SARDAR DYAL SINGH MAGITHIA was the son of a family that had played a very important part in the history of the Lahore empire founded by Bhatti Jatsikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh. For three generations the family had provided generals to the Maharaja’s forces, and Dyal Singh’s Who Born Into Shergill Jat family, father was the head of the kingdom’s ordnance. His uncle, Sardar Gujar Singh of Majithia, who had been deputed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to go to Calcutta on a diplomatic mission, was accompanied by 200 armed men specially chosen by the Maharaja. And when Dyal Singh’s father, General Lehna Singh of Majithia, left Lahore for a pilgrimage, his adversaries at the darbar at Lahore said that he too had gone with an escort of 200 people and taken gold worth a crore of rupees. Sardar Lehna Singh of Majithia went to different pilgrimage centres and finally bought an estate in Kashi (Benaras).
One yardstick of the importance in society of the family in the British times was the placement in the list of protocol. And so eminent was Dyal Singh’s family that when the Viceregal darbar was held in Lahore in 1864, of the 603 people invited, Dyal Singh, then aged 16, was allotted the 55th seat, his uncle Sardar Ranjodh Singh of Majithia being 103rd.
While some members of the erstwhile ruling class lived a life of ease and indulgence, hankered after titles and jagirs, some others took up such jobs as that of tehsildar or extra-assistant commissioner, Dyal Singh decided to carve out a career for himself. Tall, well-built and handsome with refined tastes and aristocratic bearing, he became a shrewd business man dealing in real estate and precious stones and jewellery.
The areas outside the walled city of Lahore had barracks for the British soldiers. Once the British decided that a cantonment should be built in Mian Mir, the barracks were to be pulled down and the plots auctioned. Dyal Singh’s agents bid for the plots whereupon he constructed buildings to be rented out to high British civilians. When he died in 1898 he owned 26 prestigious properties, including Dyal Singh Mansion of 54 residential units on The Mall, scores of lawyers’ chambers on Fane Road, the exchange building which was later sold to Ganga Ram Hospital, and a property in Karachi which was sold after his death and the earning invested in the purchase of land on the road to Mian Mir, where today stands the new campus of Panjab University. Most of the buildings, plots of land and villages in Lahore, Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts were bequeathed to the trusts that set up Dyal Singh College and Dyal Singh Library.
His other business activity concerned the purchase and resale of precious jewellery. With his deep knowledge of the history of the Lahore Empire and the riches of the once important and wealthy families now in dire straits, he sent agents to buy these out for him. He was a connoisseur of precious stones and told his friends how lucrative this business was.
From the real estate created by him and the trade in precious stones he earned a huge fortune. The assets created by him and bequeathed in a will drawn up in 1895 were worth Rs 30 lakh — Rs 7 lakh more than the assets bequeathed in 1893 by Sir Dorabji Tata to the House of Tatas.
A great advocate of Western education, he was largely responsible for the setting up of Panjab University. He made a handsome donation to Sir Syed Ahmed’s Anjuman-i-Islamia, and set up a Union Academy at Lahore, the nucleus of Dyal Singh School and College.
Dyal Singh was a great philanthropist. He gave much in charity. It is significant that he decided on the amount to be given away to charities in advance, depending upon the earnings in the previous month. And this amount, once fixed, was not to be exceeded. Also if he promised to give a certain amount in the following month this was as good as given, there seldom being any delay in disbursement. He was so meticulous that once when he detected a mistake of a few pies in the total he told the person sending it about the carelessness and warned if a mistake was made again, he would stop all donations so long as the latter was in position.
Dyal Singh lived like a prince. He had the hobbies and failings of the class that he belonged to. His luncheon was a prolonged affair, sometimes continuing for more than a couple of hours. As per the practice, while he and the guests ate, there was some show of entertainment or music or tricks by a madari, or some other activity of this kind. He was a patron of wrestling and a keen kite-flyer. Chess was also his favourite game. He was a great player, and, with plenty of money to spend, he would invite well-known chess players even from Delhi and paid hefty fees.
Dyal Singh was fond of classical music and himself played sitar. A man of great refinement, he was also a poet and wrote in Urdu under the pseudonym “Mashriq”. Three of his “Sihafis” are kept in the British Library in London. He wrote flowery prose too and was proud of it. In his ancestral house in Amritsar, he built special rooms for guests.
Dyal Singh was an unorthodox person. He had Muslim and Christian cooks. At his dining table sat Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and Parsis. The wine dealers’ bill for himself and guests was substantial.
