Punjab Province (British India)

Etymology

The region was originally called the Sapta Sindhu Rivers, the Vedic land of the seven rivers, originally: Saraswati, Indus, Sutlej, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Beas. The Sanskrit name for the region, as mentioned in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, for example, was Pañcanada, which means literally "Five Waters", and was translated from Sanskrit to Farsi as Panj-Âb after the Islamic conquests. The later name Punjab is thus a compound of two Farsi words Panj (five) and āb (water) and was introduced to the region by the Turko-Persian conquerors of India and more formally popularised during the Mughal Empire. Punjab literally means "(The Land of) Five Waters" referring to the rivers: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Chenab being the largest.

Geography

Geographically, the province was a triangular tract of country of which the Indus River and its tributary the Sutlej formed the two sides up to their confluence, the base of the triangle in the north being the Lower 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 from Kashmir and Tibet. On the west it was separated from the North-West Frontier Province by the Indus, until it reached the border of Dera Ghazi Khan District, which was divided from Baluchistan by the Sulaiman Range. To the south lay Sindh and Rajputana, while on the east the rivers Jumna and Tons separated it from the United Provinces. 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.

It encompassed the present day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and some parts of Himachal Pradesh which were merged with Punjab by the British for administrative purposes (but excluding the former princely states which were later combined into the Patiala and East Punjab States Union) and the Pakistani regions of the Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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:

1. Indo-Gangetic Plain West geographical division (including Hisar district, Loharu State, Rohtak district, Dujana State, Gurgaon district, Pataudi State, Delhi, Karnal district, Jalandhar district, Kapurthala State, Ludhiana district, Malerkotla State, Firozpur district, Faridkot State, Patiala State, Jind State, Nabha State, Lahore District, Amritsar district, Gujranwala District, and Sheikhupura District);
2. Himalayan geographical division (including Sirmoor State, Simla District, Simla Hill States, Bilaspur State, Kangra district, Mandi State, Suket State, and Chamba State);
3. Sub-Himalayan geographical division (including Ambala district, Kalsia State, Hoshiarpur district, Gurdaspur District, Sialkot District, Gujrat District, Jhelum District, Rawalpindi District, and Attock District;
4. North-West Dry Area geographical division (including Montgomery District, Shahpur District, Mianwali District, Lyallpur District, Jhang District, Multan District, Bahawalpur State, Muzaffargarh District, Dera Ghazi Khan District, and the Biloch Trans–Frontier Tract).

Administrative divisions

History

Company rule

After the conclusion of the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845–46, the areas of the following districts were annexed by the British: Ambala, Firozpur, Hoshiyarpur, Jalandhar, Kangra, Ludhiana districts. After the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848–49, the areas of the following districts were annexed by the Britishers: Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Bannu, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Hazara, Jhang, Jhelum, Kohat, Lahore, Montgomerty, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Shahpur, and Sialkot districts.[[File:Map of British India, showing principal administrative divisions, London & New York, 1851.png|thumb|Map of British India, showing principal administrative divisions, London & New York, 1851. The recently conquered Punjabi territory was initially administered as part of the [[Bengal Presidency]] for a few years following annexation.]] On 21February 1849, the East India Company decisively defeated the Sikh Empire at the Battle of Gujrat bringing to an end the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Following the victory, the East India Company announced the annexation of the conquered territory through a durbar proclamation on 30 March 1849 and annexed the Punjab on 2April 1849 and incorporated it within British India. The deposed child-monarch Duleep Singh was given a pension and forced to live outside Punjab.

For the task of organization of the conquered region, Henry Lawrence was the prime candidate to take up the task, yet Dalhousie did not agree with Lawrence's views fully. Thus, the compromise was the establishment of a three-member board of government/administration to administer the new territory. 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 by Sir Henry Lawrence, who had previously worked as British Resident at the Lahore Durbar and also consisted of his younger brother John Lawrence and Charles Grenville Mansel. Below the Board, a group of acclaimed officers collectively known as Henry 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 the Rajputana Agency, and his brother John Lawrence succeeded as the first Chief Commissioner. Thus, Punjab became administered by a 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. Sikh aristocrats were given patronage and pensions and groups in control of historical places of worship were allowed to remain in control.

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Punjab remained relatively peaceful, apart from rebellion led by Ahmad Khan Kharral. In May, John Lawrence took swift action to disarm potentially mutinous sepoys and redeploy most European troops to the Delhi ridge. 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.

