As we research different aspects of Lahore’s history, no one source provides a better look - what to speak of a complete scan — of the Sikh era than does Sohan Lal Suri’s voluminous classic court document the ‘Umdat-ut-tawarikh’, which is in five ‘daftars’, or volumes.

Being mostly court documents, written in Persian, they bring forth thousands of incidents about life and people in the rise and fall of the Sikh empire. Surely such historians deserve a place in these columns, especially those who concentrate on what happened in Lahore and the Punjab. Sohan Lal was the son of Lala Ganpat Rai, the ‘munshi’ (clerk) of the Sukkarchakkia Misl, first under Sardar Charat Singh, then his son Sardar Mahan Singh, and then his grandson Maharajah Ranjit Singh.

So Ganpat Rai and then his son Sohan Lal Suri from 1811 onwards, have kept a complete record of what this Misl did. Their combined effort has brought forth a ‘history’ of the Punjab like very few have detailed. My interest initially was in Sujan Rai Bhandari’s ‘Khulasat-ut-Twarikh’ which covers the rulers of Lahore from the Hindushahi rulers of the 10thcentury right up to Aurangzeb in 1704. Such a detailed history of our city cannot be had elsewhere, not even the three major books on Lahore of Kanhiya Lal, SM Latif and M Baqir.

Just who were these amazing historians? All of them belonged to the Khukhrain ‘biradari’ allegedly descended from Raja Khokhar Anand, a 12th century ruler of Lahore. They were famous throughout the sub-continent for their intelligence, scholarship and education. One source tellingly describes that “they live off their wits”. Among the sub-clans were Suri, Sahni, Chadha, Kohli, Sethi, Anand, Bhasin, and Sadarwal. Just to connect our lucid Najam Sethi, highly educated and very intelligent, belongs to the same clan.

As Sohan Lal himself writes he was well-versed in Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, mathematics, astronomy and numerology. He took up historiography in line with what his father and other family members did. They believed in the ancient Punjabi saying that with mathematics comes logic and with languages comes information, which can be logically transmitted. Europeans call it ‘wisdom’.

Though his magnum opus remains ‘Umdat-ut-Twarikh’, his poetic work ‘Ibratnamah’ describes in detail the murders in 1843 of Maharajah Sher Singh, Raja Dhian Singh and the Sandhanwalia sardars. He has also written smaller manuscripts concerning different courtiers of Maharajah Ranjit Singh and his ancestors. We also learn of how Fakir Syed Azizuddin, the foreign minister of the maharajah, introduced Sohan Lal to the British agent in Ludhiana. On his request we also learn that on Fakir Azizuddin’s suggestion Sohan Lal was allowed to frequently visit Wade allegedly to read out to him his ‘Umrat-ut-Twarikh’.

We know that a copy of an English translation lies in the Royal Asiatic Society Library in London, while the original lies somewhere in the debris of the amazing Punjab Archives in Lahore. The condition of the Lahore Archives defies description, and in my view a total disgrace to our way of life. All efforts to save them from ultimate destruction have failed to move Punjab’s rulers, more so the bureaucrats. Naturally, no money is to be made in such a critical exercise, whose end result could well be Lahore being on the world archive map.

Lala Ganpat Rai and his entire Suri family were brought to Lahore by Maharajah Ranjit Singh from their Gujranwala house of Sukkar Chak village when he captured Lahore in 1799. So the sword alone was not an instrument used by Ranjit Singh. Illiterate like Akbar the Great though he was, he fully understood the utility of scholarship.

The first thing on reaching Lahore was for the maharajah to award the Suri family a ‘haveli’ inside Mochi Gate at Chohata Mufti Baqir. This area is near the mosque of Wazir Khan, where in the quarters inside the mosque gateway sat calligraphers and leather book binders. In its days it produced some great manuscripts which today lie in museums all over the world. Just for detail as you enter, to the right side where today sits the ‘patwari’, was the office of Ganpat and Sohan Suri.

There is just one question mark on the career of Lala Sohan Lal Suri. After Fakir Azizuddin introduced and got him permission to twice a week visit Wade in Ludhiana, the records of the East India Company state that he was recruited as a spy. On the other hand just why would the maharajah plant his own court recorder of events there? It is a loaded question the answer to which we will never know.

This assertion has been further cemented by the fact that after the British took over in 1849, Sohan Lal Suri was awarded an annual ‘jagir’ of Rs1,000 a year, and this was in a time when gold sold for Rs12 a tola. By present day standards this would be approximately Rs800,000 a month. The village of Manga near Amritsar, awarded to him by Ranjit Singh, was again confirmed.

But let us return to one aspect of what Sohan Suri describes in his ‘daftars’ on how Ranjit Singh worked hard on converting his Sukkarchakkia Misl from a local warring family and ‘misl’ chief into a Royal dynasty. He details how he tried hard to make others recognise that he and his family were royalty. These efforts were exactly the opposite of what the Sikh faith preached of equality and simplicity, and in this effort he faced considerable opposition within various Sikh ‘misls’. The numerology skills of Sohan Suri devised a plan to marry into each and every ‘misl’ leaders’ family, an amazing strategy to neutralise opposition within the Sikh misls.

With each marriage he awarded the brothers and relatives of his wives with ‘jagirs’ on the promise of them merging their soldiers into the Punjab Imperial Army. Not only did each marriage reduce opposition, but added to his armed strength. But the merger had a condition, and that being that they had to undergo training by French soldiers in modern warfare and strict military discipline, which was a weak point of the Sikh misls.

He explains the death of the maharajah as being the result of not following modern European medical advice. His impulsive trust in ancient medicines and quacks, which was the norm in those days, ended in his death. That aspect of events is better explained by the book ‘35 Years in the East’ by Dr Martin Honigberger, the maharajah’s physician, who was provided WITH a huge house in Tehsil Bazaar.

The role of the maharajah’s marriages and his queens and concubines in extending his connections, the manner in which he handled foreign affairs, his use of intelligence, and scores of strands in the rise and fall of the Sikh rule in Lahore surely needs much more research. In Lahore where it all took place we must use all available manuscripts of the past lying in our decaying archives. In the end it will help us be a better people.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2020