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Wealth and faith: recalling the roots of Dalip Singh

Following the auction of a collection of Sikh and other Indian memorabilia, Shyam Bhatia looks back over the life of Dalip Singh, Maharaja and heir to the Lion of Punjab.

By Shyam Bhatia

HEIR APPARENT: Dalip Singh was the youngest son Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab

The Christian duties of the last Maharaja of the Punjab, including his need to nominate a Christian heir, are contained in a controversial 1854 memorandum to Maharaja Dalip Singh that was recently sold at an auction in the UK.

Sir John Spencer Login, the author of the handwritten memorandum, was appointed by the East India Company — then the rulers of India — as guardian to the young and inexperienced heir of Ranjit Singh, shortly after he was deposed by the British in 1849.

Born in 1838, Dalip Singh was the youngest son of the Lion of the Punjab, Maharaja Ranjit. Following the infighting after Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, Dalip Singh was crowned in 1843, deposed in 1849, converted to Christianity in 1853 and exiled to the UK in 1854. The famous Kohinoor diamond, part of his inheritance from Ranjit Singh, was taken from him and given to Queen Victoria.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the British authorities at the time, Dalip Singh responded to the call of his Sikh roots some 33 years later. Helped by his cousin, Sardar Thakar Singh Sandhawalia, he returned to the Sikh fold in 1886 in the port of Aden during an unsuccessful attempt to return to India and the Punjab.

Login's memorandum is a timely reminder of the enormous efforts to brainwash Dalip Singh as part of a larger plan to prevent him from reclaiming his once powerful and extremely wealthy kingdom. It was a measure of the Punjab's importance (both strategically and financially) that when Login retired a few years later, he was granted an annual pension of £300, which today would be worth £800,000 pounds per year.

Not content with that generous allowance, Login then petitioned the East India company to be allowed to receive an even more generous settlement from Dalip Singh who 'in a very generous and considerate' move proposed an annuity of £1,000 per month. The East India company disagreed, stating: 'The receipt of any present of gratuity from a native of India and by any officer of the Company is prohibited. The arrangement cannot receive either the approval or the sanction of the Court of Directors [of the East India Company].'

In a final memorandum, the then Secretary of the East India Company noted the 'conscientious and efficient manner' with which Dr Login — a surgeon by profession — had discharged his duties as Dalip Singh's guardian and cited a letter from the then Secretary of State for India, Lord Stanley, 'ordering the most liberal interpretation of the order directing the cessation of your function and…the salary which you receive'. The memorandum added, 'He therefore sanctions the payment to you of your full salary up to the date of the Court's letter announcing to you that your functions had ceased.'

The memorandum is part of a larger collection of Sikh, Punjabi and other Indian memorabilia that was sold by Mullock's auctioneers in the English county of Shropshire. Among them was a German prayer book foisted on the young Maharaja, as part of the colonial powers' relentless efforts to persuade him to give up his religion, roots and homeland.

Other items put up for sale included 19th century maps of the Punjab, assorted prints of the Golden Temple, a seated statue of Ranjit Singh, a drawing of Guru Har Krishan, a pen and ink sketch of Guru Gobind Singh and a print of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who was hanged by the colonial authorities of the time for his revolutionary activities in 1931.

Some other objects of interest included a gold mohur — known as a Nanakshahl — minted in the last ten years of Ranjit Singh's reign. According to experts of the era, coinage was never issued in the name of the rulers, but always in the names of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.

Ranjit Singh's coins had the distinguishing marks of a tree leaf and later a peacock's feather. They were struck at Pind Dadan Khan, Jharig and Peshawar. The first of any newly struck coins were customarily sent to Amritsar as an offering at the Akal Takht holy shrine.

Also available to purchase was Captain J D Cunningham's History of the Sikhs, published in 1849, in which he reveals how some Sikh generals were in the pay of the British during the First Sikh War. For his efforts, Cunningham was demoted and died soon afterwards. This edition of his book was suppressed on the orders of the then Governor General, Lord Dalhousie.

In his 1854 memorandum Login tells Dalip Singh, 'By the Treaty of Lahore you have wisely given up your political position and pretension to sovereignty for yourself and your descendants.' He goes on to advise the Maharaja of the wisdom of remaining in England and marrying into a family of 'high character and befitting rank', adding that if he should have no children of his own he should adopt an heir 'who has been educated in and embraced the Christian faith'.

It was by his own choice that Dalip Singh married two Christian women. The first was Bamba, the illegitimate daughter of a German banker and his Ethiopian mistress, with whom he had six children, including two boys who were educated at Eton. After Bamba died in 1887 he married Ada Douglas Wetherill with whom he had two children. None of the eight children had any legitimate issue of their own. So to all intents and purposes, Ranjit Singh's dynasty ended with Dalip Singh.

For specialist collectors, one final item of interest was another memorandum — this one running to six pages — that detailed how Dalip Singh's ministers signed away his sovereignty in return for pensions and privileges for themselves. They included Gulab Singh who was allowed to purchase the 'Province of Cashmere' for Rs 68 lakhs. There was speculation at the time that the money for the purchase was sanctioned from Dalip Singh's surviving treasury.

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