Divya

Divya by Yashpal, 1945

Translated by Anand

I was never taught in school that Sialkot was the seat of a great Greek kingdom of Madra, a century after Alexander roved through the area. Milinda, also known as Menander, a Greek prince, born in present day Bagram, Afghanistan (the notorious airbase and the jail camp) came and founded the Kingdom of Marda in present day Sialkot. He defeated the Brahmin Paurav caste system dynasty. It led to a long duration of peace and harmony where the ruling aristocracy consisted of Greeks, High caste, "double-born" Brahmin Hindus and Buddhist.

Later in life, Milinda entered Buddhism and it changed the politics of the area.

Their sociopolitical life was somewhat analogous to the un-partitioned India of recent centuries where indigenous Indians of different religions and sects interacted with invaders from the Northwest and the result was a mix of assimilation and separations. Greeks and Buddhists married within and with the ex-slaves. Hindus of high caste, tried to remain genetically pure while mixing socially in every other way. They all tolerated each other, but carried an undercurrent of sense of superiority for themselves and disdain for the other.

A result of Milinda accepting pacifism was the loss of military edge his rule had. It did not need military might as everybody was happy. But later it became tempting for neighboring states to eye Sagal. The king of Darva in the Northeast was planning to attach Sagal.

I always wondered that how Buddhism which was widely practiced in its place of birth, India, got wiped out. This book, set in that historical time, provides some hints of that.

It is in this background that Yashpal has based his historical fiction, Divya. It is blurred where the history ends and fiction kicks in. 

This is first century BC and Milinda is off the scene. He had abolished dynastic power, freed all the slaves of his state on conversion to Buddhism. After he leaves the scene without any successor, Sagal is ruled by a Council. Hundred years old commander in chief of Army, a Greek, is now the President of the state. There is a Chairman of the Republic Council is a Brahmin high caste Hindu. Some of lower castes and even ex slaves, based on their success in business, have made it to the aristocracy, although may not be able as yet to be on the council itself. The ex-slaves and commoners however could gain high position if they join military and eventually could become part of the ruling class. Not much different form the present times. Slowly the society has started to tilt again in the direction of High Castes and the Buddhist influence started to wane.

The Chief Justice is a centurion, a Brahmin, whose father was kept in the same position when Milinda conquered Sagal. Later he inherited his father’s position.

Divya is a young great granddaughter of the Chief Justice, who learnt to be a dancer at the acclaimed school of the Court Dancer and Laureate of Art, Devi Mallika. At the Festival of the Spring, she wins the dance competition to be declared the Daughter of Saraswati. At the same festival, Prithusen, a son of ex slave turned a business magnate and himself a young graduate of military academy wins the men’s competition of marksmanship, defeating sons of Greek, Brahmin and Kashtriyans aristocracy.  Still he is denied the privilege to give his shoulder to the palanquin of Diyva, the winner of the dance competition. Rudhradhir, son of the Chairman of the Council and a high caste Hindu stops him from doing that. At the same scene is an atheist and convicted sculpturist Marish who speaks openly against the religion and the establishment. Banished at times, he is still tolerated.

These three men keep on reappearing in the tumultuous life of Divya.

What follows is a high drama which moves at a comfortable pace, but takes unexpected turns; something typical of Yashpal. It is laces with masterpieces of innate wisdom and profound inner sight by ordinary characters.  All the characters have their ups and downs.

Divya self-surrenders to the love of her life and then she realizes gradually that she has to pay a price for that. She has to run away. Dejected time and again, she tries to kill herself. She survives and moves on to see further vicissitudes of life.

The three male characters cross their path with her at one time or another and the suspense remains.

The essence of the story is a lesson Divya learns when in desperation she tries to enter a Buddhist safe house but denied entry by the priest as she does not have the permission of any males of her family: father, husband, brother or son. She argues that Buddha himself had given shelter to a prostitute. In reply the priest tells her that a prostitute is a free woman. A prostitute is more independent than a high caste woman. This profound realization that a woman was a slave of man, no matter what caste she belonged to, was too much for contemporaries of Yashpal, and he paid a price for that.

In choosing her path, Divya becomes an independent woman. Whether she keeps her independence or gives in to another chance of reinduction as a high caste woman, is the story is all about.

Yashpal's female protagonists are strong women. Their resilience surprises you. 

