“Hari Singh Nalwa seated in full armour and adopting a military stance”-copy of a native painting by Sir John Mcqueen
“Hari Singh Nalwa seated in full armour and adopting a military stance”-copy of a native painting by Sir John Mcqueen
Hari Singh Nalwa (1791-1837) was a General in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army and he was asked by Ranjit Singh to govern Peshawar in 1834. There was intense fighting between Nalwa’s force and the Pashtun tribals. And as Rajmohan Gandhi writes,”The name of Nalwa became a terror in the tribal territory, and Pashtun mothers would for years frighten children into good behavior by speaking of ‘Haria’ after Nalwa’s first name.” Gandhi, Rajmohan (2013) Punjab. A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten, Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, p.169
Hari Singh Nalwa was responsible for expanding the frontier of Sikh Empire to beyond the Indus river right up to the mouth of the Khyber Pass. At the time of his death, the western boundary of the empire was Jamrud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Singh_Nalwa
Ruchi Ram Sahni writes about his visit to the historical Jamrud Fort, a visit that was facilitated by a close college friend of his, Rattan Chand, known as “Sant”. Ruchi Ram Sahni writes, ” It was through his personal influence with the Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar that I was able, sometime early in the 1890s, to pay a visit to the historical Jumrud Fort and to see the room where Hari Singh Nalwa was said to have drawn his last breath. “Sant” was then employed as an Extra Additional Commissioner at Peshawar. As only the road leading to Jumrud was in British possession at the time, while the territory through which it passed belonged to the independent tribe, occasional sniping could not be ruled out altogether. Under my friend’s instructions, I saw the Deputy Commissioner. Of course he, himself accompanied me. After some ordinary enquiries the Deputy Commissioner was pleased to grant me the necessary permit, but not before I had given him an undertaking in writing that I was proceeding to Jumrud entirely on my own risk. I was driven alone in a tonga (a horse drawn carriage) with one fully armed sowar (rider) riding on either side of it. The fort has been described by so many competent persons and the story of the Sikh general who died there is so well known that I need not burden my chronicle with any words of my own about them. Of course, as a Punjabi, I could not but feel a peculiar thrill, as I stood on the roof of the fort and had a good look at the country around me, at the thought that it was a Punjabi General who had, for the first time in seven hundred years, carried back the tide of conquest across the Indus to the very mouth of the dreaded Khyber through which had come wave after wave of marauding hordes sweeping down the fertile plains of the province, killing vast numbers of the population and burning and plundering towns and villages in their ruthless, unchecked march to Delhi”. Burra, Neera (2017) A Memoir of pre-Partition Punjab. Ruchi Ram Sahni 1863-1948, Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Jamrud Fort 1870s
Another photo of Jamrud Fort 1880s
Ruchi Ram Sahni 