikh homeland, I did not have much of an understanding or appreciation of Sikh history. There were hardly any Sikhs in Sikkim; other than a few army officers and civil servants who would be posted there occasionally, there were literally two Sikh families in Gangtok! My high school history books mentioned Sikhs only in passing and I never really learned about Maharaja Ranjit Singh or his empire.

  I left India for the U.S. as a young man to attend graduate school and then stayed on to build a career in technology and business. I was in my mid-twenties, when quite by chance I happened upon a copy of History of the Sikhs, written by J.D. Cunningham, a Scotsman who served the East India Company, in 1849. By then I had read a few books on Sikh history, but I found Cunningham’s work to be particularly engaging, especially the sections of the book that addressed events in the nineteenth century, which the author was an eyewitness to. That was my first memorable encounter with the romance and tragedy of the Sikh empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his colourful court, the Lahore Durbar.

  Several years later, teaching history at Sunday school to Sikh teenagers born in the diaspora, I had the opportunity to revisit the stories that had captivated me so, as a young man. Teaching history to a group of jaded teens can be a challenging task and one summer, I decided to write a play about the life and times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, hoping that it might spark their interest. This led me to start collecting references and on a visit to Amritsar, I ventured into the well-known Singh Brothers bookshop and managed to acquire a translation of the Umdut Ut Twarikh, an account of the Lahore Durbar written in Persian by Sohan Lal Suri, the court’s official diarist and scribe.

  Embedded in the quotidian accounts of the dealings of the Durbar and the administration, I started to find little anecdotal nuggets that made the personalities that peopled Ranjit Singh’s court truly come alive. The result of my efforts was a Punjabi play named Sarkar, which I then proceeded to direct and present with my teenaged students portraying the Maharaja, his courtiers and his family. All those teenagers are now busy professionals and while I am sure that they have forgotten most of what they learned at Sunday school, I like to think that the stories of the Lahore Durbar have stayed with them because of their participation in the play.

  My thoughts would often return to the stories I had read: the improbable rise of Ranjit Singh, the scion of a petty fiefdom, to dizzying heights of power; the influence that his mother-in-law, Sada Kaur had on him and the outsized role she played in his success despite living in a patriarchal society where women were practically powerless and their falling out and her miserable end; the larger than life characters of Ranjit Singh’s time such as the obstreperous Akali Phoola Singh who served Ranjit Singh but feared and obeyed none save the Divine.

  Particularly fascinating to me were the accounts of the European and American adventurers who were drawn to Ranjit Singh’s court and served him with great distinction: the chevaliers Jean Francois Allard and Jean Baptiste Ventura, who created the Durbar’s vaunted French Legion and went on to become his most trusted generals; the adventurer Alexander Gardner, who was eyewitness to many tumultuous events in the history of the empire; the Quaker, Josiah Harlan, an interesting character who had improbable adventures in Punjab and Afghanistan and who is the subject of the title story.

  The breathtaking collapse of the empire after Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death, to me, seemed as gripping as any Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. Surely, the tales could not have been more compelling if the Bard himself had crafted them!

  In a conversation with my friend and mentor, T. Sher Singh, a writer who holds the distinction of being the first turbanned Sikh attorney in Canada, I remember sharing my fascination with the Durbar with him and musing that these stories would be perfect for films and television in particular, given the global openness today to embracing compelling stories regardless of their origin. He then suggested that I write a novella that could form the basis of a screenplay or a multi-part television series.

  This conversation sent me back to seek more references for my research and pretty soon, I was knee-deep in first person accounts by travellers who had visited the Lahore Durbar and had witnessed its glory and its idiosyncrasies with their own eyes. This work was informed by my immersion in the writings of travellers like Victor Jacquemont, Baron Charles Hugel, Rev. Joseph Wolffe, Mohan Lal Kashmiri and several others. The accounts of Alexander Gardner, Colonel Steinbach, Dr. Honigberger and others who served the Durbar and those of British visitors such as W.L. McGregor, W.G. Osborne and George Carmichael Smyth provide much of the colour in these stories. I also read accounts of Maharaja Ranjit Singh written in Punjabi, most notably Raj Khalsa by Gyani Gian Singh and Sher Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh by Baba Prem Singh Hoti Mardan, which provided a somewhat different perspective.

  After the fall of Ranjit Singh’s empire and its annexation by the British, many more accounts were written by the victors, laden with every form of calumny, most likely in justification of the usurping of an ally’s kingdom. In sharp contrast, Sikh writers later wrote glowing hagiographies of Ranjit Singh’s reign, celebrating what they saw as a golden period in Sikh history.

  The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia: Stories from the Court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is an examination of Ranjit Singh and his time through a study of the colourful characters who populated his court. All these stories combine to present a nuanced and complex image of Maharaja Ranjit Singh through his interactions with these characters. The ultimate objective of this work is to humanise Maharaja Ranjit Singh and present him as the brilliant man he clearly was, without attempting to gloss over his flaws and foibles.