A comrade of Baghat Singh and Chandrashekar Azad, Yashpal had gone to jail for his views and actions. Coming out of prison, he lived a life of a successful writer, and never looked back. 

I got introduced to Yashpal through his seminal work, Jhoota Sach, which is all about Lahore and Partition. It was introduced by his son Anand, who had translated it in English in the Urdu Conference at NYU New York early in 2019. (You can read my earlierb about that). I read that in Urdu and then in English. The present book is also translated by Anand.

It was given to me as a present by my son. Thank you, Danial.

Tareekh-e-Punjab by Rai Bahadur Kanhaiya Lal, XEN Lahore

Rai Bahadur Kanhaiya Lal was Executive Engineer (XEn) of Lahore in British India. Construction of Mayo Hospital is considered one of his achievements. 


A bona fide Lahori, he was a loyal supporter of the British Raj. He has written several books including Tareekh e Punjab and Tareekh e Lahore.  He was a poet in Persian and Urdu and used ‘Hindi” as his takhalus. Working full time, he tended to his artistic endeavors and writings prolifically in the afterhours. 


He had written a book in Persian poetry, ‘Zafar Nama-e-Ranjit Singh’, life story of Ranjit Singh. In the preface of Tareekh e Punjab, written in 1875, he mentions that by that time, seven hundred copies were already printed. It was this work, which he decided to present in Urdu prose and finalized in the form of Tareekh e Punjab.

I picked up this book a few years back on a book store but did not have the opportunity to read it until now. It is interesting in many ways. First is my personal bias, and I have no embarrassment in acknowledging it, I am fascinated by Urdu written by non-Muslims. On top of it, it is the Urdu of late 19^th century. It is very florid in style and grammatically a bit different than the way we construct a sentence these days. It adds to the beauty of it. It is a lot more Persianized than today’s Urdu and one may have to open the dictionary for a few words.  Like Mughak, Surghubash, qataial tariqa, matawan,. This experience of reading Urdu in its finest form is enough of a reason to enjoy the reading. But there is much more than that.


SET UP OF THE BOOK:

It starts with a Hamd, a poem in praise of God.

It is named Tareekh e Punjab, ie the History of Punjab, but essentially it is the history of Sikhism. It starts with the life story of Guru Nanak, and then details the account of all the Gurus of Sikh faith. Next is the history of turmoil after the death of the last guru and the constant infights for Lahore between the Mughals and Afghans, leading to the rise of the Sikh misls. There is a chapter on the twelve misls and then the bulk of the book is about the life of Ranjit Singh. Next chapter details the history of Sikh rule and its gradual downfall after Ranjit Singh’s death and ends with the fall of Lahore to the British Raj. One chapter is the district wise account of the 1857 mutiny and how it played out in Punjab. Last chapter is about the history of Jammu and Kashmir as it is quite entwined with the history of Punjab, esp. the role of the Dogra family.

Kanhaiya Lal is an anglophile and is full of praise of the British and all the Lord Bahadurs and Nawab Bahadurs of the Company. He generally shows deference to Sikhs and Ranjit Singh but whenever there is a comparative note, he clearly shows his bias towards the ‘greatness’ and ‘magnanimity’ of the British and the ‘savagery’ of the Sikhs.

After finishing the book, I picked up another book which I had read longtime before and which covered more or less the same time frame, ‘Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab” by Kushwant Singh. That is the first, of not the only book written by a Sikh about Ranjit Singh. It is interesting to note that how a Sikh and a loyal servant of British Raj would look at the same time frame and events in the history differently. To me it seemed that, even if both had reasons to have their biases, Kanhaiya Lal took more liberty with history than Khushwant Singh.

A few of the things which were either not known to me before or were made clearer after reading the book were as follows. 


Guru Nanak and the Gurus:

Sikhism gave Punjabi language the status of a religious language. Until then, it was either Sanskrit for Hindus and Arabic for Muslims. It allowed followers of this religion to practice the rituals and communicate with the deities in their own language. (some of it is written by Muslims)

Most of the Gurus including Gurn Nanak were kashtaris. Nanak did not pass on the baton to his sons but make a non-relative his successor. The later gurus were not related either till the Third Guru Amar Das decided to give the leadership to his daughter Bhani, He was impressed by her dedication to him as she did not let her father know while helping him take the ritual bath that she had injured herself and was bleeding profusely from one hand. Once offered the succession, Bhani being a smart lady requested his husband be made the Guru and asked that all the later Gurus should be from their offspings. 

