CHAPTER XI

THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, 1849

IN planning his scheme of government for the Punjâb, Lord Dalhousie sought to reconcile the paramount claims of Sir Henry Lawrence with the duty which he himself owed alike to his new subjects and his honourable masters at the India House. How to make the best use of Sir Henry's fine qualities, rare experience, and strong personal magic, without harm or hindrance to the material development of the conquered province, was a problem which the shrewd young Governor-General did his best to solve aright. He had come to regard his fiery old subaltern as a sort of wild elephant, whose movements must be regulated by a tame elephant placed on either side of him. In spite of his own dislike for government by Boards, Dalhousie now established a Board of Administration in which Henry Lawrence, as president, was to be aided and kept in order by two civilian colleagues, John Lawrence and Charles Mansel, both men of pre-eminent fitness for the task that lay before them.

To each member of the Board was assigned his proper sphere of duty in a system, writes Kaye, 'of divided labour and common responsibility.' The president himself was to conduct all the political business, which included the

disarming of the people, the raising of new regiments in place of the old, negotiations with feudatory and border chiefs, and the work of general peace-maker between his Government and the old ruling classes in the Punjâb. To John Lawrence was entrusted the great department of revenue and finance; while Mansel, presently succeeded by Robert Montgomery, directed all matters of police and public justice.

Over each division,' or shire, of the Punjâb, which once more included Jalandhar, was placed a commissioner, aided by a deputy commissioner, with one or more assistants for each district. The duties of these subalterns, nearly half of whom belonged to the Indian army, were even more multifarious than those discharged by a district officer in the North-West Provinces. They had to act, in Kaye's words, as 'judges, revenue collectors, thief catchers, diplomatists, conservancy officers, and sometimes as recruiting sergeants and chaplains, all in one1.' Not a few of them were Henry Lawrence's men, who had already proved their fitness for any task of difficulty or danger.

By this admixture of soldiers and civilians on the Punjab Commission, Dalhousie secured the cheap yet efficient administration of a province which needed the best men of both classes to clear away the wreckage of fallen dynasties, and evolve new forms of social order and civil progress out of the chaos which followed on the death of Ranjit Singh. Happily for those who first entered upon this work, the mass of the people were quite prepared to welcome a change of masters which promised to deliver them from the curse of military lawlessness and religious intolerance. For the Khalsa yoke had pressed upon the Muhammadans, Kaye, Sepoy War, vol. i.

who outnumbered the Sikhs by six to one, almost as heavily as our English yoke once pressed upon the Catholic Celts of Ireland.

As for the Sikh chiefs and soldiery, they submitted on the whole with a cheerful grace to the rule of a conqueror whose prowess they had learned to respect, and whose clemency to a vanquished foe seemed to their eyes embodied in the person of their old friend and patron, Sir Henry Lawrence. Only a few of the more restless spirits, headed by Chatar Singh, presently renewed their plots against the English, and paid with prolonged imprisonment the penalty of their wanton breach of faith.

As a deputy commissioner under the new Board, Captain Nicholson resumed charge of the district where he had striven so manfully against the flowing tide of Sikh rebellion. He himself was received with open arms by the mass of his new subjects, who had already learned to note the contrast between a grinding Sikh tyranny and the strong yet upright, even-handed sway of an English sahib. The name of this particular sahib was in every mouth; and local rumour already magnified him into the foremost hero of the late campaign; the great warrior whose arms had routed the hosts of Sher Singh, and delivered the Punjâb from its Sikh oppressors1.

It was not long before the Nicholson legend entered upon a still more remarkable phase. The transformation of a hero into a god is a natural process among people who already believe in a plurality of gods, or in an ordered

1 So strongly had his fiery courage seized upon the popular fancy, that, in the words of his loyal comrade, the late Sir James Abbott, 'anything great or gallant achieved by our arms was ascribed to Nicholson.'-Abbott, MS. Narrative.

hierarchy of heavenly beings. In this year 1849, a certain Gosain, or Hindu devotee, discovered in the popular hero a new Avatar, or incarnation of the Brahmanic godhead. Impelled by whatever motive, he began to preach at Hasan Abdâl the worship of his new god Nikalsain. Five or six of his brother Gosains embraced the new creed, and the sect of Nikalsainis became an historical fact.

Nicholson treated this kind of apotheosis with unexpected vigour of speech and arm. Driven from his presence by repeated threats and blows, the founder of the new sect retired to Hazara, where James Abbott was now ruling over a tranquil country and a contented people. Squatting in front of Abbott's bungalow, the fakir might be heard at daybreak chanting sonorous prayers to his adopted deity. At first Abbott was amused at this evidence of his friend's popularity. But the daily recurrence of that 'matutinal din' became unbearable. The fakir could not be persuaded to return whence he had come. A hut to shelter him was not easy to find at a time when fugitives from Sikh oppression were thronging back to their ancestral homes.

The Gosain, however, had other things in hand besides the worship of Nikalsain. Abbott wondered why this holy man was continually pressing him for the gift of an old beaver hat which he could not then spare. After a while he learned that a similar gift had been bestowed upon the suppliant by a gentleman at Rawal Pindi. But of what use could an English topee be to a ragged Hindu fakir? At last the mystery revealed itself. One day a shopkeeper of Haripur rushed into Abbott's cutcherry, or office, to lodge a complaint against the Nikalsaini priest. This man, it seems, had asked him for alms, and on his refusal, says

Abbott, had set upon the ground, right in his path, the hat aforesaid; daring him to advance and outrage the sahib log by treading upon it. Rather than do this, the shopkeeper had given in to the fakir's demand, and paid him a rupee.'

After this revelation of the holy man's practices, Major Abbott felt that Hazâra could do without the ministrations of so masterful a preacher. With a stern courtesy which took no denial, he recommended' the fakir to return home,' wherever that might be.' The man obeyed without further argument. In the course of time he 'resorted to Nicholson, who was then in the Derajât, and made a second attempt to propitiate his deity. But his god gave him so many more kicks than halfpence, that he retired crestfallen to Hasan Abdal, where with much zeal he renewed his worship of his impracticable divinity.'

When last he heard of the sect, adds Abbott, it was flourishing and increasing. Many a demigod has attained to his apotheosis upon merits more questionable than Nicholson's 1.' In one respect at least the Nikalsainis differed from the votaries of any other creed: their only persecutor was the divinity whom they adored. Flogging and imprisonment were all the reward which Nicholson bestowed upon his intrusive worshippers. But they took their punishment like martyrs, and the more they suffered at his hands, the louder would they chant their hymns in honour of the mighty Nikalsain.

In the middle of April, 1849, while Nicholson was settling down to his work in the Sind-Sâgar province, he received from Sir Henry Lawrence a kindly letter, exhorting him to curb his temper. 'Fear and forbear with natives and

1 Abbott, MS. Narrative.