  The novella is still unwritten, but the stories were so engaging that I was impelled to document my research in the form of this book. It is my fond hope that these stories will eventually make their way into a television series which will bring them to a much broader audience.

  THE CAMEL MERCHANT OF PHILADELPHIA

  On Saturday, March 3, 1855, the 33rd Congress was in session. Franklin Pierce was President and Jefferson Davis, his Secretary of War.1 The records of the second session docu
ment the passing of a statute which had been instigated by Davis, stipulating that a sum of $30,000 be sanctioned for ‘the purchase of camels and importation of dromedaries, to be employed for military purposes.’2

  Congress had earlier refused to make the desired appropriation but in December of 1854, Davis renewed his request for money to introduce camels into the US army, especially in the rugged frontier regions. This time around, Senator James Shields, the Democrat representative of Illinois, led the charge and secured the amount of $30,000 for this purpose.

  One of the main advocates for the Camel Corps was a Quaker from Pennsylvania, who greatly influenced Jefferson Davis in his quest to get funding from Congress. His interest was commercial and his hope was that he would be called upon to serve as the agent for the procurement of camels from Afghanistan.

  His name was Josiah Harlan.

  The story of the Camel Corps did not end well, at least for Harlan. Harlan was deeply disappointed when Davis decided to turn to the Middle-East and not to India where Harlan had his contacts, to procure the camels, putting an end to his cameline dreams of profit.

  Josiah Harlan was born in Newlin Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania on 12 June, 1799. His parents, Joshua Harlan and Sarah Hinchman, were Quakers, and Josiah and his nine siblings were raised in a strict and pious home. His father was a merchant in Philadelphia and several of his sons would end up as merchants as well. Josiah’s destiny, however, was to be very different. When his mother died, she left a $2000 inheritance to her three daughters. Harlan and his six brothers, on the other hand, were expected to build their own fortunes.3

  The Quakers, who originated in seventeenth-century England, were dissenting Protestants who broke away from the Church of England. They emphasised a direct relationship to God through Jesus Christ and and were committed to a private life that emphasised emotional purity. They were also known to be pacifists and had often refused to serve as combatants during times of war.

  Harlan, however, defied the stereotypes usually associated with Quakerism. Harlan left Philadelphia for the first time when he was around twenty-one on a ship bound for Calcutta, Canton and Shanghai, leaving his sweetheart, Elizabeth Swain, behind. When he returned some months later, he discovered that she had found another man in his absence. Heartbroken and chagrined, the young man set sail again and ended up in Calcutta, where the British East India Company was headquartered. The Company was about to get involved in a war in Burma and needed surgeons. Lacking a formal medical training, Harlan presented himself to the medical board for examination and through self-study, even managed to pass! He was appointed surgeon to the Calcutta General Hospital and for the next two years, served in Burma until he was injured and sent back.

  After he had recovered, Harlan was posted to Karnal, north of Delhi. Restless and eager to make his fortune, he started chafing at the business of taking orders and decided to leave the Company’s employment. Harlan had always had an ambivalent attitude towards his employer; while he had a romantic love for the pomp and ceremony of the British monarchy, which the Company represented, he was fiercely independent and very proud that his country was a republic. Right around this time, he stumbled upon a colourful account of Afghanistan, written by Mountstuart Elphinstone, a representative of the East India Company. 4 Harlan was fascinated by the account of the Afghan court and had a deep desire to observe a real monarchy in operation. The Indian rajas that he had encountered seemed to wield no real power and were effectively puppets of the Company.

  Harlan travelled to Ludhiana, a border outpost of British India on the Sutlej river, which formed the border between Ranjit Singh’s empire and British India at the time. Having heard tales of well-paid European officers serving in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he decided to seek his fortune in Lahore. In Ludhiana, while awaiting permission to cross the Sutlej, for no foreigners were allowed to enter the Maharaja’s kingdom without his permission, he met the exiled Afghan king Shuja Shah al-Mulk, the grandson of Ahmed Shah Abdali, who had terrorised Punjab in the seventeenth century.

  Harlan’s next adventure was about to begin.

  When Harlan stumbled upon Shah Shuja in Ludhiana, Dost Mohammad of the Barakzai clan was ruling Khorasan. Shah Shuja, who had already made other failed attempts to recover his throne, was persuaded by Harlan to recruit him into his service. In his memoirs, Harlan claimed that Shah Shuja conferred upon him the lofty title ‘Mukarrib-ul-Khakan Unees ud-Dowlah Bahadur’ (Companion of the Imperial Stirrup and dearest friend of the Empire and the Brave) and tasked him with helping him win his throne back. On October 15, 1827, Harlan left Ludhiana for Peshawar and Kabul as Shah Shuja’s ‘secret agent’ to hatch a plot to depose Dost Mohammad. Travelling in disguise as a darvesh or Sufi Muslim holy man, he arrived in Kabul, and sought refuge in the home of Jabar Khan, one of Dost Mohammad’s brothers, who was inimical to him. Harlan posed as an agent of the British government, rather than disclosing that he was in the service of Shah Shuja. In Kabul, Harlan concluded that Dost Mohammad’s position was too strong; giving up his plans, he decided to seek his fortune in Lahore again, his mission for Shah Shuja swiftly forgotten.