Fourth Guru RamDas discovered Armistar lake and dedicated it as a religious place. He was given a large land grant by Mughal emperor Akbar. 

Fifth (his son) Guru Arjun complied the Granth Sahib, the book. His was the first time when Mughal kings started taking notice of Sikhs and he was arrested for a while in Lahore during Jahangir’s time. He escaped and his body was never found. 

Sixth Guru Hargoband had good relations with the Governor of Lahore Dara Shikoh and he saved him against the Emperor Shah Jahan and had him hide in Kartarpur, ( yes the one recently opened corridor). 

Seventh Guru was not the son but the grandson of the sixth. (the son had declined to be a religious leader). During his time Dara Shikoh was gone at the hands of his brother the new King Aurangzeb. He asked Guru’s son Ram Ray to be send to court as an assurance against any trouble. 

During that time the Guru died and his younger son Herkishan, not Ramray , became the Eight Guru. RamRay was son of a kaneez and was not considered pure enough. Herkishan was a kid and died at age of 8 after being the Guru for two years. 

Then there was a period of turmoil and many claimed to be the Guru including Ram Ray but ultimately a distant uncle of his Taigh Bahadur became the Ninth Guru. He was the one eventually executed by Aurangzeb.


Guru Gobing Singh and Khalisa:

Taigh Bahadur’s son, Gubind Singh is the most famous one, the Tenth Guru. He is the one who in fact made Sikhism the religion it is. Not only that Sikhism stopped to exist a middle of road religion between Islam and Hinduism, it became clearly anti Muslim. At the same time, it declared its separation from Hinduism. Now for someone to be a Sikh one has to take some steps which would take one away form the old religion. For example, one would not believe in any castes, one would leave the old rituals and deities behind, one would break the locket Zannar, would keep a weapon, kirpan, and would add the name of Singh, mean the tiger.

Guru Gobind Singh died fighting losing battles all his life. And that was the end of Gurus. Later on, of his disciples. Banda Beragi took the leadership in his hand to avenge the deaths.

Then after a long time of unrest in Punjab esp after the repeated attacks of Ahmad Shah Abdali (seven of them) the Sikh Misls gradually rose to fill the vacuum and that eventually led to rise of Ranjit Singh , the leader of the 12^th Misl.



Maharaji Rangit Singh.

A few things to mention, which I did not know clearly before:

Punjab was always a land of war and fights. Almost any town you know of in Punjab had a local ruler who had a small army and a fort. They pledged their allegiance to someone at one time or another. It was Rangit Singh who conquered them one by one, either bringing them directly under his rule, or established an arrangement of patronage and protection. In lieu of that the local ruler will give annual tax and provide army in case of war against the invader or invasion.

At the time of his coming to power, Punjab was surrounded by strong powers. Afghans on the West, Rajputs on the North, Gorkhas on the North East, English on the South East and Marhatas on the South. Sindh on the South West was the only quite front.

Inside all this, after getting Lahore and Amritsar (the seat of Sikh Religion and its Temple) the prize states were Kasur, Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar.  The areas of Derajats (DGKhan and DI Khan or close to them) and Mankera. (never heard of this before) Most of these states were under some protection of Kabul and used to pay protection money to them. 


Role of Muslims within his government:

Many important positions were retained by Muslims including his closest advisor Faqir Azizuddin. It is strange that the Muslim Lahoris were the one to invite him to get rid of the three Sikh Misls ruling Lahore including bhangis (Gujjar Singh). And later after the death of Ranjit, when the children were unable to keep the rule and peace, there were the same Muslims of Lahore who paved the way for the British to take direct control of Lahore from Khalisas. 


Relationship with the British:

Ranjit Singh was smart enough to know that he should not fight with the British. He always extended a hand of friendship to them. East India Company, however always deceived him and gradually encircled Punjab before eventually taking over.

He could not extend his rule beyond Sutlej. That was set as the boundary between him and EIC. He was not happy about that but could not do anything against that. That did allow him to expand into West and North and took Kashmir and Multan and the DeraJat. He wanted to take Sindh and tried to find a way of not annoying the British but they over smarted him and sneakily established Sindh as their area of influence despite quite clear indications by Ranjit Singh of his intention to do so himself.

