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Perhaps nothing illustrates the character of Ranjit Singh's<br />
regime more tellingly than the fact that his decision to outlaw<br />
the killing of cows which was offensive to the non-Muslim<br />
population was accepted without any resistance. Even the ruler<br />
of Afghanistan sent him his word to the effect that the killing<br />
of cows had been discontinued in his own countty. This was<br />
done presumably to court favour with him.<br />
It was this atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect<br />
which he was able to generate and which earned him the<br />
undying loyalty of people like Shah Mohammed and others.<br />
Nijhawan has called attention to this fact pointedly in his<br />
introduction and no more needs to be said about it.<br />
The third point which Nijhawan makes is equally<br />
meaningful. Going back to what he knows about the 19th century<br />
and the kind of atmosphere which prevailed in small towns and<br />
the counttyside during his childhood, he makes bold to say that<br />
co-existence amongst the various communities was a fact of daily<br />
life. If all this began to change under the impact of the British<br />
rule, it needs to be recognised that these changes came about<br />
because of the social and economic forces generated by the<br />
British rule. At the same time, it was a matter of high policy for<br />
the British to create divisions amongst the various communities.<br />
The introduction ofthe separate electoral system in the beginning<br />
of the 20th century and all that followed, are details which do<br />
not have to be recalled here. Those are recorded in countless<br />
books of history.<br />
What the British did was to promote a sense of separate<br />
identity in each community. In the rest of India, there were<br />
mainly two communities: Hindus and Muslims were encouraged<br />
to look upon themselves in their exclusive way. For historical,<br />
as also sociological reasons, the Christians never got involved<br />
in this competition for a separate identity. The Sikhs however<br />
got unavoidably involved. Their proportion in the total<br />
population of the Punjab was exceedingly small, closer to 5 than<br />
10 per cent at the time the British annexed the Punjab. But they<br />
were higWy energetic and dynamic people. Depressed as they<br />
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