A scion of the family that had held charge of the affairs of the Golden Temple for decades, Dyal Singh returned from Kashi to Majitha. Instructed by a British governess and then educated at the Christian Mission School at Amritsar, he had an inquisitive mind. He knew more about Christ and Christianity than even the pastors. With a religious bent of mind, he studied the Gita with the help of a Sanskrit teacher from Ferozepur, and studied the Quran too. At this time, there was an exchange of letters between a Sunni Muslim converted to Christianity and a Muslim divine in Lucknow. These letters related to the basic theological issues. Dyal Singh edited the letters and brought out a 115-page booklet, “Naghma-a-Tamboori”. His house was the venue of serious discussion and debates on such issues, and for these he would forego even his evening outings. Cool and composed, he seldom lost his temper even with the large retinue of domestic servants at Lahore and Amritsar.
Dyal Singh’s first wife died in 1876 or so. His plans to marry a Bengali Brahmo woman did not bear fruit, and he was persuaded to marry Rani Bhagwan Kaur. This did not prove to be a happy union. She observed pardah, and was not normally seen. In fact, Dyal Singh maintained three establishments, one each in Lahore, Amritsar and Karachi. As the work that he had chosen for himself required him to stay in Lahore, he was in Amritsar only for brief periods. He had no issue. He was the most important Brahmo leader of Punjab and the principal financier of the Brahmo Samaj. He was made a trustee of the Brahmo Samaj Mandir in Calcutta.
He was accessible to all those who were seekers after truth. He rendered financial assistance to the needy, irrespective of their religious beliefs.
The only other important Punjabi Brahmo leader was Shiv Narayan Agnihotri, who later left the ranks and set up a rival organisation called the Dev Samaj. Once he approached Dyal Singh for help to build a temple. Dyal Singh obliged him by supplying bricks to the founder of a movement that was antagonistic in nature compared to the one to which he belonged. This gesture was unusual but, then, Dyal Singh himself was, in some ways, an unusually generous, broad-minded and liberal person.
SARDAR Dyal Singh Majithia was the son of a family that had played a very important part in the history of the Sikh state founded by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. For three generations the family had provided generals to the Maharaja’s forces, and Dyal Singh’s father was the head of the kingdom’s ordnance. His uncle, Gujar Singh, who had been deputed by Maharaja Ranjit to go to Calcutta on a diplomatic mission, was accompanied by 200 armed men specially chosen by the Maharaja. And when Dyal Singh’s father, Lehna Singh, left Lahore for a pilgrimage, his adversaries at the darbar at Lahore said that he too had gone with an escort of 200 people and taken gold worth a crore of rupees. Lehna Singh went to different pilgrimage centres and finally bought an estate in Kashi (Benaras).
One yardstick of the importance in society of the family in the British times was the placement in the list of protocol. And so eminent was Dyal Singh’s family that when the Viceregal darbar was held in Lahore in 1864, of the 603 people invited, Dyal Singh, then aged 16, was allotted the 55th seat, his uncle Ranjodh Singh being 103rd.
While some members of the erstwhile ruling class lived a life of ease and indulgence, hankered after titles and jagirs, some others took up such jobs as that of tehsildar or extra-assistant commissioner, Dyal Singh decided to carve out a career for himself. Tall, well-built and handsome with refined tastes and aristocratic bearing, he became a shrewd business man dealing in real estate and precious stones and jewellery.
The areas outside the walled city of Lahore had barracks for the British soldiers. Once the British decided that a cantonment should be built in Mian Mir, the barracks were to be pulled down and the plots auctioned. Dyal Singh’s agents bid for the plots whereupon he constructed buildings to be rented out to high British civilians. When he died in 1898 he owned 26 prestigious properties, including Dyal Singh Mansion of 54 residential units on The Mall, scores of lawyers’ chambers on Fane Road, the exchange building which was later sold to Ganga Ram Hospital, and a property in Karachi which was sold after his death and the earning invested in the purchase of land on the road to Mian Mir, where today stands the new campus of Panjab University. Most of the buildings, plots of land and villages in Lahore, Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts were bequeathed to the trusts that set up Dyal Singh College and Dyal Singh Library.
His other business activity concerned the purchase and resale of precious jewellery. With his deep knowledge of the history of the Sikh kingdom and the riches of the once important and wealthy families now in dire straits, he sent agents to buy these out for him. He was a connoisseur of precious stones and told his friends how lucrative this business was.
From the real estate created by him and the trade in precious stones he earned a huge fortune. The assets created by him and bequeathed in a will drawn up in 1895 were worth Rs 30 lakh — Rs 7 lakh more than the assets bequeathed in 1893 by Sir Dorabji Tata to the House of Tatas.