Nawabs of Bahalwalpur, fed up with his repeated and increased demand to pay more, entered into a secret deal with the British and moved to their protection. They were across Sutlej and so British had a point that it was outside of Ranjit’s area of influence anyway.


He had several invasions on Multan and eventually conquered it away from Nawab Muzzaffar Ali Khan Durrani in 1818. There is a great story of valor of Nawab’s fight till death. Multan was a prized province to conquer as Ranjit thought it will lead his way down south to Sindh, which was stalled by the British though diplomatic conceit.


Ranjit Singh was ruthless and cunning. He, and his father Mahan Singh before him, many times deceived the friends and extorted money from them. Many, including his own mother in law, once deceived into coming to meet him, were held hostage and not released until he got his ransom money or acceptance of his authority over their states. The only exception was Fateh Sher Ahluwalia, as he was the only one who became his turban-exchanged brother. They remained loyal to each other and the relationship was mutually beneficial


Even if friendly nawabs and rajas died, the successor had to give succession nazrana in order to be accepted as a ruler. So whenever a raja died, the Maharaja had extra income. 


Many times, he had to go on military tours to collect the taxes from nawabs and rajas of outer lands. Military complex was a part of the economy. 


He was fond of wine, brandy, horses, and guns. He surrounded himself with men and women of marked beauty. 


He never killed anyone in cold blood. There was never a death sentence issued during his reign. (not mentioned by Kanhaiya but by Khushwant Singh)



During his time, Ranjit Singh was the most glamorous and strongest Indian leader and ruler in India, not the Mughal King who was still the Emperor of Hindustan but was essentially the mayor of Delhi. Nowhere in the book the Mughal Emperor is mentioned in the story of Ranjit Singh and after wards.




After Ranjit Singh:

It was a sad and quick downfall of the Punjab State. He died in 1839 and Sikh rule ended in 1849. These years were turbulent and the rulers were all his sons and one grandson. It was mostly infighting and, in the end, conspiracy, deceit and excessive zeal of the rulers and their confidants ended up breaking the treaty of accepting Sutlej as the border between English and Khalisa. It provided British to invade Punjab in 1846. They demanded 1.5 crore rupees (15 million).  It was reduced to 10 Million which was to be paid by selling Kashmir. It was paid by Dilip Singh, the Dogra ( from Jammu)  who got Kashmir and was declared its Raja. The British established residency in Anarkali after the truce. Eventually they extended their stay beyond one year on the insistence of the elite of Lahore. In 1849 they found it convenient to declared the direct rule of British on Punjab by deposing the raja under the pretext of instability of the state and worsening infighting.




The Dogra Family and Ranjit Singh:

It is a separate topic and hopefully I write on it someday. The three brothers Ghulab Singh, Dhian Singh and Suchet Singh were recruited as a part of Dogra Army by Ranjit Singh. He had led several unsuccessful missions to Kashmir and now realized that he should have a Kashmiri force of his own. These brothers were in a way slave soldiers of Ranjit Army. Dhian Singh became very close to Ranjit and was eventually his Diwan. Ghulab Singh remained a loyal soldier and provided army and support to Maharaja. He got Kashmir in reward. After the death of Ranjit Singh the Dogra family became involved in the internecine infighting of the progeny of Ranjit Singh and eventually all died including Dhian Singh, his son Hira Singh and Suchet Singh.

One wonders if Kashmir was not taken away from Punjab in 1846 and remained a part of it, how the partition of 1947 had played. It could very well have become part of Pakistan as being a Muslim majority area of Punjab.




This all made me realize another thing. If looking at British Raj in Punjab, or at the areas comprising Pakistan now, it is not the usual 200 years of occupation we were told in school days. It was 1849 when Punjab came under the Company’s rule and in 1947 the British left. So it was a bit less than 100 years and NOT 200 years of British Raj in present day Pakistan. Moreover, the rule of Mughal Empire over Punjab was not there for most of the 19^th century. It was a battlefield between Afghans and Mughals and slow rise of Sikh Confederacy in the shape of twelve misls. 


It was Ranjit Singh who consolidated Punjab as a nation, and made it stand up against the assault from the North. There was never an attack on Punjab and rest of India from the North West. Battel of Jamrud is a testament to that.



The last page of the book is the most eloquent writing of Urdu, although a bit betraying the anglophile servile state of mind of the author. Here it is for the pleasure of those who like flowery Urdu.