harking back: Rise and fall of Lahore's rulers and the role of traders.

Byline: Majid Sheikh

We know so much about the rise of the Mughals but little about their fall. We know a lot about the rise of the Bhangi Triumvirate but little about their fall. The same is true of Maharajah Ranjit Singh but little about the fall of his descendants.

In the same way we know little about the betraying Sikh generals and the traders of Lahore who encouraged and communicated with the East India Company to capture Lahore. The fact is that our historians are fixated on events and personalities, not on the processes of the rise and fall of our rulers. In an earlier piece we had described just how these Bhangi Misl Sikhs captured Lahore. From 1767 right up to 1799 these three ruled, except for when the Afghans invaded and drove them away, only to face continuous guerrilla attacks by the highly mobile Sikhs horsemen.

The Bhangi trio consisted of Lehna Singh who controlled Lahore Fort and the walled city, Gujjar Singh from outer city right up to Shalimar Gardens and Sobha Singh lower Lahore right up to Niaz Beg. It was the rivalry between the Bhangi and Sukerchakia 'misls' that led to Lahore's fall and rise.

After the fall of the Mughals, the Afghans under Ahmed Shah Durrani time and again plundered the Punjab. They appointed their own Afghan governors to collect revenue, grain, gold and slaves. After the brutal massacre of Sikhs by Afghans outside Lahore's Delhi Gate, an urge for revenge ran through all Sikhs. It was in that context that these Afghans wreaked terror on the people and traders of Lahore. The Bhangi Misl were contacted by the Arain traders and farmers of Lahore, who managed through gardeners working in the fort to dig a hole in the wall to let the fierce Sikhs in. Thus the first Sikh rulers took control with the active assistance of Lahore's traders.

In between the Afghans kept returning, only to see the Sikhs flee, and in return to attack them all the way to and from Afghanistan. These attacks progressively weakened the Afghans. Unlike the popular perception that these Bhangi rulers merely drank and smoked 'bhang', the fact is that they were very sensible rulers. But then given their expenditures, especially on arms and soldiers, they were increasingly short of money. That is why they started looting the Arain traders, and planned to completely empty their coffers and food stocks.

Here was a situation where the ones who had brought in the Bhangis were now being robbed by them. The strength of the trading classes has...