BUT when the rulers of Bengal and Bihar, the potentates of the Deccan such as Hyder and Tipu Sultan,* the Mahrattas and others equal to Rustam and Isfandiyar,* have been worsted by the British army, what could be expected from that poor and helpless body? Their fight with the English is just as that of a mosquito with an elephant, or of a moth with fire, a parrot with a hawk, or a goat with a lion! Indeed, these Englishmen emulate the great heroes who figure in ancient history.
The Mahratta chiefs were presumptuous enough to continue opposing and harassing the English, until such time as the most exalted General Lake,* by his prudent strokes of policy, and every sort of kindness and regard, gained over Ranjit Singh to espouse the interests of the British. He restored to Ranjit Singh the forts of Dig and Kishangarh,* and then made preparations for the expulsion of the Mahrattas.* Ranjit Singh enjoyed a high name in every direction of the world by his attachment to the English.* He died in the latter part of the year 1805, leaving his name immortal in the pages of history.
* In 1778, Mysore’s brilliant general Hyder Ali sidelined his king, and pledged Mysore to the support of French colonialism in India. He then marched in a fury of slaughter and destruction towards Madras, laying waste to central India, until his death in 1782. His no less dangerous son Tipu was defeated at Seringapatam in 1799. See Hyder Ali and Tipu.
* A reference to the epic Shahnameh by ancient Persian poet Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi Tusi (?940-?1019). In one of the most famous episodes of the tale, Isfandiyar and Rostam clash in single combat.
* Gerard Lake (1744-1808), 1st Viscount Lake, a distinguished military commander with experience in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and in the Irish Rebellion (1798). Harsukh does not mention Lake’s fellow-commander Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, but he was vital to the Company’s victory.
* “A new Treaty (No. XCIX) was concluded with him in 1805, by which he agreed to pay an indemnity of twenty lakhs of rupees, seven of which were subsequently remitted, and was guaranteed in the territories which he held previously to the accession of the British Government. The parganas [a group of villages or a subdivision of a district] which had been granted to him in 1808 were resumed.”
* That is, for the expulsion of Holkar and his men, holed up in the fort at Bharatpur.
* By the 1890s, this fact appeared to have slipped the collective memory of the Indian Department. “Notwithstanding the leniency with which he had been treated,” they said crossly, “and the protection secured to him by this alliance from the rapacity of the Mahrattas, neither Ranjit Singh nor his successor ever showed any attachment to the British Government.” Harsukh Rai thought the Marathas brave, but outclassed; he thought the British puissant, but chivalrous. The British bureaucrats of almost a century later were not so generous.