Moran
Moran (Mourah) is a village in tehsil and district Patiala in the Indian Punjab.
Location
Jat Gotras
Population
History
At this time the Sikhs were in a very excited and suspicious frame of mind, and were particularly jealous of any interference with their presumed possessions. The case of the village of Mourah, in Nabha territory, which had been resumed from Lahore, was of a similar nature, and, in both instances, the Lahore Government considered the action of the English to be inspired by hostile intentions and to prove a desire to annex more of their territory when a convenient opportunity should offer itself.[1]
The case of village Mowran discussed by Lepel H. Griffin
Lepel H. Griffin writes: [2] At this time, however, a case occurred which requires notice, as it appeared likely to embroil the Raja with the Lahore Durbar, and certainly was considered by the latter to evince an unfriendly feeling on the part of the British Government, helping to embitter the relations between the two States, which were already becoming uncertain and dangerous. To explain the nature of the case it is necessary to go back some way in Nabha history.
Sardar Dhanna Singh Malwai:
Dhanna Singh,* a zamindar of Mowran, in Nabha territory, left his village about the year 1793, and took service with Sirdar Sahib Singh of Gujrat, who had married Subha Kour, the sister of Raja Jaswant Singh. Later he served under Sirdar Fatah Singh Kalianwala, and, in 1807, entered the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore, and, being a fine soldier, soon rose to favor. In the year 1815, he begged his master to obtain for him the grant of his ancestral village of Mowran, and the Maharaja according preferred his request to Jaswant Singh, who objected to the grant. Ranjit Singh then said that unless the village was given he would resume the lands held, Trans-Satlej, by Subha Kour, the widow of Sirdar Sahib Singh Bhangi, who had died a short time before. This argument was not with-
* Dhanna Singh Malwai. The history of this Sirdar is given in "the Punjab Chiefs", p. 192—196.
out effect, and after some further delay Jaswant Singh consented to the grant, which was made in 1819, the British Agent, General Ochterlony, knowing nothing about it, although the Nabha authorities declared that he not only was aware of the grant, but insisted that it should be made subject to service to Nabha of which State Dhanna Singh and his father Mal Singh before him had been subjects. This was certainly never done, and no service was ever rendered by Dhanna Singh. He, however, occasionally made to the Raja complimentary presents, till 1830, when he broke off all connection with Nabha, commenced building a fort in Mowran and acted as an independent Chief. Jaswant Singh was very much irritated and wished to resume the village; but this, during the life of the Maharaja, he did not dare to do, although his agent affirmed that, at the marriage of Nao Nihal Singh, in 1837, he asked the Maharaja's permission to resume, and, in reply, was directed to wait till the death of Dhanna Singh who was then a man far advanced in years.
The object of the Nabha Raja was to prove that Mowran was not a grant made by him to Maharaja Ranjit Singh and given by the latter to Dhanna Singh Malwai, but that it was a mere temporary exchange for the village of Manokah, allowed to Rani Subha Kour his sister ; and that when this was resumed on her death, he had a right to resume Mowran. This lady died in 1839, two months before Maharaja Ranjit Singh, by whose successor, Kharrak Singh, her village was resumed.
The death of Dhanna Singh and demand of the village:
Sirdar Dhanna Singh Malwai died in May 1848, and Raja Devindar Singh at once called on Hukm Singh, the son of the deceased Chief, to surrender the property. Hie circumstances of the grant were quite unknown to Sir G. Clerk, who, in 1839, is said to have sanctioned the resumption under the impression that the village was merely an exchange for that held by Rani Subha Kour ; and, moreover, the Raja produced a letter said to have been written by Maharaja Kharrak Singh, and dated the 6th December 1839, which supported this view of the question and which ran as follows : —
The letter of Maharaja Kharrak Singh:
"As regards releasing or giving up Mowran in exchauge for which Zahura was granted to Mai Subha Kour in the first instance, and Manokah later, which was resumed by me, Ganda Singh* has explained the circumstances. He was told that if any one seized Manokah it should be restored, but he insisted much upon the restoration of Mowran. As there is a friendship between us, be satisfied on this subject and take possession of the village. The case appears to be as follows : — The Maharaja gave Mowran to Sirdar Dhanna Singh, and, as an exchange, first the village of Zahura, and afterwards that of Manokah, was given to Mai Subha Kour : on her death my officials took possession of Manokah. Your officials can now also take possession of Mowran : if Sirdar Dhanna Singh complains, some other village will be given him." †
* This Ganda Singh was a relation of Mai Chand Kour, wife of Maharaja Kharrak Singh, and had entered the service of the Raja of Nabha, by whom he was sent to Lahore regarding the Mowraa case.
