The region was originally called Sapta
Sindhu Rivers,[2] theVedic land
of the seven rivers originally: Saraswati, Indus, Sutlej, Jehlum,
Chenab, Ravi, and Beas.[3] TheSanskrit name
for the region, as mentioned in theRamayana andMahabharata for
example, wasPaρcanada which means literally
"Five Waters", and was translated fromSanskrit toFarsi asPanj-Βb after
theIslamic
conquests.[4][5] The
later namePunjab is a compound of twoFarsi words[6][7] Panj
(five) and āb (water) and was introduced to the region by theTurko-Persian conquerors[8] ofIndia and
more formally popularised during theMughal
Empire.[9][10] Punjab
literally means"(The Land of) Five Waters" referring
to the rivers:Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej,
and Beas.[11] All
are tributaries of theIndus
River, the Chenab being the largest.
Geography
Geographically, the province was a triangular tract of country of
which the Indus
River and its tributary theSutlej formed
the two sides up to their confluence, the base of the triangle in
the north being theLower
Himalayan Range between those two rivers. Moreover, the province
as constituted under British rule also included a large tract
outside these boundaries. Along the northern border, Himalayan
ranges divided it fromKashmir andTibet.
On the west it was separated from the North-West
Frontier Province by the Indus, until it reached the border ofDera
Ghazi Khan District, which was divided from Baluchistan by
theSulaiman
Range. To the south lay Sindh andRajputana,
while on the east the rivers Jumna andTons separated
it from theUnited
Provinces.[1] In
total Punjab had an area of approximately 357 000 km square about
the same size as modern day Germany, being one of the largest
provinces of the British Raj.
In 1901 the frontier districts beyond the Indus were separated from
Punjab and made into a new province: the North-West
Frontier Province. Subsequently, Punjab was divided into four
natural geographical divisions by colonial officials on the decadal
census data:[12]: 2 [13]: 4
On 21February
1849, the East
India Company decisively defeated theSikh
Empire at theBattle
of Gujrat bringing to an end theSecond
Anglo-Sikh War. Following the victory, the East India Company
annexed the Punjab on 2April
1849 and incorporated it within British
India. The province whilst nominally under the control of the Bengal
Presidency was administratively independent.Lord
Dalhousie constituted the Board of Administration by inducting
into it the most experienced and seasoned British officers. The
Board was led bySir
Henry Lawrence, who had previously worked as British Resident at
the LahoreDurbar and
also consisted of his younger brotherJohn
Lawrence andCharles
Grenville Mansel.[14] Below
the Board, a group of acclaimed officers collectively known asHenry
Lawrence's "Young Men" assisted in the administration of the
newly acquired province. The Board was abolished by Lord Dalhousie
in 1853; Sir Henry was assigned to theRajputana
Agency, and his brother John succeeded as the first Chief
Commissioner.
Recognising the cultural diversity of the Punjab, the Board
maintained a strict policy of non-interference in regard to
religious and cultural matters.[15] Sikh
aristocrats were given patronage and pensions and groups in control
of historical places of worship were allowed to remain in control.[15]
During the Indian
Rebellion of 1857, the Punjab remained relatively peaceful,
apart from rebellion led by Ahmad
Khan Kharral.[16] In
May, John Lawrence took swift action to disarm potentially mutinous
sepoys and redeploy most European troops to the Delhi ridge.[17] Finally
he recruited new regiments of Punjabis to replace the depleted
force, and was provided with manpower and support from surrounding
princely states such as Jind, Patiala, Nabha and Kapurthala and
tribal chiefs on the borderlands with Afghanistan. By 1858, an
estimated 70,000 extra men had been recruited for the army and
militarised police from within the Punjab.[16]
In 1858, under the terms of the Queen's Proclamation issued by Queen
Victoria, the Punjab, along with the rest of British India, came
under the direct rule of the British Crown.[18]Delhi
Territory was transferred from theNorth-Western
Provinces to the Punjab in 1858, partly to punish the city for
the important role the lastMughal
emperor, Bahadur
Shah II, and the city as a whole, played in the 1857 Rebellion.[19]
Sir John Lawrence, then Chief Commissioner, was appointed the first Lieutenant-Governor on
1January
1859. In 1866, the Judicial Commissioner was replaced by a Chief
Court. The direct administrative functions of the Government were
carried by the Lieutenant-Governor through the Secretariat,
comprising a Chief Secretary, a Secretary and two Under-Secretaries.
