| Today I consider myself twice blessed. Firstly, because I am here in New Delhi, to join you in this memorable celebration of the Bicentennial of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's coronation. And secondly, because I come from a city familiar to most of you, an elderly city known as Lahore. |
| Lahore is my home. According to family tradition, our forefathers migrated from Bukhara in the mid 18th century, and sought employment in Lahore. Their distant destination in the far off Punjab plains ultimately became their home, and home thereafter to seven generations of my family before me. |
| Similarly, in the last year of the 18th century, an ambitious young chieftain of the Sukerchakia misl, whom we honour today as Maharaja Ranjit Singh, made Lahore his destination. He wrested control of the city from the Bhangi Sardar Chet Singh and after consolidating his authority, he was formally acknowledged as its raja in April 1801, exactly two hundred years ago. He made Lahore the capital of his incipient kingdom, and his home. |
| What was it about Lahore that attracted such diverse persons as a young Sikh sardar and my Bukharan ancestors to its perimeters? |
| And if I may deepen that analogy, what was the quality that drew people from disparate backgrounds and from differing faiths and sects - Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and even Christians - towards the magnetic person of the Maharaja? What encouraged them to co-exist in harmony during his lifetime? To remain loyal to his memory long after his death? And to bring us together like this, today, to celebrate his Bicentennial? |
| It would take me days to answer these questions, but I have only ten minutes available to me. In any case, the Maharaja's attributes were too myriad, his personality too complex, his achievements too great to be condensed into a few words, however well chosen. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, as the British discovered to their chagrin, defied compression. |
| Ten minutes is also too brief a time for me to recount the many lifetimes of service my various ancestors performed for the Sikh Raj. |
| Let me tell you about the most famous of them: Fakir Azizuddin. He came to the notice of the Maharaja when he was called to treat his precious only eye. Gradually, he rose in the Maharaja's estimation and confidence, becoming in time his indispensable Foreign Minister. |
| Both Azizuddin and his new master had been born in 1780. They must have spent their adult years together, which explains why they were able to maintain such an unusual communion with each other. One can understand, therefore, why Azizuddin should have been perceived by visitors who met him at court as the Maharaja's 'mouthpiece', and why Azizuddin should have described himself as his 'parrot of sweet sound.' |
| It was on Azizuddin that the Maharaja relied to formulate and articulate foreign policy. Azizuddin's skill as a negotiator enabled him to protect the vulnerable borders of the Sikh state, through accommodative treaties with the British across the Sutlej, with the Pathans across the Attock and with the Daudpotas beyond the Punjnad in the south. |
| From 1808, when Azizuddin represented the Maharaja in the seminal negotiations with the British through Sir Charles Metcalfe, until the final talks in 1838 with the Governor General Lord Auckland, Azizuddin through his consummate dexterity navigated the external interests of his master through the turbulent waters of inter-state diplomacy. |
| And finally, when on 27 June 1839, as the Maharaja lay dying in the Lahore Fort, attended by his devoted Sikh Bhai Gobind Ram and the Muslim Azizuddin - it was more than courtly politeness that made Bhai Gobind Ram say that `from the very first day Azizuddin had been the oarsman for the boat of the Noble Sarkar'. And it was with equal sincerity and candour Azizuddin replied that they had indeed been like `a boat and its propellor.' |
| Let me move on and mention briefly Azizuddin's younger brother, Fakir Imamuddin. He enjoyed a position of significant if not equal trust, as the Keeper of the Maharaja's treasury at Govindgarh Fort, near Amritsar. |
| And now let me summarise the career of Fakir Nuruddin (my lineal ancestor). Fakir Nuruddin served two successive generations of the Maharaja's family. He served the Maharaja as his Administrator of Lahore, and subsequently after the maharaja's death, his successors - the short-lived Kharak Singh, the ill-fated Sher Singh, the defiant Maharani Jindan, and finally the boy Maharaja Duleep Singh. |
| His last official post was as a member of the Regency Council appointed to rule in Duleep Singh's name, until the final surrender of the Punjab in 1849. His last significant act of fealty had been to supervise the construction of the white samadhi of the great Maharaja near the Roshnai Gate, close to the site of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's coronation. |
| Fakir Nuruddin's sons - Fakir Qamaruddin and Fakir Zahuruddin - in their turn continued their association with the Maharaja's descendants. Fakir Qamaruddin accompanied Rani Jindan on her deportation from the Punjab in 1848, while his brother Fakir Zahuruddin became a tutor to the young Maharaja Duleep Singh. He accompanied him into exile to Fatehgarh, and remained with him before Duleep Singh was taken away to England. [Contd.] |
