Requiem For The Royal Charge

This book is available in the digital format (BK-000900) in the vast repository of rare books in the Punjab Digital Library. Although Lady Login corroborates the much publicised and recorded British version of completely voluntary adoption of Christianity by the adolescent Sikh prince without any coercion and outside influence, the letter dated March 14, 1853 written by Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor General of India to Dr. Login reveals the real intentions and designs of the British. Congratulating Dr. Login on the successful completion of Maharaja Duleep Singh's baptism, he writes: "Let me add that under circumstances of peculiarly great delicacy and of great difficulty, I have been most highly satisfied with the judgement and discretion, the prudence and kindly tact which have been exhibited by yourself through them all." (Page 98)

We get a feel of similar conspiracy, intrigue and duplicity of the British towards the captive Sikh Maharaja throughout his stay in England and his desperate efforts to return to India after returning to the faith of his Sikh ancestors and demanding the restitution of his legitimate rights and financial assets as stipulated in the treaty of Lahore at the time of his succession. Feeling "the inexpressible pain" of witnessing "the slow attrition of the work of my husband's energies and devotion" and "the continual moral deterioration" of Maharaja Duleep Singh (p. 256) whom she had continued to nourish, groom and refine along with her own children for thirty years even after the death of Dr. Login, Lady Login feels compelled to intercede on behalf of her royal charge with Queen Victoria. Her series of thirty eight letters and petitions to the queen to shield her ward from the indignities and financial deprivation being perpetrated on him by the new crop of "the deceitful bureaucrats" in British India office bear a testimony to her painful observation of the changed and hostile attitude of the British bureaucracy and pathetic plight of the last Sikh Maharaja.

Her perceptive and objective comment made a little earlier in the book sums up the tragic history of Maharaja Duleep Singh's life. She comments: "It was the instinct to found a family, to feel that his sons had something to look to, which is so firmly rooted in all men, but in the oriental is almost a religious tenet, that they (the British) set themselves deliberately to uproot; and in consequence, turned in the end an easy-going, contented and loyal subject, into a rebel, maddened by a sense of injustice". (p. 245) We get a further confirmation about the real British designs towards their captive Sikh Maharaja from Lady Login's mention of Lord Dalhousie's letter written to Dr. Login shortly before Maharaja's coming of age that, "it was not intended to give the Maharaja the balances, and that he (Dr. Login) was to disabuse Maharaja's mind of that impression". These balances find their mention in one of the stipulations in the treaty of Lahore which was duly signed by the British representatives consisting of Sir Henry Lawrence, Lord Lawrence, Sir Fredrick Currie and Sir Herbert Edwardees. (p.263) These eminent personages had very often mentioned this fact to Mrs Login during her stay at Futtehghur, the first place of stay of the crown prince and Logins after his exile from Punjab and Lahore. No wonder the embittered Maharaja refers to Lord Dalhousie as "the late unmitigated scoundrel, the Marques of Dalhousie" (p.268). He complains to Lady Login for her making him "the embodiment of justice and truth" in her freshly written book simply because a contrary version about Lord Dalhousie such as that of Maharaja would have interfered with the sale of the book" (p. 268).

Thus, Lady Login's recollections recorded in the book provide a fairly balanced perspective on the Anglo-Sikh relations during the almost fifty years of nineteenth century after the British annexation of Punjab upto the death of Maharaja Duleep Singh and little later upto the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. There seems to be an undercurrent of pain, anguish and a helpless lament over the maltreatment of the Sikh Maharaja beneath the sequential circumstances and machinations of men at the administrative level. Her account, besides being an eye-witness account of the pitiable profile of Maharaja Duleep Singh is a dirge for the dear departed and a requiem for the royal charge in whose life she and her venerable husband had invested a lot and played a stellar role. Researchers, historians and fiction writers on this last vestige of Sikh royalty need to take Lady Login's perspective into account.

Panjab Digital Library's stupendous task of digitising these original sources of the history and heritage of Panjab and the Sikhs and making it available online needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. Its contribution will gradually sink in the consciousness of the coming generations when in their search for their roots they will find that the entire account of their origin and evolution has been meticulously preserved by someone who was farsighted and zealous protector of their heritage.