Poet Shah Muhammad (1782-1862) composed his famous lay about the First Anglo-Sikh War. After the Second Anglo-Sikh War in Gujrat, Punjab was formally annexed by the East India Company on April 2, 1849. The wars of aggression Punjab faced have a long history. It’s as long as its civilisation.

The first well-known invaders or migrants that landed here were the Aryan tribes from the North West way back in time. We find their arrival, subsequent conflicts and intermingling with the Harappans well-documented in religious and historical literature. They proved to be the first drop of the rain that set in glacial erosion followed by unstoppable avalanches. Iranians, Greeks, Sakas, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols and British colonialists devastated Punjab and the lands beyond it. The Arabs reached Punjab after having trampled Sindh and the Turks descended like contagion from the North West after battering, what is now, Afghanistan. The last invaders i.e. the British who subjugated the sovereign kingdom of Punjab in mid-nineteenth century after conquering the rest of India proved to be the toughest. Driven by rational thinking, science and technology, they changed the face of our society for all time to come. But the extractive and coercive nature of their occupation never concealed their lust for riches and power.

Punjab bore the brunt of wars because it was the gateway to the subcontinent from the North. It was also a large fertile chunk of flatland because of its geography, water resources and weather. It was not just the foreign aggressors who laid Punjab waste but the locals, our neighbours such as Pathans, Sindhis and Purbias (UP people, Biharis Gorkhas and Bengalis) joined the foreign forces and fought against Punjab.

Poet Shah Muhammad’s lay titled ‘Jang Hind Punjab (Indo-Punjab War)’ aka ‘Jangnama’ describes the East India Company’s war against Punjab with disarming simplicity, poetic flair and historical accuracy from Punjab’s perspective. “Jang Hind Punjab da hon lagga… (Now starts the war between Hind and Punjab),” he says.

Shah Muhammad was not the first to touch the subject of foreign invasions. Baba Guru Nanak described in detail in his ‘Babur Bani’ the horrors committed by Babur’s army against the Hindu and Muslim men, women and children in an unending orgy of blood. “He descended from Kabul with his sinful wedding procession,” Baba Nanak says ironically. “Women’s beauty became their bane,” says another verse. Beautiful women, Hindu and Turkani (Muslim), were captured as slaves and sold in the markets of Kabul, Herat and Central Asia.

Apart from the Vars by Guru Nanak and Bhai Gurdas we have highly celebrated ‘Nijabat Di Var’ composed by inimitable poet Nijabat in the aftermath of Nader Shah’s brutal invasion of Punjab and Delhi in which he lambasted the invaders as well as the quislings. He likened the collaborators to men who lit the candle to show their house to the thief (Nader Shah). Another classical poet Ali Haider loudly and boldly named and shamed all those effete royals who failed to defend Punjab and India against foreign onslaughts.

“All the shameless Turks, Iranians and Toranis should find a puddle to get themselves drowned in for their failure to defend the homeland,” says Ali Haider.

Waris Shah’s Heer is full of references and allusions to the barbarians who invaded our land.

Shah Muhammad composed his lay on what is generally known as the First Anglo-Sikh War that had wide-ranging repercussions. Shah Muhammad lived in Amritsar district. He chose for his composition the poetic genre of Bait/Baint. It comprises more than one hundred Bait and each Bait has four lines. The first part of the poem describes the horribly chaotic situation marked by extreme uncertainty that followed the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Like elsewhere in the East there was no agreed upon mechanism of transfer of power in the case of the monarch’s death in the Lahore Durbar. Thus the death of the ruler would inevitably lead to palace intrigues, bloody scheming and machinations resulting in an anarchy-like situation. This was exactly what happened at Lahore Durbar. Sikhi Wiki describes the fraught situation thus: “The first forty five Baint (of the poem) describe the murderous intrigues which followed the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839. Dhian Singh Dogra, the prime minister, enticed Kanvar Nau Nihal Singh, the son of Kharak Singh, who succeeded Maharaja Ranjit Singh as the ruler of the Punjab. He set aside Maharaja Kharak Singh and got rid of his favourite Chet Singh who was murdered in his presence in his bedchamber.

This was the beginning of a bloody story of intrigue and murder which engulfed the prince as well as the courtiers. Maharaja Kharak Singh, his son Kanvar Nau Nihal Singh, Maharaja Sher Singh, and his son Kanvar Partap Singh fell victim to the intrigue. Dhian Singh himself was killed by Sandhanvalias who had murdered reigning Maharaja Sher Singh and his son Partap Singh within minutes of each other.”

Shah Muhammad then portrays the battle scene showing how bravely the Punjab’s army fought the white officers and Indian mercenaries of the East India Company. He thoroughly exposes how generals and bigwigs betrayed the brave soldiers who offered ultimate sacrifice in defense of their homeland.

“The armies on the cusp of victory lost it because of the absence of the regime (Shah Muhammad aik Sarkar bajhon, faujan jitt ke unt nu haarian ne),” says one of the verses. Absence of regime referred to the shenanigans of generals who stalled the reinforcement to the army when it was crucially needed in the battle. Betrayal by some key commanders proved fatal. The poet fondly evokes the memories of the bygone era when power of Lahore Durbar was at its apogee and the voice of the brave reverberated across the vast swaths of the kingdom. He wistfully reminisces about the communal harmony and sense of being one despite differences in faiths.

“How in the midst of Musalmaans and Hindus/living happily together has a scourge of sorts descended from nowhere? /For, O Shah Muhammad, never in the Punjab was a third caste ever known to have come, (translations Ni Jhawan)” the poet says. And this ‘caste’ the British, communalised history and politics whose spectre still haunts us. The poet calls it an Indo-Punjab War as it was actually Punjab versus the rest of India but the British declared it Anglo-Sikh War giving it a communal angle. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2024