Return to empire : the sikhs and the British in the Punjab, 1839-1872

Abstract

The thesis is a study of the political history of the Punjab between 1839 and 1872. Its purpose is to account for, and explain the significance of, the Punjab’s transition from Sikh kingdom to British imperial province. Early-nineteenth-century Punjab was essentially a frontier society, with vertical, clan-based political cleavages and a pronounced martial spirit. The Sikh kingdom, which emerged in the wake of the Mughal empire's collapse, was a military patronage state, whose structure reflected the nature of Punjabi society, and whose stability depended upon satisfaction of its chieftains’ ambitions through constant territorial expansion. When expansion stopped in the mid-1820s, tension ensued internally, especially after maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839. The British, who were in the process of building a new subcontinental empire, exploited these tensions, and in so doing, were drawn ever deeper into the kingdom’s domestic affairs. Punjabi collaboration and resistance determined the stages by which this penetration proceeded. A general crisis of authority in 1848 resulted in the annexation of the Punjab a year later after 1849 the British set about transforming the Punjab into a tranquil and prosperous territory. The cornerstone of their policy was the diminution of the privileges and influence of the old military and landed elites - in particular, the chieftains. but the imperial crisis of 1857-58 compelled the British to reverse their political strategy in 1857 the old, elitist military formations within Punjabi society were quickly revived - fortunately for the British, these formations were not yet extinct - and Punjabi collaboration enabled the British to survive the crisis. The decade after 1858 saw the institutionalisation of this reversal of policy. The attention of the old military and landed elites, having been turned outwards once again in 1857, was permanently diverted to the advantages of cooperation with the imperial state by the early 1870s, the Punjab was in many respects a changed region; but, as the subsequent political and economic history of the region shows, the old military and landed elites had managed to adapt themselves remarkably well to the changed political circumstances. the history of the Punjab between 1839 and 1872 is therefore essentially the story of the continuity - despite great vicissitudes - of an indigenous, dominant power structure and its system of values into (and, eventually, beyond) the period of European, colonial rule.