† Translation by Captain Cunningham, Assistant Political Agent
The Raja of Nabha takes Moran by storm and plunders:
Raja Devindar Singh, on the refusal of Sirdar Hukm Singh to surrender the village, sent a force against it in August 1843, opened fire without delay and
took it by storm, refusing to allow any reference to be made to Hukm Singh or to Lahore. The fort was plundered and a large quantity of valuables, estimated
by Sirdar Hukm Singh at more than two lakhs of rupees was carried off.* The Raja's account of the attack was of course different : he asserted that the
villagers opened fire upon his troops, and the capture of the fort was in retaliation for this outrage, while no valuables of any description were founder removed.†
Maharaja Sher Singh, who had now succeeded to the unquiet throne of Lahore, pretended to be, or really was, most indignant at the violence done to one of his dependents and wrote to the British Government for redress. But before any reply could be given, Sher Singh was assassinated, and several months of anarchy succeeded, during which Mowran was forgotten.
The Letter of Maharaja Dalip Singh:
But, in July 1844, the question was again raised and the nature of the Lahore demands will be seen from extract from a letter of Maharaja Dalip Singh.§ "All the circumstances connected with the village of Mowran are understood by the English, and it is known to them that it belongs to the Khalsa, and you have also ascertained fully the aggression committed
* Letter of Rai Kishan Chand, Agent of the Lahore Durbar, 16th July 1844. Statement of Sirdar Hukm Singh Malwai, dated 25th April 1844.
† Letter from Raja of Nabha to Agent Governor General dated 16th July 1844.
§ Received 10th July 1844.
"and the deceit practised by the authorities of Nabha. Rai Kishan Chand ( the vakil) informed me that the case would soon be satisfactorily settled, and although it was pleasing to hear this, still, as there has been much delay, I have thought it good to remind you that the right of the Lahore State to the village is proved, and that aggression and deceit on the part of the Nabha authorities have been fully ascertained. The belief is that, considering the friendship of the two States, the case of Mowran will be satisfactorily settled, and all the plundered property will be restored, and that those who have been proved to have committed aggression and practised deceit will be adequately punished."
The importance attached to the case of Sikhs:
The Mowran case having thus become, in the excited state of the Sikhs, of great political importance, a full investigation was made into the merits of the case. The points on which the whole question turned were the validity of the letter of Maharaja Kharrak Singh, the nature of the original grant and the person to whom it was made.
The letter of Maharaja Kharrak Singh permitting the resumption of Mowran was at once pronounced a forgery by the Lahore Durbar. The original could not be produced, and the Raja of Nabha stated that it had been lost when the papers of his minister, Sahib Singh, were seized. But this excuse could not be admitted in the face of the denial of the Lahore officials that such a document had ever been issued. The truth probably was that Ganda Singh, who was sent to Lahore as a Nabha Agent in 1839, persuaded
his relative, Rani Chand Kour, to induce her weak minded husband Maharaja Kharrak Singh to draft a letter similar to that produced ; that Raja Dhyan Singh, the Lahore Minister, refused his consent to the alienation, and the letter consequently was never despatched. Raja Jaswant Singh later procured a copy of the draft which was produced as genuine and valid, although the original letter had never been officially issued at all. This was to all intents and purposes a forgery.
The original grant was discovered, dated May 1819, in favor of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and on this the Nabha Raja compelled somewhat to change his ground. He admitted that the grant had originally been so made, and stated that the British Agent had been informed of it at the time, but of this assertion there was no proof.