British Raj

Following the Indian mutiny, Punjab became a lieutenant-governor's province, still under the Bengal Presidency. The governor-general of India, the highest seat of local authority, ruled the Bengal Presidency through its lieutenant-governors and chief-commissioners. Both the lieutenant-governors and chief-commissioners presided over commissioners of divisions, with those commissioners having authority over deputy-commissioners of districts.

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. The East India Company was abolished, along with its court of directors, replacing that administrative set-up with the council of India. Delhi Territory was transferred from the North-Western Provinces to the Punjab in 1858, partly to punish the city for the important role the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II, and the city as a whole, played in the 1857 Rebellion.

In 1859, Punjab became a lieutenant-governor's province. 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. The territory under the Lieutenant consisted of 29 Districts, grouped under 5 Divisions, and 43 Princely 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.

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. 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. A number of towns were created or saw significant development in the colonies, such as Lyallpur, Sargodha and Montgomery. Colonisation led to the canal irrigated area of the Punjab increasing from three to fourteen million acres in the period from 1885 to 1947.

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 the 1907 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. Mass demonstrations were organised, headed by Lala Lajpat Rai, a leader of the Hindu revivalist sect Arya Samaj. The unrest resulted in the repeal of the Colonisation Bill and the end of paternalist policies in the colonies.

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. 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. In March 1919 the Rowlatt Act was passed extending emergency measures of detention and incarceration in response to the perceived threat of terrorism from revolutionary nationalist organisations. This led to the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre in April 1919, where Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer ordered detachments of the 9th Gorkha Rifles and the 59th Scinde Rifles under his command to fire into a group of some 10,000 unarmed protesters and Baisakhi pilgrims, killing 379.

Administrative reforms

The Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms enacted through the Government of India Act 1919 expanded the Punjab Legislative Council and introduced the principle of dyarchy, 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. Some of the British Indian ministers under the dyarchy scheme were Sir Sheikh Abdul Qadir, Sir Shahab-ud-Din Virk and Lala Hari Kishen Lal.

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. The Unionist Party under Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan formed the government in 1937. Sir Sikandar was succeeded by Malik 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.

Partition

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. Amongst the peasantry and urban middle classes, the Hindus were the most active National Congress supporters, the Sikhs flocked to the Akali movement whilst the Muslims eventually supported the All-India Muslim League.

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 Punjab Legislative Assembly and the East Punjab Legislative Assembly. This last Assembly before independence, held its last sitting on 4 July 1947.

Population

| 1855|17600000 | 1868|19700000 | 1881|20800995 | 1891|22915894 | 1901|24367113 | 1911|23791841 | 1921|25101514 | 1931|28490869 | 1941|34309861 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.

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.

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 and Rajputs. 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 and Tanzania, Southeast Asia - Malaya and Burma, Hong Kong and Canada.

Religion

Main article: Religion in the Punjab

The Punjab was a religiously eclectic province, comprising three major groups: Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. By 1941, the religious Muslims constituting an absolute majority at 53.2%, whilst the Hindu population was at 30.1%. The period between 1881 and 1941 saw a significant increase in the Sikh and Christian populations, growing from 8.2% and 0.1% to 14.9% and 1.9% respectively. The decrease in the Hindu population has been attributed to the conversion of Hindus mainly to Sikhism and Islam, and also to Christianity.

In 1941, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs made 30.1, 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 its urban population respectively.

Subdivisions

Language

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. 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". Officials in the western divisions recommended Persian whilst eastern officials suggested a shift to Urdu. 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".

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. 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." Similar arguments had earlier been made about Bengali, Oriya and Hindustani; 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.

1931 census

According to the 1931 Census of British Punjab Province, Punjabi was the most widely spoken language, with 50.94% of the population reporting it, and 50.49% declaring it as their mother tongue (MT). Lahnda followed with 25.90% total speakers (25.66% MT), and Hindustani accounted for 14.00% (13.75% MT). Other languages included Western Pahari (5.93%), Rajasthani (2.15%), Pashto (0.32%), Balochi (0.21%), and Kashmiri (0.08%). Additionally, 0.47% of the population spoke languages categorized as 'Others'. The table below presents the full linguistic distribution, including both total speakers and those who reported each language as their mother tongue.