A great advocate of Western education, he was largely responsible for the setting up of Panjab University. He made a handsome donation to Sir Syed Ahmed’s Anjuman-i-Islamia, and set up a Union Academy at Lahore, the nucleus of Dyal Singh School and College.
Dyal Singh was a great philanthropist. He gave much in charity. It is significant that he decided on the amount to be given away to charities in advance, depending upon the earnings in the previous month. And this amount, once fixed, was not to be exceeded. Also if he promised to give a certain amount in the following month this was as good as given, there seldom being any delay in disbursement. He was so meticulous that once when he detected a mistake of a few pies in the total he told the person sending it about the carelessness and warned if a mistake was made again, he would stop all donations so long as the latter was in position.
Dyal Singh lived like a prince. He had the hobbies and failings of the class that he belonged to. His luncheon was a prolonged affair, sometimes continuing for more than a couple of hours. As per the practice, while he and the guests ate, there was some show of entertainment or music or tricks by a madari, or some other activity of this kind. He was a patron of wrestling and a keen kite-flyer. Chess was also his favourite game. He was a great player, and, with plenty of money to spend, he would invite well-known chess players even from Delhi and paid hefty fees.
Dyal Singh was fond of classical music and himself played sitar. A man of great refinement, he was also a poet and wrote in Urdu under the pseudonym “Mashriq”. Three of his “Sihafis” are kept in the British Library in London. He wrote flowery prose too and was proud of it. In his ancestral house in Amritsar, he built special rooms for guests.
Dyal Singh was an unorthodox person. He had Muslim and Christian cooks. At his dining table sat Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and Parsis. The wine dealers’ bill for himself and guests was substantial.
A scion of the family that had held charge of the affairs of the Golden Temple for decades, Dyal Singh returned from Kashi to Majitha. Instructed by a British governess and then educated at the Christian Mission School at Amritsar, he had an inquisitive mind. He knew more about Christ and Christianity than even the pastors. With a religious bent of mind, he studied the Gita with the help of a Sanskrit teacher from Ferozepur, and studied the Quran too. At this time, there was an exchange of letters between a Sunni Muslim converted to Christianity and a Muslim divine in Lucknow. These letters related to the basic theological issues. Dyal Singh edited the letters and brought out a 115-page booklet, “Naghma-a-Tamboori”. His house was the venue of serious discussion and debates on such issues, and for these he would forego even his evening outings. Cool and composed, he seldom lost his temper even with the large retinue of domestic servants at Lahore and Amritsar.
Dyal Singh’s first wife died in 1876 or so. His plans to marry a Bengali Brahmo woman did not bear fruit, and he was persuaded to marry Rani Bhagwan Kaur. This did not prove to be a happy union. She observed pardah, and was not normally seen. In fact, Dyal Singh maintained three establishments, one each in Lahore, Amritsar and Karachi. As the work that he had chosen for himself required him to stay in Lahore, he was in Amritsar only for brief periods. He had no issue. He was the most important Brahmo leader of Punjab and the principal financier of the Brahmo Samaj. He was made a trustee of the Brahmo Samaj Mandir in Calcutta.
He was accessible to all those who were seekers after truth. He rendered financial assistance to the needy, irrespective of their religious beliefs.
The only other important Punjabi Brahmo leader was Shiv Narayan Agnihotri, who later left the ranks and set up a rival organisation called the Dev Samaj. Once he approached Dyal Singh for help to build a temple. Dyal Singh obliged him by supplying bricks to the founder of a movement that was antagonistic in nature compared to the one to which he belonged. This gesture was unusual but, then, Dyal Singh himself was, in some ways, an unusually generous, broad-minded and liberal person.
Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable pioneers who led India out of the darkness of ignorance to the enlightenment of modernity. He did for North India what Raja Rammohun Roy had done for Bengal three quarters of a century earlier. It is unfortunate that we know so little about his contribution to liberal education, a factor which was instrumental in India’s freedom.
Sardar Dyal Singh had come to the conclusion well before 1880 that India’s salvation lay in the education of the masses. He insisted on spreading English education, and established a college of the most modern kind. He made available the latest books to the Indian people. This the Sardar did through the establishment of a public library well endowed with books.
The establishment of The Tribune was another noteworthy contribution by him. The aim of the newspaper was to spread the doctrine of Indian nationalism and to bring about unity in a society that was afflicted by differences on questions of religion, caste, language and region. His nationalism was also reflected in his strong support for the foundation of the Indian National Congress.
A man who could analyse so clearly, a century and a half ago, the reasons for the downfall of the people of our country from the very top of the civilised world to its very bottom and then establish the institutions which would generate the forces to restore it to its old position, can only be regarded as a genius with great foresight and courage. He died on September 9, 1898.
