HARKING BACK: First four years of EIC board and Lawrence’s men

Once the Sikhs had been dislodged from power after the famous Battle of Chillianwala on the `13th of January, 1849, the East India Company (EIC) formally took power on the 29th of March. The first four years of consolidation by a Board of Administration is what determined the future of Lahore, and Punjab in all its aspects.

Though Chillianwala was one battle that the Punjabis had clearly won but for the large-scale betrayal by their leaders who had secretly agreed to mislead troops. Numerous EIC archive documents testify to British fears of being dislodged from the entire sub-continent if the Punjabis won. Almost all feudal families of today benefitted at one time or the other from ‘loyalty’ to the British. After Lord Dalhousie’s proclamation of March 29, 1949, the Lahore Darbar ceased to exist and Punjab became part of the Company’s British ‘Hindustan.’

In this piece we will explore how the British East India Company entrenched themselves in Lahore through a Company Board of Administration in those first four critical years. This board was set up on the 31st of March, 1849, with Henry Lawrence as its president. His brother John Lawrence and Charles Mansel were the other two members. Immediately Henry Lawrence brought in his best 74 officers, both covenanted and commissioned, from Delhi and Bombay with instructions to “rule with firmness, fairness, honesty and common sense.” The written codified laws for Punjab will follow very soon, he told them.

From this group of “Lawrence’s Men” emerged the future Punjab Civil Service. Among them were Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, Robert Napier, and Neville Chamberlain, after whom many roads were named in Lahore. The three-member board divided work among themselves, with Henry Lawrence handling military and relations with ‘sardars’. John Lawrence took on the charge of land settlement and all fiscal matters, and Charles G. Mansel handled administration of justice and the police. A combination of civil and military officers were put in place.

Henry Lawrence had his office, initially, inside the Lahore Fort, but later shifted to today’s Punjab Civil Secretariat, a former residence of French generals of Ranjit Singh. When in 1851 the first military barrack was built just opposite today’s Fortress Mosque, Henry shifted there. His brother also set up office there and Charles Mansel lived and worked in the Haveli of Khushal Singh. He set up court in the Mughal-era Shahi Hammam, where the front empty bath was used as a courtroom.

In 1849 with a pressing need for a local military force, the board was authorised to raise five regiments to protect “the north-west frontier”. Each regiment was to have four British officers, 16 ‘native’ officers and 96 non-commissioned officers. The infantry regiment would have 800 men while a cavalry of 588 ‘sowars’. Sikhs and Muslims were, initially, excluded from the recruitment drive with soldiers from Bengal and Madras dominating. Even today if you walk through Lahore’s Saddar Bazaar, you will notice all the streets named after South and East Indian cities.

The new Punjab Force grew to 11,000 men, with 50 per cent being Muslims and Sikhs. The Bengal regiments in Lahore had revolted, so when these Punjabis moved from Lahore to end the siege of Delhi in the 1857 Mutiny, the fighting skills of the Punjab Force led to them being dubbed as a ‘martial race’. From then onwards every Bengali regiment had to have at least half Punjabis.

As the Board of Administration got to work, the people of the city realised that if they had a fair grievance they could petition against the most powerful. This was very true in the court set up in the Shahi Hammam inside Delhi Gate, which till much later was known in the walled city as ‘Mansel Sahib de Adalat’. He was in 1851 replaced on the board by Robert Montgomery.

So these three administrators, with unlimited powers of life and death over the people of Punjab, fashioned the Punjab government in Lahore. Once the Board was constituted they spelled out their objectives very clearly. It was, first and foremost, to restore law and order ruthlessly. In the process they had to disband, and disarm, a vast network of fanatical Sikhs and Muslim gunners of the Khalsa Army. They had to secure the borders of Punjab and to restore the financial viability of this land of five rivers.

To restore confidence the first achievement of the Lawrence brothers was to boost agriculture, develop education and to put in place a fair judicial system. The firmness and honesty of the officers impressed the people who once the events of the 1857 Mutiny unfolded, mostly, backed the British. In 1853 the board had delivered and it was disbanded and John Lawrence was made Punjab’s first Chief Commissioner. By the time 1853 came about, the Punjab administration was named the finest in the whole of British India.

In a small room opposite the Punjab Civil Secretariat came up ‘The Roberts Club’ from where a new police system was put into place. From this place the first ‘Thugee Campaign’ in Punjab was launched, which ended this menace.

To enforce modern education first a research was undertaken by Prof G.W, Lietner, who much later went on to set up the Government College of Lahore, the Punjab University and a set of other high-class educational and research institutions.

The board formed eight divisions with 29 districts. They all had deputy commissioners and 43 assistant commissioners. The lowest functionary, the local ‘kardar’, had credible powers to decide matters immediately. Among the first actions in April 1849 was to demand the surrender of all weapons. All military grants were abolished. A special secret intelligence force was set up with over 8,000 persons. This was called the ‘Khuffia Service’. Every village had a ‘chowkidar’ who every day reported what was happening in the village and nearby areas. All strangers were questioned by the ‘chowkidar’. This brought about complete peace. Over 183,000 weapons, including small cannons, were surrendered. Sadly, also among ‘subversive’ literature the famous Punjabi Qaida was collected and burnt.

The ‘honest and hard-working’ officers were ruthless, yet soon acquired a reputation for fairness. A lot of executions took place ‘on the spot’, especially of people who tried to avenge old grievances by incorrectly reporting on foes. John Lawrence was asked what made these four years such a success, and he commented: “We had to be swift in all decisions, especially if we dragged justice on and on, we would have failed”.

Very soon peace returned to Punjab, and Lahore very soon looked clean and the Board undertook works of ‘public welfare’. For starters the G.T. Road from Peshawar to Delhi was reopened and all of a sudden from complete anarchy people were able to travel to any part of the country free of the fear of being molested.

In Lahore the canal that supplied water to the Shalamar Gardens was repaired and restored and the historic water filtration buildings outside the gardens began to function efficiently. These heritage sites have been damaged relatively recently. The Board decided that it was critical that alongside all the road trees be planted, and care was taken to plant local varieties. A series of Rest Houses were built, so that British and local officials could stay there and work “all their hours awake.”

The Board of Administration moved swiftly to appease “the poor peasants” of Punjab, and anyone of them planting trees and sowing new crop varieties was given some tax exemption. But it was the enforcement of inheritance of property rights that really won them over.