The Tribune of October 25, 1893 reported the death of Maharaja Dalip Singh in the following evocative words:” As we are going to press, we heard the sorrowful news of the death of Maharaja Duleep Singh. When he the son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh died, there was no one with him to close his eyes. The sad event occurred at a hotel in Paris and the cause of death was epilepsy. Could anyone have foreseen such a dark and mournful end of the son of Lion of Punjab?”
The countdown to this “dark” end was planned and executed with meticulous care by the British rulers of India. The British left nothing to chance happening which could upset the applecart of the Victorian Empire that had over panicked when the maharaja, on becoming aware of his legacy, raised the standard’ of rebellion with a soul stirring message sent in 1887 to his countrymen that “Aryavarta shall once more be free.”
Dalip Singh, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was born on Sept, 4, 1838. He ascended the throne at the age of five, after bloody struggles for succession the sons and grandsons of lion of Punjab” who had passed away in 1839. Because he was a minor, his mother Rani Indan, became his regent, but the real power laid somewhere else. Following the pattern of medieval polity Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was otherwise so modem in his statesmanlike outlook, had built ‘up a power structure that was unified in his person alone. Consequently, when the Maharaja passed away, the power structure suffered fragmentation, with the new power centers emerging in the process. The Royal household, the Lahore Durbar, the Khalsa Army and the Sikh feudal each one worked at cross-purposes. This situation provided an excellent opportunity for British who were determined to annex Punjab on any pretext. ‘The British employed such a tactics as betrayal of trust, deceit, treachery, planting of false stories, rumors and underhanded deals struck with the potential traitors among the Dogra chiefs in the Lahore Durbar.
In pursuance of their perfidious designs, the British Governors in India, encouraged by their secret understanding with the traitorous elements in the Lahore Kingdom, managed to provoke two Anglo Sikh wars. The First War in 1845 resulted in partial dismemberment of the Sovereign Sikh State; the Khalsa Amy that fought valiantly but lost due to the enemy within. After some time, under the Treaty of Bhairowal, that was signed on December 16, 1846, Maharaja Dalip Singh was brought under the British guardianship during his minority. The British rulers being apprehensive about the influence wielded by Maha Tani Jindan, banished her to U.P. from where she dramatically escaped to Nepal, getting political asylum there. The banishment of Maharani Jindan from Punjab was also a part of the design of the British to keep young Dalip Singh away from his mother who wanted her son to be reared up in Sikh values and traditions. When after some years, she was permitted to go to England, Rani Jindan was forced to live separately away from her son. Maneuvering an alibi for another Anglo Sikh War, the British resident at the Durbar first in stagnated are billion in Multan province of the Kingdom and then allowed it to swell and flare up. This led to Second AngloSikh War. The British perfidy was very clear. The guardian marches in the name of his ward (Maharaja Dalip Singh) to quell the self-instigated Multan rebellion and in the end it is the ward who is punished and forced to resign “a claim to the sovereignty of Punjab” under the Treaty of 1849 as dictated by the then British Governor General, Dalhousie. The dethroned Maha Taja is exiled to Fatehgarh in UP with a view to physically removing him from his people, and men tally alienating him from his religious and cultural moorings. He was persuaded by his English tu tor, John Login, to embrace Christianity while still a minor at the age of 12. The political scene in the British India was showing Strong resentment against the colonial rule. Dalhousie, the Governor General, thought it prudent to remove the young Maharaja from India, who was packed off to En gland in 1854. But much to the disliking of Dalhousie, Queen Victoria treated the Maharaja with Tare fondness and the Royalty respected and accepted him as an equal member of the family, However, the British rulers in India Saw to it that the young Maharaja would not marry a Sikh or even an Indian girl because that could arouse in his heart the nostalgia for his past glory and power. While on his way back from Bombay, where he was permitted to go for the cremation of his mother’s body Maharaja Dalip Singh found his Arabic speaking bride named Bamba Muller at Cairo. The Ma haraja took his wife to live at Elveden estate in England. Despite his English education, con version to Christianity, Royal treatment, luxurious lifestyle, the rebellious Sikh spirit, that had tasted sovereignty, was hibernating in some remote recess of the sub conscious mind of Maharaja Dalip Singh who on gaining self-aware ness underwent a metamorphosis that turned him into a rebel. He sailed for India to be with his own people but was arrested at Aden from where he went to Europe. With his innate political acumen, he glanced over the international horizon, established secret contacts with the Punjab as well as the Irish revolutionaries and realized that he has fair prospects of getting Russian support for his long march to his beloved and enslaved country, He reached St. Peters burg traveling under the name of Patrick Casey, an Irish revolutionary, who had helped him in getting Russian contacts. Before his contemplated march to India Maha raja Dalip Singh reentered Sikh religion by baptismal sacrament taking holy Amrit at Aden. In his first Proclamations issued by him, he asserted himself to be “The lawful Sovereign of the Sikh Nation” in his second Proclamation from Paris in 1886, he declared that he had “annulled that treaty of annexation of Punjab which was extorted from us and our darbar, when we were of tender age. In his third Proclamation, he hoped that the “rising young India shall enjoy both liberty and self-government soon.” But the destiny willed it otherwise. His health broke down and he suffered an epileptic it in a lonely room of Grand Hotel in Paris. It seems, a belated realization, that his second wife, Ada, ‘was perhaps a planted spy for monitoring his activities causing a mental shock that hastened his “dark and mournful end” on Oct. 22, 1893.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 4, 1996