THE 19th century Punjab was at the bottom optimistic and melioristic and believed that something radical could be done about all sorts of arrangements in society that would promote material well-being and intellectual advancement. Each age leaves its mark on its generation. Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia had a different cast of mind from those of his forefathers. This was so because he belonged to an era of vital social and economic changes as contrasted with the period which was marked by military adventurism and political chicanery.
Dyal Singh Majithia had a lively and questioning mind. He had influential social connections which gave him entree into every political and intellectual sphere partaking fully in the life around him. The whole story of Sardar Majithia cannot be reconstructed without recourse to conjecture and imagination as the documentary evidence helpful for some parts of his life is almost wholly lacking for others.
He belonged to the family of the distinguished ruling chiefs of Punjab, who had held high positions in the times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his successors. His grandfather, Sardar Desa Singh, was Ranjit Singh’s trusted military general who was later appointed the Governor of the hill states of Mandi and Saket. He also acted as the civil administrator of Harmander Sahib in Amritsar, a responsibility he discharged with fervour. Because of his meritorious services Ranjit Singh conferred on him the title of “Kisrul-Iktdar”. Sir Lepel Griffin estimated Desa Singh’s income from various jagirs and other sources at £1,24,250 per annum. Desa Singh died in 1832, leaving behind three sons: Lehna Singh, Gujar Singh and Ranjodh Singh.
Dyal’s father, Lehna Singh, was an extraordinary man and, in many ways, an innovator. He was highly respected for his integrity of character, mild manners and amiable disposition. He inherited a major portion of his father’s estates. He acted also as the Governor of the hill states and was the chief administrator of Harmandar Sahib. Deeply interested in science, he set up his own laboratory for conducting experiments. Through his contacts with the British he acquainted himself with scientific knowledge in England and procured some literature on the subject for his own studies. An engineer, he improved the Punjab foundries and invented the clock which showed the day, the month and the changes in the moon. Though deeply interested in astronomy he was not converted to the Copernican system and still continued to believe in the earth’s immobility.
Ranjit Singh was greatly impressed by Lehna Singh’s diplomatic finesse and, therefore, sent him on several diplomatic missions to negotiate with the British on important political matters. In this connection he met Lord William Bentinck, Lord Auckland, Lord Ellenborough and Alexander Burnes. He was conferred the title of Hasham-ud-Daula (Lord of the State). During Chand Rani’s brief regime of violence and disorder it was proposed to appoint him as Prime Minister, but he was considered too mild a person for such a challenging task which needed ruthlessness and twisting of politics. When he witnessed how Punjab was breaking up due to the sinister designs and high-handedness of a few self-aggrandising and self-destructive individuals overpowered by overweening ambition during Mesar Julla’s regime, he left Punjab to settle in Benaras where Dyal Singh was born in 1849.
Henry Lawrence, the British Resident, who had much sympathy for the Punjab Chiefs, persuaded Lehna Singh to return to Punjab and appointed him a member of the Council of Regency in August, 1847. Henry Lawrence had high opinion of him and thought him the “most sensible Sardar in the Punjab”, but also noted his timidity in recourse to action when it was needed. Lehna Singh avoided controversies and loathed pettyfogging and intrigues. He foresaw the rolling clouds of disaster for Punjab and, therefore, left for Benaras again on January 14, 1848, and never to return. Lehna Singh died in 1854 leaving his five-year-old son, Dyal Singh, under the tutelage of Sardar Teja Singh, formerly the Commander-in-Chief and a member of the Council of the Regency. Dyal Singh inherited a large patrimony from his father. The most significant feature of the history of Punjab in the 19th century was its remarkable process of modernisation, and in this transformation certain aspects of urbanisation gained prominence — the various channels producing the changes were education, the Press, the means of transport and communications, the bureaucratic set-up and land settlement. It is not often realised that in the transformation of Punjab the Punjabi elite played a vital role to which Kenneth Jones in his studies has drawn our attention.
Dyal Singh kept himself substantially in touch with some of the influential members of the Bengali elite in Lahore. He had great admiration for the Brahmo Samaj which had initiated social and educational reform in Bengal. It was Surendranath Banerjea who had suggested to Dyal Singh the idea of setting up an independent paper for creating an enlightened public opinion in Punjab. In his memoirs, Surendranath Banerjea wrote about Dyal Singh: “He was one of the truest and noblest men I have come across. It was perhaps difficult to know him and to get the better of his heart for there was a certain reserve about him which hid from public view pure gold that formed the stuff of his nature.” This great legend was died in the age of 49-50 at lahore.
References :-
- “Amid uproar, old Dyal college files scoured.”, The Tribune, 21 November 2017.