They were usually members of the Indian
Civil Service.[20] The
territory under the Lieutenant consisted of 29 Districts, grouped
under 5 Divisions, and 43Princely
States. Each District was under a Deputy-Commissioner, who
reported to the Commissioner of the Division. Each District was
subdivided into between three and seven tehsils,
each under a tahsildar, assisted by a naib (deputy)tahsildar.[21]
In 1885 the Punjab administration began an ambitious plan to
transform over six million acres of barren waste land in central and
western Punjab into irrigable agricultural land. The creation
of canal colonies was designed to relieve demographic pressures
in the central parts of the province, increase productivity and
revenues, and create a loyal support amongst peasant landholders.[22] The
colonisation resulted in an agricultural revolution in the province,
rapid industrial growth, and the resettlement of over one million
Punjabis in the new areas.[23] A
number of towns were created or saw significant development in the
colonies, such asLyallpur, Sargodha andMontgomery.
Colonisation led to the canal irrigated area of the Punjab
increasing from three to fourteen million acres in the period from
1885 to 1947.[24]
The beginning of the twentieth century saw increasing unrest in the
Punjab. Conditions in the Chenab colony, together with land reforms
such as the Punjab
Land Alienation Act, 1900 and the Colonisation Bill, 1906
contributed to the1907
Punjab unrest. The unrest was unlike any previous agitation in
the province as the government had for the first time aggrieved a
large portion of the rural population.[25] Mass
demonstrations were organised, headed byLala
Lajpat Rai, a leader of the Hindu revivalist sect Arya
Samaj.[25] The
unrest resulted in the repeal of the Colonisation Bill and the end
of paternalist policies in the colonies.[25]
During the First
World War, Punjabi manpower contributed heavily to the Indian
Army. Out of a total of 683,149 combat troops, 349,688 hailed
from the province.[26] In
1918, an influenza epidemic broke out in the province, resulting in
the deaths of an estimated 962,937 people or 4.77 percent of the
total estimated population.[27] In
March 1919 theRowlatt
Act was passed extending emergency measures of detention and
incarceration in response to the perceived threat of terrorism from
revolutionary nationalist organisations.[28] This
led to the infamousJallianwala
Bagh massacre in April 1919, where ColonelReginald
Edward Harry Dyer ordered detachments of the9th
Gorkha Rifles and the59th
Scinde Rifles under his command to fire into a group of some
10,000 unarmed protesters andBaisakhi pilgrims,
killing 379.[29]
Administrative reforms
The MontaguChelmsford
Reforms enacted through theGovernment
of India Act 1919 expanded the Punjab Legislative Council and
introduced the principle ofdyarchy,
whereby certain responsibilities such as agriculture, health,
education, and local government, were transferred to elected
ministers. The first Punjab Legislative Council under the 1919 Act
was constituted in 1921, comprising 93 members, seventy per cent to
be elected and rest to be nominated.[30] Some
of the British Indian ministers under the dyarchy scheme wereSir
Sheikh Abdul Qadir, Sir Shahab-ud-Din
Virk and Lala Hari Kishen Lal.[31][32]
The Government
of India Act 1935 introduced provincial autonomy to Punjab
replacing the system of dyarchy. It provided for the constitution of
Punjab Legislative Assembly of 175 members presided by a Speaker and
an executive government responsible to the Assembly. TheUnionist
Party under SirSikandar
Hayat Khan formed the government in 1937. Sir Sikandar was
succeeded byMalik
Khizar Hayat Tiwana in 1942 who remained the Premier till
partition in 1947. Although the term of the Assembly was five years,
the Assembly continued for about eight years and its last sitting
was held on 19 March 1945.[33]
The struggle for Indian independence witnessed competing and
conflicting interests in the Punjab. The landed elites of the
Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities had loyally collaborated with the
British since annexation, supported the Unionist Party and were
hostile to the Congress party led independence movement.[34] Amongst
the peasantry and urban middle classes, the Hindus were the most
activeNational
Congress supporters, the Sikhs flocked to theAkali
movement whilst the Muslims eventually supported theAll-India
Muslim League.[34]
Since the partition of the sub-continent had been decided, special
