Harking back: Exquisite haveli with bloody tales of treachery

In Lahore’s walled city there is a very special ‘haveli’ associated with our history, with extreme treachery, with power struggle and with murders most foul. Built by Maharajah Ranjit Singh it consumed his eldest son, his grandson, his great grandson, and also a ‘de facto’ maharani.

That place is the Haveli of Nau Nihal Singh, now known as Victoria School. Located between Bhati Gate and Mori Gate in an area known as Maidan Bahian. At this place once stood a beautiful garden and research now tells us that this is where the actual ancient Mori Gate was as its then mud wall curved inside towards the straight wall to the east of Bazaar Hakeeman. This exquisite Sikh-era ‘haveli’ was built by the maharajah for his son Kharrak Singh on the happy occasion of the first birth of his grandson Nau Nihal Singh. His happiness surely sprang from his belief that his bloodline had been guaranteed.

Fate was to prove otherwise, though rumour in the streets of the old city claimed that “Jammu Dogran da zul’m tay jadoo nas’l mukka diti” (Jammu Dogra’s magic and treachery finished the royal family). The facts amazingly fit the claim, but let us stir away from superstition.

As you face the ‘haveli’ the striking feature are its balconies. On one of these in June 1842 was found the body of the last Maharani of Punjab, Chand Kaur, wife of Kharrak Singh, with her head smashed in by servants from Jammu provided by Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, the prime minister. Naturally, the servants were also killed. But all this happened after the stillborn baby boy of Maharani Sahib Kaur, Nau Nihal’s wife, deprived the Sikh royal family of its entire true lineage. Many blamed magic and poisoning for the baby’s death, but that seems a dubious claim even though circumstances do justify it. But then another branch of the family took over, though their parentage itself was always highly suspect. But that is another story.

The Haveli of Nau Nihal Singh was built in the middle of the Mori Gate garden. A bit about its architecture and then we will return to the events associated with it. The opening of the structure faces westwards, its entrance decorated in true Kangra style. The entire building has numerous small windows, but the large ‘jharoka balcony’ has beautiful brickwork and served as a ‘darshan jharoka’. Images of fishes, parrots, winged angels, snakes, humans and other animals reflect the multicultural influences at play in the 1820s. Among Sikh-era structures this is without doubt one of the finest.

This building has five storeys which includes a basement. The top floor is colourful and was known as ‘Rang Mahal’, though a few sources called it ‘Sheesh Mahal’ because it has a lot of mirrors. The most amazing aspect is the small screens that catch the cool breeze. It is almost like a mini-fort, with the high roofs being of decorated carved wood. Coloured with gold, blue, red and bright orange hues with abandon, it looks and feels like a place full of fun, though quite the opposite of what actually happened inside its walls.

Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s eldest son Kharak Singh (1801-1840), succeeded his father on 28th of June 1839. Born in Lahore he was the first legitimate son of the ruler. He married Chand Kaur of the Kanhiya Misl and their first son was Nau Nihal Singh who was born in 1821. Kharak Singh is depicted in popular folklore as a crazy sort of person. This is not entirely true. You must have heard the popular comical verse: “Kharrak Singh kay kharraknay say kharrakti hain kharkian” (When Kharrak Singh rings so do his windows). But the assertion that he was a below average intelligence person is absolutely incorrect.

At the age of 17 Kharrak Singh accompanied Misr Divan Chand on the Multan campaign displaying immense bravery. In 1819 he was given complete command of a sector in the conquest of Kashmir, which like Multan was a very fierce and testing campaign. He was granted Kashmir by his father as part of his ‘jagir’. Kharak Singh, popular belief goes, was more than partial to alcohol, though this aspect of his life is a bit exaggerated. But then like his father he enjoyed his opium too.

Many accounts describe him as being a virtual tool in the hands of his tutor Chet Singh Bajwa. The Prime Minister, Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, saw a future rival in him. That was the seed of the problems that followed, changing the very course of Sikh history. When Ranjit Singh died Kharak Singh was declared the new Maharajah. It soon transpired that court conspirators had started poisoning the new maharajah’s food. The first move that Raja Dhian Singh made was to poison the mind of Prince Nau Nihal Singh, and together they plotted to bring him to power.

On the 9th of October, 1839, the prime minister himself stabbed and murdered Chet Singh Bajwa in Kharak Singh’s haveli. The next move of Prime Minister Dogra was to try to get rid of the maharajah himself. Following this murder the maharajah was removed that night and, initially, locked up in Haveli Nau Nihal Singh for treatment of a deadly ailment, only to be returned to his own ‘haveli’ inside the fort.

We learn from the account of Dr Martin Honigberger that he was constantly drugged and fed poisoned food. The poem about the incarcerated maharajah probably came about in this period. He died on the 5th of November, 1840, in mysterious circumstances. With Maharajah Kharrak Singh and his able adviser Chet Singh Bajwa removed, the stage was set for, as royal protocol went, ‘the eldest son of the eldest son’ of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the Prince Nau Nihal Singh to succeed his father.

Now came the master stroke. While returning from the funeral pyre of his father outside the Lahore Fort, as Prince Nau Nihal Singh passed under the Roshnai Gate it ‘mysteriously’ collapsed on him. Prime Minister Raja Dhian Singh Dogra quickly took his injured body inside the fort and locked it up. No one was allowed inside, not even his wailing mother. Witnesses said that he was merely unconscious. The next day his head was smashed in. Dr Honigberger’s account tells us that the head was deliberately smashed in much later.

This situation brought with it a problem. The wife of Prince Nau Nihal Singh was pregnant. So his mother, Maharani Chand Kaur declared herself the ruler as the true inheritor was awaited. Kharrak Singh’s stepbrother Sher Singh challenged her claim. A bloody battle followed in which cannons were placed on the minarets of the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort was bombed, killing over 5,000 Khalsa soldiers.

True to form, the Prime Minister Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, intervened. Then suddenly came the news that Rani Sahib Kaur had given birth to a stillborn child in the Haveli Nau Nihal Singh. Many suggest that even that was a murder carried out by a wet nurse. The race towards the throne clearly deprived Maharani Chand Kaur of ‘legitimacy’ and she was confined to Haveli Nau Nihal Singh, where she met a terrible end on that balcony. So if you ever go to see this beautiful ‘haveli’, just look up at the balcony and think of this long story of intrigue and blood.

But that was not the end of the story. Raja Dhian Singh Dogra saw Maharajah Sher Singh to the throne. He then operated through the powerful Sardar Ajit Singh Sandhawalia, who on the 15th of September, 1843, during a troop inspection at Shah Bilal Gardens in Kot Khawaja Saeed, Lahore, shot the Maharajah dead while presenting him a revolver as a gift.

When the Sandhawalia brothers rushed back to the Lahore Fort they were met by the Prime Minister, Raja Dhian Singh waiting with his armed guards. The Sandhawalias smelt treachery and immediately shot Raja Dhian Singh Dogra dead. The murderous puppet-master finally met his end. But strangely when the British came his Jammu family were granted Kashmir as a gift for ‘services’ rendered. It seems the ghost of Raja Dhian Singh Dogra still reigns there.