Sunday Special-A forgotten General in Sikh History!

 

Sham Singh Attariwala was born in 1790's in the house of well-known Sikh farmers in the town of Attari (Few kms from the border of Indian and Pakistan Punjab in India) .When Ranjit Singh became maharaja of Punjab, he got himself at his disposal. Ranjit Singh knowing his qualities and fighting abilities made him a Jathedar of 5000 horsemen.

             Sham Singh Attariwala                                                                    British general Hugh Gough

 

Sham Singh Attariwala commanded Khalsa army against East India Company in second Anglo-Sikh wars .He was the only General all over Asia whom British failed to defeat on battlefield despite advantage of numbers , flat terrain , favourable climate , fresh troops , sufficient artillery and cavalry and superior logistics , And unlike Afghan and Nepal wars where British suffered reverses he was without the safety of any fort or mountainous region . It is also to his credit to be only general all over Asia who repulsed the famed British “Bayonet charge

”From 1757 to 1940s no Asian army could replicate what he did to British prestige .Bayonet charge was such an effective , unsettling and terrorizing tactic that most armies simply chose to flee in front of it than taking it head on .

So effective was his counterattack during Chillianwalah battlethat HM ( his majesty’s) 14 Light dragoon regiment simply fled from the battlefront only to be stopped later at gunpoint by other British officers while another , 24 foot was slaughtered with artillery . Such was the magnitude of the catastrophe that British general Hugh Gough was relieved from his post and Napier was given the command after the debacle It is said that in that one battle British suffered more casualties in India than any other battle before or after Chillianwala.

A British officer later quoted thus about the enemies he faced on battlefield :

“The Sikhs fought like devils, fierce and untamed... Such a mass of men I never set eyes on and a plucky as lions: they ran right on the bayonets and struck their assailants when they were transfixed”

Huge loss of British prestige at Battle of Chillianwalah was the main reason for Indian forces to gain confidence that British could be defeated at their own game , resulting in revolt of 1857 few years later .

in 1854 , after much famed but doomed “Charge of the light brigade

” at Crimean war against Russia when Lord Lucan remarked "This is a most serious matter", General Airey replied, "It is nothing compared to Chillianwalah."

The Battle Of Chillianwala, a major British debacle in a straight fight

but sadly, what British could not gain in battlefield , they got by bribing and cold machination behind the scenes .

This hero died in 1858 in Banaras while in Exile from Punjab

Searched and Illustrated by Tejinder Kamboj

               (1940-20??)