meetings of the Western and Eastern Section of the Legislative
Assembly were held on 23 June 1947 to decide whether or not the
Province of the Punjab be partitioned. After voting on both sides,
partition was decided and the existing Punjab Legislative Assembly
was also divided into West
PunjabLegislative
Assembly and the East Punjab Legislative Assembly. This last
Assembly before independence, held its last sitting on 4 July 1947.[35]
The first British census of the Punjab was carried out in 1855. This
covered only British territory to the exclusion of local princely
states, and placed the population at 17.6 million. The first regular
census of British India carried out in 1881 recorded a population of
20.8 million people. The final British census in 1941 recorded 34.3
million people in the Punjab, which comprised 29 districts within
British territory, 43 princely states, 52,047 villages and 283
towns.[37]
In 1881, only Amritsar and Lahore had populations over 100,000. The
commercial and industrial city of Amritsar (152,000) was slightly
larger than the cultural capital of Lahore (149,000). Over the
following sixty years, Lahore increased in population fourfold,
whilst Amritsar grew two-fold. By 1941, the province had seven
cities with populations over 100,000 with emergence and growth of
Rawalpindi, Multan, Sialkot, Jullundur and Ludhiana.[37]
The colonial period saw large scale migration within the Punjab due
to the creation of canal
colonies in western Punjab. The majority of colonists hailed
from the seven most densely populated districts of Amritsar,
Gurdaspur, Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Ambala and Sialkot, and
consisted primarily of Khatris, Brahmins, Jats, Arains, Sainis, Kambohs andRajputs.
The movement of many highly skilled farmers from eastern and central
Punjab to the new colonies, led to western Punjab becoming the most
progressive and advanced agricultural region of the province. The
period also saw significant numbers of Punjabis emigrate to other
regions of the British
Empire. The main destinations were East Africa - Kenya, Uganda andTanzania,
Southeast Asia - Malaya andBurma, Hong
Kong andCanada.[37]
The Punjab was a religiously eclectic province, comprising three
major groups: Muslims, Hindus andSikhs.
By 1941, the religious Muslims constituting an absolute majority at
53.2%, whilst the Hindu population was at 30.1%.[g] The
period between 1881 and 1941 saw a significant increase in the Sikh
andChristian populations,
growing from 8.2% and 0.1% to 14.9% and 1.9% respectively.[37] The
decrease in the Hindu population has been attributed to the
conversion of Hindus mainly to Sikhism and Islam, and also to
Christianity.[37]
In 1941, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs made 30.1,[g] 53.2
and 14.9 per cent of the total population of Punjab but made 37.9,
51.4 and 8.4 per cent of itsurban population
respectively.[37]
Population trends for major
religious groups in the Punjab Province of the British
India(18811941)[37][13]: 46
As with religion, Punjab was a linguistically eclectically diverse
province and region.
In 1837, Persian had
been abolished as the official language of Company administration
and replaced by local Indian vernacular languages. In the Sikh
Empire, Persian continued to be the official state language.[48] Shortly
after annexing the Punjab in 1849, the Board of Administration
canvassed local officials in each of the provinces's six divisions
to decide which language was "best suited for the Courts and Public
Business".[49] Officials
in the western divisions recommended Persian whilst eastern
officials suggested a shift to Urdu.[49] In
September 1849 a two-language policy was instituted throughout the
province. The language policy in the Punjab differed from other
Indian provinces in that Urdu was not a widespread local vernacular.
In 1849 John Lawrence noted "that Urdu is not the language of these
districts and neither is Persian".[49]
In 1854, the Board of Administration abruptly ended the two-language
policy and Urdu was designated as the official language of
government across the province. The decision was motivated by new
civil service rules requiring all officials pass a test in the
official language of their local court. In fear of potentially
losing their jobs, officials in Persian districts petitioned the
board to replace Persian with Urdu, believing Urdu the easier
language to master.[50] Urdu
remained the official administrative language until 1947.
