'Rightly or wrongly, the Sikhs of the Punjab feared that a victorious rebellion would restore Muslim power in Delhi, a prospect they did not relish.'

— Karl de Schweinitz Jr. on the 1857 War of Independence

All historiography may be the statements of the authors regarding what they thought had happened and why. But when history is presented as an idea realising itself, it ceases to follow any rules, even those of its own logic.

The authors of the book under review present the Sikh kingdom of Punjab, which spanned almost the entire first half of the 19th century, as the spirit of Sikhism realising itself, though with minor distortions.

The story of this kingdom is really the story of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839). It was born in a power vacuum in India and was allowed to survive and grow until the British were ready to annex it.

The authors trace the founding and development of Sikhism as the prelude to the creation of the first Sikh kingdom in 1799, when Shah Zaman recognised Ranjit Singh as the ruler of Lahore.

The Chinese referred to periods of anarchy as the 'times of trouble'. We can refer to the 18th century as the 'times of sorrow'. The Mughal Empire was dissolving, while the British were slow in staking their claim as successors.

The north was the trampling ground of Afghan, Sikh, Maratha and sundry hordes of marauders. Waris Shah, who lived in that period, laments 'Saaray kharaab mulk Punjab vichun menoon wadda afsos kasur da aye (of all the bad lands of Punjab, Kasur truly breaks my heart).

However, the Sikh state was not viable. Indeed, no sizeable state could be viable in the Indus Valley before the cutting of the canals in the second part of the 19th century as there was a lack of production of sufficient surplus to support it. Before then, cultivation in western Punjab and Sindh was confined to narrow strips along the river banks, the rest of the land between the rivers being given over to pastoralism.

Whatever revenue was collected went for maintaining the army, leaving nothing for public welfare. The Oxford History of India (1983), referring to the poverty in the state and its lack of sufficient revenue, says that the Sikh army commanded all human resources of the kingdom and the 'wealth of the country was absorbed by it'.

Ranjit tried to make up for the shortage of funds by pursuing conquests in present-day NWFP and Kashmir, but their revenues were even lower than those of Punjab while the road to the East was blocked by the British.

The Khalsa state was, of course, primarily that of the Sikhs, who constituted only seven per cent of its population, Muslims being 50 per cent and Hindus 42 per cent. The ruler of course expected loyalty from all his subjects but, in fact, where Sikhs were not available, Hindus were given preference over Muslims, though in higher echelons of the establishment at Lahore, Muslim ministers and advisors held sway.

In their military organisation, Sikhs did not take easily to the infantry, which had been the main force of European armies since the 14th century. They, like the Rajputs, preferred the cavalry. But this malaise was common to all of South Asia; they were only gradually brought around to accepting the respectability of the infantry. Ranjit's artillery was manned principally by Muslims.

The work is marred by the authors' extensive hyperbole — Ranjit was as great a commander as Alexander and as humane, they claim. No one before this has called the Greek warrior humane, and Ranjit never took on a strong state. Then they claim that Ranjit was as great a founder of a state as Akbar, though the Sikh state barely survived its founder.

The bragging about Sikhs is no less arresting 'indomitable character of the people of Punjab' (meaning Sikhs), 'continent's finest soldiers', 'among the best fighters of the world', 'a race apart', 'what stood in the way of Britain's control of India was the Sikh kingdom' — and all this, , it can be argued, of a virtual protectorate of the British even though Rajit Singh had French and Italian officers commanding his forces as a ruse to keep the British at bay, i.e. east of the Sutlej.

The authors also appear to be Muslim-baiters Whereas others 'entered' India, Muslims were invaders who 'savaged the country for centuries'. Then, 'intolerant oppressive policies of Muslim rulers', 'genocidal Mughal attacks', 'atrocities of Muslim governors', 'Muslims' vile crimes', 'Mughal tormentors', 'Mughals persecuted Sikhs in order to convert them to Islam', 'Guru Govind's sons, aged six and eight, were killed because they refused to convert'.

What is closer to the truth is that the Mughals persecuted Sikhs more because they started armed rebellions against them, not because the former required the latter to convert to Islam, although initially the new creed was treated as heretic by Emperor Jahangir.

An author's passion aside, a historian should, at least, get his facts right. Khusro was not Jahangir's 'elder brother' but his eldest son. Jahangir was far from being 'the exact opposite' of a liberal.

There were no 'caliphs of Baghdad and Mecca' at the time of Aurangzeb. There was only an Ottoman caliph in Istanbul. Alexander did not fight Porus at Chillianwalla, which is in Gujarat but on the Jhelum near the modern-day village of Jalalpur Sharif.

Ranjit Singh may have been a reasonably good ruler. But this book, in part, is also characterised by undue venom and ignorance.

Empires of the Sikhs The life and times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh
By Patwant Singh and Jyoti M. Rai
Hay House Publishers, India
ISBN 978-81-89988-26-5
371pp. Rs995