We live in an age where gender and racial differences are increasingly being questioned, and rightly so. The quantum shift in the way people think about these issues have seen our history being researched and written in a more equitable manner.

Because of our communal mindset, coupled as it is with our tribal-feudal social norms ridden with our caste-plagued mental construct that rule our political-bureaucratic decision makers, change is at a minimum. Resources dedicated towards education, which Mr. M.A. Jinnah wished be at “20 per cent of our national resources” remains at less than 1pc. Skill training is barely to be seen. No wonder in the Middle East our workers are 96pc unskilled. Within the country a good indicator are the rare existence of libraries and archives, the best of which rot away. Hence research into gender and racial issues is rare.

This column is about the people, place, things and faces of Lahore, so we can start by asking just how many academic institutions of Lahore have lessons on the ‘History of Lahore’, let alone that of the Punjab. Our mother tongue – Punjabi – is shunned because of our colonial legacy. This remains an important drawback preventing us from climbing the ‘learning curve’.

Now let me delve into a recent event that concerned gender and the history of Lahore. Last week a ‘virtual’ group known as the Lyallpur Young Historians Club invited a British historian of Indian Punjab origin, Dr Priya Atwal, an Oxford PhD now teaching at Kings’ College, London, to speak on the role of Maharanis in the Rise and Fall of the Lahore Durbar.

Priya Atwal two years ago at a conference in Cambridge on ‘Lahore and its Historical Monuments’, read an amazing paper on Jahangir’s Tomb. Just last month she completed a book ‘Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire”. As Lahore is the playing field of the maharanis, let me dwell on their role, as I see it, in this brief discourse.

My analysis in this piece is different from Priya Atwal, for it concentrates on the strategic decisions with regard to territory and strategic moves in this regard and how the women in the maharaja’s life guided him upwards. These women have been ignored by historians for reasons we all know.

The very first maharani of Ranjit Singh was Mehtab Kaur of the Kanhaiya misl, which reigned supreme between the northern side of the Ravi and Sutlej. Ranjit Singh’s mother arranged this marriage to neutralise the growing threat to his Sukarchakia Misl from the north-east. This provided the young warrior with considerable armed strength. It was a woman’s foresight that started the building block to prevent warfare between the different misls.

But then the powerful Nakai Misl that reigned supreme in the south-west lands between these rivers, posed an equally lethal threat. So the mother moved and arranged a marriage with Datar Kaur, better known as Mai Nakain of the Nikai misl. Just for reference our former chief minister Sardar Arif Nakai was from the same Royal family. This sealed the Sukarchakia misl as the strongest in the Punjab backed by the Nakai and the Kanhaiya misls.

The remaining land between the Ravi and the Sutlej was ruled by the Bhangi misl that reigned over both Lahore and Amritsar, one being Punjab’s ancient capital and the other the holy city of the Sikhs. It was Mai Nakain who reasoned that capturing this critical territory was important for her son-in-law’s ‘predicted destiny’. There was another irritant, and that being the constant invasions by the Afghans who have always been traditional looters of the Punjab heartland and beyond.

The combined Sikh armies decided to drain the retreating Afghans of their looted wealth, which included women being taken as slaves. The women were all honourably released and sent home, while the hit-and-run guerrilla tactics reached such levels that the Afghans could no longer face the growing combined strength of the Sikhs.

In all fairness the Bhangis also played a major role in this long war against the greater enemy. In this all Sikhs and Punjabis were united. But once the Afghans were beaten Mai Nakain tried to arrange a marriage with the Bhangis. This failed. So she egged on Ranjit Singh to try to capture Lahore that was ruled by the Sikh triumvirate of Lehna Singh and Gujjar Singh of the Bhangi misl and Sobha Singh of the Kanhaiya misl. In his first attempt Ranjit Singh was defeated and retreated.

Then came the amazing role of Sada Kaur, the Kanhaiya misl leader after her husband Gurbaksh Singh had been killed fighting the Sukerchakia misl when it was headed by Ranjit’s father Maha Singh. Mai Nakain urged Sada Kaur to assist her son-in-law and she moved in leading her 5,000 horsemen. Sada Kaur had negotiated with major Lahore traders to open the gates and once opened the combined forces rushed in. In my books Lahore was captured more by Sada Kaur’s intelligence than by Ranjit Singh dare.

The roles of these two women - Mai Nakain and Sada Kaur - were responsible for the rise and rise of Ranjit Singh. The master consolidator Mai Nakain then moved to make peace with the defeated Bhangis. Her break came when a Bhangi prince Multana Singh took a fancy to one of her Muslim slave girls. She met Multana and negotiated a deal in which the two widows of Sahib Singh Bhangi, the young princesses by the name of Rattan Kaur and her sister Daya Kaur, were both married together to Ranjit Singh.

This in terms of territory meant that the entire land between the Ravi and the Sutlej from the northern Kanhaiya lands, to the Bhangi territory to the southern Nakai country, and to the west the Sukerchakia territory up to the Chenab River had been consolidated. Once this was done the Lahore Darbar became the strongest country in the sub-continent after lands to the east occupied by the East India Company (EIC).

Then came a series of marriages that in terms of logistics concentrated on the northern Kashmir, Kangra, Sialkot and Kartarpur areas. If the EIC wanted to move to the west via Kashmir, Ranjit Singh had them covered. There is no doubt that as he aged his preference took over and we see him marrying younger girls from humble backgrounds.

But then as his wives increased he decided that he could not trust men to guard him. So he set up a personal bodyguard group of women aged between 18 and 25. They were all trained in martial arts, as well as in music, dancing, the culinary arts and entertainment of special guests, especially those from the EIC. All of them, as one source claims, understood English, as well as understood wines, foods and western culinary manners. Till the end of his reign these ‘Amazon Guards’ took good care of their maharajah, who in turn rewarded them with good salaries and ‘jagirs’.

The role of women in our lives, as it was in the life of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, has been ignored. This is the dictate of the tribal-feudal mode that still reigns supreme. Education and skills have never been our priority.

But then the young scholars of today are exploring new aspects of our glorious past. If we wish more research then we will need more resources dedicated to learning, especially in our mother tongue, the language the colonial power deliberately crushed to render us rudderless. The local followers of that colonial tradition are still at it. But the power of the soil always prevails.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2020