Officials, although aware that Punjabi was the colloquial language
of the majority, instead favoured the use of Urdu for a number of
reasons. Criticism of Punjabi included the belief that it was simply
a form of patois,
lacking any form of standardisation, and that "would be inflexible
and barren, and incapable of expressing nice shades of meaning and
exact logical ideas with the precision so essential in local
proceedings."[50] Similar
arguments had earlier been made aboutBengali, Oriya andHindustani;
however, those languages were later adopted for local
administration. Instead it is believed the advantages of Urdu served
the administration greater. Urdu, and initially Persian, allowed the
Company to recruit experienced administrators from elsewhere in
India who did not speak Punjabi, to facilitate greater integration
with other Indian territories which were administered with Urdu, and
to help foster ties with local elites who spoke Persian and Urdu and
could act as intermediaries with the wider populace.[50]
Rajputs
in Delhi (1868).Brahmin
in Lahore (c. 17991849).Left
to right: Gurkha, Brahmin and Shudra (Chuhra-Chamar) in Shimla
(1868).Arains
in Lahore (1868).Tarkhans
in Lahore (c. 186272).
Gujjars in Delhi (c. 185969).
Arora in Lahore (c. 186272).
Kumhars in Lahore (c. 185969).
Punjab Province was diverse, with the main castes represented
alongside numerous subcastes andtribes (also
known asJāti orBarādarī),
forming parts of the various ethnic groups in the province,
contemporarily known as Punjabis, Saraikis, Haryanvis, Hindkowans, Dogras, Paharis,
and others.
Within a few years of its annexation, the Punjab was regarded as
British India's model agricultural province. From the 1860s onwards,
agricultural prices and land values soared in the Punjab. This
stemmed from increasing political security and improvements in
infrastructure and communications. New cash crops such as wheat, tobacco, sugar
cane andcotton were
introduced. By the 1920s the Punjab produced a tenth of India's
total cotton crop and a third of its wheat crop. Per capita output
of all the crops in the province increased by approximately 45
percent between 1891 and 1921, a growth contrasting to agricultural
crises in Bengal,Bihar andOrissa during
the period.[55]
The Punjab
Agricultural College and Research Institute became the first
higher educational agricultural institution in the Punjab when
established in 1906. Rapid agricultural growth, combined with access
to easy credit for landowners, led to a growing crisis of
indebtedness.[56] When
landowners were unable to pay down their loans, urban based
moneylenders took advantage of the law to foreclose debts of
mortgaged land.[56] This
led to a situation where land increasingly passed to absentee
moneylenders who had little connection to the villages were the land
was located. The colonial government recognised this as a potential
threat to the stability of the province, and a split emerged in the
government between paternalists who favoured intervention to ensure
order, and those who opposed state intervention in private property
relations.[55] The
paternalists emerged victorious and thePunjab
Land Alienation Act, 1900 prevented urban commercial castes, who
were overwhelmingly Hindu, from permanently acquiring land from
statutory agriculturalist tribes, who were mainly Muslim and Sikh.[57]
Accompanied by the increasing franchise of the rural population,
this interventionist approach led to a long lasting impact on the
political landscape of the province. The agricultural lobby remained
loyal to the government, and rejected communalism in common defence
of its privileges against urban moneylenders.[55] This
position was entrenched by the Unionist Party. The Congress Party's
opposition to the Act led to it being marginalised in the Punjab,
reducing its influence more so than in any other province, and
inhibiting its ability to challenge colonial rule locally. The
political dominance of the Unionist Party would remain until
partition, and significantly it was only on the collapse of its
power on the eve of independence from Britain, that communal
violence began to spread in rural Punjab.[55]
Army
n the immediate aftermath of annexation, the Sikh
Khalsa Army was disbanded, and soldiers were required to
surrender their weapons and return to agricultural or other
pursuits.[15] TheBengal
Army, keen to utilise the highly trained ex-Khalsa army troops
began to recruit from the Punjab for Bengal infantry units stationed
in the province. However opposition to the recruitment of these
soldiers spread and resentment emerged from sepoys of the Bengal
Army towards the incursion of Punjabis into their ranks. In 1851,
the Punjab
Irregular Force also known as the 'Piffars' was raised.
Initially they consisted of one garrison and four mule batteries,
four regiments of cavalry, eleven of infantry and theCorps
of Guides, totalling approximately 13,000 men.[58] The
gunners and infantry were mostly Punjabi, many from the Khalsa Army,
whilst the cavalry had a considerable Hindustani presence.[58]
During the Indian
Rebellion of 1857, eighteen new regiments were raised from the
Punjab which remained loyal to the East India Company throughout the
crisis in the Punjab and United Provinces.[59] By
June 1858, of the 80,000 native troops in the Bengal Army, 75,000
were Punjabi of which 23,000 were Sikh.[60] In
the aftermath of the rebellion, a thorough re-organisation of the
army took place. Henceforth recruitment into theBritish
Indian Army was restricted to loyal peoples and provinces.
