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THE BRAVE PUNJABIS
General Thackwell, who had personally led his dragoons in the battle wrote in The Second Sikh War (1851): "It is due to the Sikhs to say that they fought bravely, for though defeated and broken, they never ran, but fought with their talwars to the last and I witnessed several acts of great bravery in some of their Sirdars and men". Henry Hardinge, Governor General of India, who, alongwith Hugh Gough was rewarded with peerage, had seen the action. Arthur Hardinge, son of the Governor General, wrote: "Few escaped;.no one, it may be said, surrendered. The Sikhs met their fate with the resignation which distinguished their race." Hugh Gough, the British Commander-inChief could not suppress his admiration of the bravery and resoluteness of Sikhs and paid rich tributes to the Punjabis : "Policy prevented me publicly recording my sentiments of the splendid gallantry of a fallen foe, and I declare, were it not from a conviction that my country's good required the sacrifice, I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body." The hard, Shah Mohammad, immortalised the heroic stand of the men of Sham Singh Attariwala at Sobraon thus :
'They squeezed the blood out of the Whites,
As one squeezes juice out of a lemon;
If only Ranjit Singh were there,
He would have been proud to see,
How the Khalsa wielded their swords.
About the sad result of the compaign, he wrote;
'Oh Shah Mohammad, without Ranjit Singh, such was our plight
We won the battles, but lost the fight.'
The traitors to the Khalsa were not only taken note of by the British or the Khalsa themselves, but were immortalised in doggerel verse punning on their names:
'Lallu dee Lallee gaee, Teju da gia tej
Ran vich pith dikhaike modha aie pher.
'Lallu lost the blush of shame, Teju lost his lustre, by turning their Backs in the field, they turned the tide and battle yield'
...
...
to be continued.....
General Thackwell, who had personally led his dragoons in the battle wrote in The Second Sikh War (1851): "It is due to the Sikhs to say that they fought bravely, for though defeated and broken, they never ran, but fought with their talwars to the last and I witnessed several acts of great bravery in some of their Sirdars and men". Henry Hardinge, Governor General of India, who, alongwith Hugh Gough was rewarded with peerage, had seen the action. Arthur Hardinge, son of the Governor General, wrote: "Few escaped;.no one, it may be said, surrendered. The Sikhs met their fate with the resignation which distinguished their race." Hugh Gough, the British Commander-inChief could not suppress his admiration of the bravery and resoluteness of Sikhs and paid rich tributes to the Punjabis : "Policy prevented me publicly recording my sentiments of the splendid gallantry of a fallen foe, and I declare, were it not from a conviction that my country's good required the sacrifice, I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body." The hard, Shah Mohammad, immortalised the heroic stand of the men of Sham Singh Attariwala at Sobraon thus :
'They squeezed the blood out of the Whites,
As one squeezes juice out of a lemon;
If only Ranjit Singh were there,
He would have been proud to see,
How the Khalsa wielded their swords.
About the sad result of the compaign, he wrote;
'Oh Shah Mohammad, without Ranjit Singh, such was our plight
We won the battles, but lost the fight.'
The traitors to the Khalsa were not only taken note of by the British or the Khalsa themselves, but were immortalised in doggerel verse punning on their names:
'Lallu dee Lallee gaee, Teju da gia tej
Ran vich pith dikhaike modha aie pher.
'Lallu lost the blush of shame, Teju lost his lustre, by turning their Backs in the field, they turned the tide and battle yield'
...
...
to be continued.....
