Re: Punjab and Freedom Struggle!
Probably, you are poorly aquianted with the history of the “Greater Punjab”. The BEIC had occupied Punjab and extended the western border of its colony to Jamrud about 12 years before the 1857 mutiny. In 1845, BEIC provoked Sikhs into crossing river Sutlaj and attacking British. But British defeated them and forced them to sign the treaty of Lahore which laid the following conditions for peace…
- Sikhs will relinquish the control of Jalandgar basin to British..
- British would recognize Dalip Singh as the Maharaja of Punjab.
- Sikh will agree to the appointment of a British Resident in their Darbar.
- Sikh will agree to pay once crore and fifty lach rupees as war damage to British…
As Sikhs only had 50 lachs rupees, so they gave British Jammu and Kashmir for the remaining 1 crore rupees, which British later sold to Gulab Singh. From this point onward, an assembly of 8 Sikh sardars with Sir Henry Lawrence as the head ran the affair of the Sikh state. Every district of the state had a British resident..so practically, the British were governing the Sikh state. Feeling that they didn’t have any control, Sikh revolted in Multan but were defeated.
After this defeat, Lord Dalhozi of the East India Company declared the abolition of Sikh state and the merger of its territories, including Pashtunkhwa, with the rest of the British India. This was accomplished in March 1849.
If the 1850 saw the end of the Punjab and 1857 that of British East India Company, then who put an end to Punjab and what was the status of Punjab in the intervening years? Are not you refuting your own statement i.e. BEIC never ruled Punjab?
The total length of the resistence of Sikh Punjabis to British rule was not more than 2 battles between 1845 and 1849. As for Punjabi Musalmans (called PMs by British), they never resisted British and were allied with or obeyed them, at all level of their society, till 1947. On the contrary, it took BEIC about 75 years to bring Bangal, UP, other areas under firm control and after a lot of resistence and battles. There was firm military, political, and literary/ideological resistence to British in UP, Bangal, and the rest of Hindustan before and after 1857.
Every nation has traitors but then nations have heroes also. To judge we should see that on the whole, what is the attitude of a nation to occupation and in what form, -military or political or ideological, does that get expressed! We should accept that Bangali Muslims have offered resistence in all forms—and not only to British but also Hindus.