Punjabi Sikhs emerged as a particularly favoured martial race to
serve the army.[61] In
the midst ofThe
Great Game, and fearful of a Russian invasion of British India,
the Punjab was regarded of significant strategic importance as a
frontier province. In addition to their loyalty and a belief in
their suitability to serve in harsh conditions, Punjabi recruits
were favoured as they could be paid at the local service rate,
whereas soldiers serving on the frontier from more distant lands had
to be paid extra foreign service allowances.[62] By
1875, of the entire Indian army, a third of recruits hailed from the
Punjab.[63]
In 1914, three fifths of the Indian army came from the Punjab,
despite the region constituting approximately one tenth of the total
population of British India.[63] During
the First World War, Punjabi Sikhs alone accounted for one quarter
of all armed personnel in India.[61] Military
service provided access to the wider world, and personnel were
deployed across theBritish
Empire fromMalaya,
the Mediterranean and Africa.[61] Upon
completion of their terms of service, these personnel were often
amongst the first to seek their fortunes abroad.[61] At
the outbreak of the Second World War, 48 percent of the Indian army
came from the province.[64] In
Jhelum, Rawalpindi and Attock, the percentage of the total male
population who enlisted reached fifteen percent.[65] The
Punjab continued to be the main supplier of troops throughout the
war, contributing 36 percent of the total Indian troops who served
in the conflict.[66]
The huge proportion of Punjabis in the army meant that a significant
amount of military expenditure went to Punjabis and in turn resulted
in an abnormally high level of resource input in the Punjab.[67] It
has been suggested that by 1935 if remittances of serving officers
were combined with income from military pensions, more than two
thirds of Punjab's land revenue could have been paid out of military
incomes.[67] Military
service further helped reduce the extent of indebtedness across the
Province. InHoshiarpur,
a notable source of military personnel, in 1920 thirty percent of
proprietors were debt free compared to the region's average of
eleven percent.[67] In
addition, the benefits of military service and the perception that
the government was benevolent towards soldiers, affected the
latter's attitudes towards the British.[60] The
loyalty of recruited peasantry and the influence of military groups
in rural areas across the province limited the reach of the
nationalist movement in the province.[60]
Communications and transport
In 1853, the Viceroy Lord Dalhousie issued a minute stressing the
military importance of railways across India.[68] In
the Punjab, however, it was initially strategic commercial interests
which drove investment in railways and communications from 1860.[68]
Independent railway companies emerged, such as the Scinde, Punjab andDelhi railways
to build and operate new lines. In 1862, the first section of
railway in the Punjab was constructed between Lahore and Amritsar,
andLahore
Junction railway station opened. Lines were opened between
Lahore and Multan in 1864, and Amritsar and Delhi in 1870.[68] The
Scinde, Punjab and Delhi railways merged to form theScinde,
Punjab & Delhi Railway in 1870, creating a link between Karachi
and Lahore via Multan. ThePunjab
Northern State Railway linked Lahore and Peshawar in 1883. By
1886, the independent railways had amalgamated intoNorth
Western State Railway.[68]
The construction of railway lines and the network of railway
workshops generated employment opportunities, which in turn led to
increased immigration into cantonment towns.[68] As
connectivity increased across the province, it facilitated the
movement of goods, and increased human interaction. It has been
observed that the Ferozpur, Lahore and Amritsar began to develop
into one composite cultural triangle due to the ease of connectivity
between them.[68] Similarly
barriers of spoken dialects eroded over time, and cultural
affinities were increasingly fostered.[68]
Education
In 1854, the Punjab education department was instituted with a
policy to provide secular education in all government managed
institutions.[69] Privately
run institutions would only receive grants-in-aid in return for
providing secular instruction.[69] By
1864 this had resulted in a situation whereby all grants-in-aid to
higher education schools and colleges were received by institutions
under European management, and no indigenous owned schools received
government help.[69]
In the early 1860s, a number of educational colleges were
established, including Lawrence
College, Murree, King
Edward Medical University, Government
College, Lahore, Glancy
Medical College andForman
Christian College. In 1882, Gottlieb
Wilhelm Leitner published a damning report on the state of
education in the Punjab. He lamented the failure to reconcile
government run schools with traditional indigenous schools, and
noted a steady decline in the number of schools across the province
since annexation.[70] He
noted in particular how Punjabi Muslim's avoided government run
schools due to the lack of religious subjects taught in them,
observing how at least 120,000 Punjabis attended schools unsupported
by the state and describing it as 'a protest by the people against
our system of education.'[71] Leitner
had long advocated the benefits of oriental scholarship, and the
fusion of government education with religious instruction. In
January 1865 he had established the Anjuman-i-Punjab, a subscription
based association aimed at using a European style of learning to
promote useful knowledge, whilst also reviving traditional
scholarship inArabic, Persian andSanskrit.[72] In
1884, a reorganisation of the Punjab education system occurred,
introducing measures tending towards decentralisation of control
over education and the promotion of an indigenous education agency.
