After the mutiny in 1857, the most important administrative change as far as Punjab was concerned was the adhesion of Haryana and Delhi to the province. The new districts were not inhabited by people who did not speak Punjabi nor had the Punjab’s spirit of enterprise. Their way of life and their values were as different from those of the Punjabis as their economy. Most of Haryana was a desert woefully deficient in food. Delhi was a commercial city with little common with pastoral Punjab. This misalliance created difficulties for subsequent governments.
John Lawrence was the first Lieutenant Governor of Punjab who occupied the post for a month and was succeeded by Robert Montgomery.
* The prosperity ushered in by the development of the canal colonies in Punjab and the preference shown towards the Sikhs in recruitment to the Imperial Army had an important bearing on the future and the caste complex of the community. The economic advantages of being a Sikh checked the disintegration of Sikhism and its lapse into Hinduism. On the contrary, the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, saw a phenomenal rise in the number of Sikhs. This was due largely to the patronage of the government which required posts reserved for Sikhs in the army to be filled exclusively by the “Kesadhari” Khalsa. It was the baptized “Kesadhari? Jats who had been the chief instruments of the Sikh rise to power and consequently became the landowning aristocracy during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Under British rule, Jats maintained their position as the premier caste among the Sikhs.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 17, 1987