Summary of the table above 1931 language census of Punjab: In pre-partition Punjab, the linguistic landscape was divided into major zones based on dominant languages and influence: Punjabi-Dominant Regions: These districts were overwhelmingly Punjabi-speaking — Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala State, Malerkotla, Jullundur, Sialkot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Faridkot State, Ferozepore, Lahore, Patiala, and Nabha State. Punjabi with Lahnda Influence: Districts where Punjabi was dominant but there was also significant Lahnda influence included Shekhupura, Lyallpur, Gujranwala, and Gujrat.Lahnda with Punjabi Influence: Regions like Jhelum, Multan, Shahpur, and Montgomery were Lahnda-dominant but retained a strong influence of Punjabi.Lahnda-Dominant Regions: These districts were primarily Lahnda-speaking — Muzaffargarh, Jhang, Attock, Rawalpindi, Mianwali, Jhelum, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur State, and Multan. And Mianwali, and Attock showed a small influence of Pashto while Dera Ghazi Khan had influence of Balochi, especially in their western parts.Hill Regions: The hill districts namely Kangra, Simla, and Simla Hill states & other hill States with few part of Patiala State(2.33%) specially its kandaghat tahsil were dominated by Western Pahari speakers. while some part of Simla Hill states(10.72%) also have influence of Punjabi. Hindustani and Rajasthani Zones: In Ambala Division, districts such as Delhi, Karnal, Rohtak, and Gurgaon were primarily Hindustani- and Rajasthani-speaking. However, Ambala (35.6%) and Hissar (24.4%) had significant Punjabi-speaking populations with Hindustani and Rajasthani Majority. Additionally, the majority of Jind State and parts of Patiala and Nabha State that geographically surrounded the Ambala Division were linguistic enclaves of Hindustani and Rajasthani. A very small part of Ferozepore had influence from Hindustani and Rajasthani languages.

1911 census

As per the 1911 census, speakers of the Punjabi dialects and languages, including standard Punjabi along with Lahnda formed just over three-quarters (75.93 per cent) of the total provincial population.

Literacy

Literacy Rate by Religious Community in Punjab Province 1941

Education

In 1854, the Punjab education department was instituted with a policy to provide secular education in all government managed institutions. Privately run institutions would only receive grants-in-aid in return for providing secular instruction. 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.

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 and Forman 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. 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.' 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 in Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. 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. The Arya Samaj opened a college in Lahore in 1886, the Sikhs opened the Khalsa College whilst the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam stepped in to organise Muslim education. In 1886, the Punjab Chiefs' College, later renamed Aitchison College, was opened to further the education of the elite classes.

Tribes

Punjab Province was diverse, with the main castes represented alongside numerous subcastes and tribes (also known as Jāti or Barādarī), forming parts of the various ethnic groups in the province, contemporarily known as Punjabis, Saraikis, Haryanvis, Hindkowans, Dogras, Paharis, Potoharis, Himachalis, Bagri people and other non related ethnicities were Kashmiris, Balti people, Ladakhi people, Pashtuns, Baloch people, Marwaris. File:JatsAroundDelhi1868.jpg|Jats in Delhi (1868) File:Charles Shepherd and Arthur Robertson01.jpg|Rajputs in Delhi (1868) File:Grey-scale scan of a painting of a Hindu official or courtier (possibly identifiable as Misr Diwan Chand) of the court of the Sikh Empire.jpg|Brahmin in Lahore (c. 1799–1849) File:From left to right- A Gurkha, a Brahmin and a Sood.jpg|Left to right: Gurkha, Brahmin and Shudra (Chuhra-Chamar) in Simla (1868) File:Arain men in Lahore.jpg|Arains in Lahore (1868) File:Portrait of three unidentified Lahore carpenters (likely Tarkhan) with tools, ca.1862–72.png|Tarkhans in Lahore (1868) File:Two Gurjar (also transliterated as Gujjar, Gujar, Gurjara, & Gujjer) Men on a Pavement and a Woman in a Doorway in Delhi, Shepherd & Robertson (possibly), ca.1859–69.png|Gujjars in Delhi (c. 1860s) File:Portrait of an unidentified Arora Storekeeper from Lahore with coins in hand and in front of him, ca.1862–72.png|Arora in Lahore (1868) File:Portrait of two unknown Kumhar potters from Lahore, ca.1859–69.png|Kumhars in Lahore (1868)