As a consequence several new institutions were encouraged in the
province. TheArya
Samaj opened a college in Lahore in 1886, the Sikhs opened theKhalsa
College whilst theAnjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam stepped
in to organise Muslim education.[73] In
1886, the Punjab Chiefs' College, later renamedAitchison
College, was opened to further the education of the elite
classes.
In 1849, a Board of Administration was put in place to govern the
newly annexed province. The Board was led by a President and two
assistants. Beneath them Commissioners acted as Superintendents of
revenue and police and exercised the civil appellate and the
original criminal powers of Sessions Judges, whilst Deputy
Commissioners were given subordinate civil, criminal and fiscal
powers.[74] In
1853, the Board of Administration was abolished, and authority was
invested in a single Chief Commissioner. TheGovernment
of India Act 1858 led to further restructuring and the office of
Lieutenant-Governor replaced that of Chief Commissioner.
Although The
Indian Councils Act, 1861 laid the foundation for the
establishment of a local legislature in the Punjab, the first
legislature was constituted in 1897. It consisted of a body of
nominated officials and non-officials and was presided over by the
Lieutenant-Governor. The first council lasted for eleven years until
1909. TheMorley-Minto
Reforms led to an elected members complementing the nominated
officials in subsequent councils.[75]
Punjab Legislative Council and Assembly
The Government of India Act 1919 introduced the system of dyarchy
across British India and led to the implementation of the first
Punjab Legislative Council in 1921. At the same time the office of
lieutenant governor was replaced with that of governor. The initial
Council had ninety three members, seventy per cent of which were
elected and the rest nominated.[75] A
president was elected by the Council to preside over the meetings.
Between 1921 and 1936, there were four terms of the Council.[75]
In 1935, the Government
of India Act 1935 replaced dyarchy with increased provincial
autonomy. It introduced direct elections, and enabled elected Indian
representatives to form governments in the provincial assemblies.
The Punjab Legislative Council was replaced by a Punjab Legislative
Assembly, and the role of President with that of a Speaker.
Membership of the Assembly was fixed at 175 members, and it was
intended to sit for five years.[75]
The first election was held in 1937 and was won outright by the
Unionist Party. Its leader, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan was asked by the
Governor, Sir
Herbert Emerson to form a Ministry and he chose a cabinet
consisting of three Muslims, two Hindus and a Sikh.[76] Sir
Sikandar died in 1942 and was succeeded as Premier by Khizar Hayat
Khan Tiwana.
The next election was held in 1946. The Muslim
League won the most seats, winning 73 out of a total of 175.
However a coalition led by the Unionist Party and consisting of theCongress
Party andAkali
Party were able to secure an overall majority. A campaign of
civil disobedience by the Muslim League followed, lasting six weeks,
and led to the resignation of Sir Khizar Tiwana and the collapse of
the coalition government on 2 March 1947.[77] The
Muslim League however were unable to attract the support of other
minorities to form a coalition government themselves.[78] Amid
this stalemate the GovernorSir
Evan Jenkins assumed control of the government and remained in
charge until the independence of India and Pakistan.[78
.svg/20px-Flag_of_the_British_East_India_Company_(1801).svg.png){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
_of_the_court_of_the_Sikh_Empire.jpg)