There was evidence, however, to show that the English authorities had no knowledge of the transfer. Mr. Clerk had given the Raja, in 1839, permission to resume Mowran, having no idea whatever that the Lahore State had any legitimate claim.* Colonel Richmond, equally ignorant of the truth, and accepting, as precedents to follow, the orders of Colonel Ochterlony in 1814, and of Mr. Clerk in 1839, told the Raja, when about to march against Mowran, that the village appeared to belong to Nabha and that if the Raja chose to resume it he was at liberty to do so.t The grant to Maharaja Ranjit Singh was not signed by the Raja, but this, which was advanced as a plea against its validity,
* Mr. Clerk to Raja of Nabha, 8th April 1839, and to Colonel Richmond, 16th September 1843.
† Colonel Richmond to Raja of Nabha, l9th August 1843.
was of little weight, for Sikh Chiefs did not always affix their signatures to documents of such a nature. In any case, the denial of the grant was as foolish as it was dishonest, since the Raja had virtually admitted the Lahore claim by applying there for leave to resume ; while the reason for omitting to sign the document was doubtless that the Raja, when making the grant, had intended some day to deny it either for his personal advantage or to justify himself to the British Government for an illegal transfer of territory.*
The question remained whether the village should be restored to Lahore, which had held possession for twenty-four years under Raja Jaswant Singh's grant. At any other time the British Government would probably have waived their rights and allowed Lahore to retain what had been so long possessed, notwithstanding the original acquisition was irregular, but the Sikh Durbar had showed so hostile and arrogant a temper that any concession might have been misconstrued. That the grant was invalid there can be no possible doubt. The British Government was the paramount power, and no feudatory was competent to transfer territory to another independent power without its consent.
The right of the British Government clear, and the village resumed:
It is true that no definite ruling was given on this subject till 1828, in the case of Raja Sangat Singh of Jhind, but the principle was known and acknowledged, and that it was understood is proved by the secrecy attending the transfer of
* Colonel Richmond to Secretary to Government of India, dated 18th May 1844, and 28th May.
Mowran to Ranjit Singh.* The village was consequently resumed by the British Government ; the Raja of Nabha receiving a severe reprimand, and being directed to pay Sirdar Hukm Singh the value of the property plundered from the fort.†
The indignation caused by this decision at Lahore:
The decision of the British Government excited great ill-feelings at Lahore. There can be no doubt that the decision was correct according to every principle of international law ; but the Sikhs did not understand international law. They only saw the Raja of Nabha commit, under the shield of British protection, a gross outrage against the Lahore Government, plunder the property of one of the most distinguished Lahore Generals, and kill, in his wanton aggression, several Lahore subjects. The rights of the British Government, as far as its feudatories were concerned, they did not care to understand. They only knew that the village of Mowran had been held by the Lahore State for twenty-four years ; that it was seized by violence from Maharaja Sher Singh ; and that the British Government, which had always professed the warmest friendship for the Sikh people, not only did not compel its restoration but took the opportunity to benefit itself by annexing the subject of dispute. This feeling was strengthened by another case which occurred about the same time, and which has been before referred to, namely, the village of Bains, granted by the Raja of Jhind
* Resident at Delhi, dated 12th June, to Government of India, and Government of India to Resident Dehli, 3rd July 1828.
† Agent Governor General to Secretary to Government, 4th August 1844, and Secretary to Government, No. 1,297 dated 11th June 1844, and No. 2,480 of 5th October 1844, to Agent Governor General.
to Jamadar Khushhal Singh.* That the suspicions of the Sikhs were groundless and childish may be true ; but it is certain that the unsympathetic action of the British Government at this time did irritate the Lahore Government extremely, and was one of the causes of the war which so shortly followed. It may have been well to insist upon the maintenance of a principle the correctness of which there was no reason to doubt, and to refuse to surrender it in favor of any considerations of expediency ; but Governments and individuals who talk of principle are generally about to do something ungenerous or foolish; and statesmanship consists as much in respect for prejudices and tenderness for ignorance, as in the assertion of principles however unimpeachable. This, the English Government, not for the first or last time, forgot, satisfying itself with the excuse, unworthy of a powerful administration, that any concessions to justice or generosity might be mistaken for weakness.
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