  Harlan appears in the accounts of various travellers and Company officials who visited Punjab during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. One of them was the Reverend Joseph Wolff who visited India in 1832.5

  Born a Jew in Germany, Joseph Wolff converted to Christianity and became a wandering preacher, publishing several journals documenting his adventures in India and Central Asia. In 1828, Wolff set out to search for the lost tribes of Israel, travelling through Anatolia, Armenia and Afghanistan to Punjab, suffering many hardships along the way, but preaching with enthusiasm.6

  In June 1832, Wolff found himself in Gujrat, a kingdom within the dominions of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.* When he arrived, he was taken to the palace of the governor, who had been expecting him as it was customary for all foreign visitors to report to the Maharaja’s provincial governors to state the purpose of their visit. Much to his surprise, when he entered the palace, he heard someone singing ‘Yankee Doodle’ in a nasal voice that had an unmistakable American twang. Wolff described the governor as a tall, fine-looking man, impeccably dressed in European clothes and smoking a hookah. When Wolff somewhat incredulously asked him how he knew the song, the governor somewhat grandiosely proclaimed: ‘I am a free citizen of the United States of North America, from the State of Pensylvania, and the city of Philadelphia. I am the son of a Quaker. My name is Josiah Harlan.’

  Harlan had arrived in Lahore in March of 1829 and had first sought out the Maharaja’s French general, Jean Francois Allard, who was a great favourite at court. Ranjit Singh, always fearful of the Company’s designs, was extremely wary of Englishmen, suspecting that they might be spies. However, Allard and other European officers had won his confidence and had risen to positions of importance. When Harlan expressed a desire to serve the Maharaja, Allard warned him that the process would be slow. Winning the Maharaj’s trust was no easy task! Introduced by Allard to the Mahajara, Harlan started lobbying for a position. He was readily offered a military command, which he politely declined as he had his sights on something more lucrative. His opening came somewhat serendipitously, thanks to his medical expertise. It turned out that the Maharaja was a hypochondriac, given to turning to every possible source of medical advice and treatment. Harlan seized upon the opportunity and started a medical practice in Lahore with the monarch as his primary patient! This gave him the opportunity to build a relationship with the Maharaja and lobby for an administrative role.

  In December 1829, Ranjit Singh decided to appoint him governor of the kingdoms of Nurpur and Jasrota, small principalities in the Himalayan hills that had been annexed by Lahore. These were unimportant territories and governing them was to be Harlan’s test. Ranjit Singh was quite satisfied with his performance as governor. In May 1831, he was asked to swear an oath of perpetual loyalty to the monarch and was appointed governor of Gujrat, which was a more i
mportant territory. The appointment came with a warning. He was to be paid the princely salary of three thousand rupees a month, which would be raised if he was successful. If he failed, he would forefeit his nose! Wolff observed that the governor of Gujrat must have been doing a reasonably good job because when he met him, his nose was still intact.

  By 1834, the Sikh forces, led by Hari Singh Nalwa, had occupied the strategic city of Peshawar on the Afghan border, which had earlier been in the hands of the Afghans. In 1835, Dost Mohammad took the title of Emir of Afghanistan, which conferred spiritual authority upon him to wage war on unbelievers, and decided to launch a jihad against the Sikhs to recapture Peshawar. Ranjit Singh entrusted Harlan with the delicate task of negotiating with Sultan Mohammad Khan, Dost Mohammad’s brother and former ruler of Peshawar, to strike an alliance with him and win over his 10,000-strong army of Afghan tribesmen to Ranjit Singh’s side.

  Mohan Lal Kashmiri, one of the first locals to receive an English education in Delhi, and munshi (secretary) to the celebrated British traveller and adventurer, Sir Alexander Burnes, who passed through Peshawar on his travels, paints an unflattering potrait of Sultan Mohammad Khan in his memoir:

  Sultan Mohammed Khan, the present governor of Peshawer, commonly called Sardar, is a man of middle stature. He has passed the meridian of life, and is fond of pleasure. He is notorious for his lewdness, and is always surrounded by females, both married and unmarried. He is careless of his country and government, and always employed in adorning himself with splendid and precious robes, on account of which he is called Sultan Bibi.7

  Harlan was successful in his diplomatic efforts and ‘Sultan Bibi’ was duly recruited into Ranjit Singh’s service against his brother, Dost Mohammad, who had started to advance towards Peshawar at the head of a host of 50,000.

  After Sultan Mohammed Khan’s betrayal became apparent, Dost Mohammad dispatched one of his ablest commanders, Nawab Jabbar Khan to pre-empt his defection. Harlan was with Sultan Mohammed Khan when Nawab Jabbar Khan arrived, followed by the Emir. Everything was up in the air at this point. Sultan Mohammed had defected, but was careful to not make it apparent to his brother, Dost Mohammad, instead preferring to continue to swear allegiance to him, atleast in his presence.