Lehal Library

X Preface across the Himalayas; across the Khyber into Afghanistan; in Baluchistan, Sindh, and .in northern India as far as Oudh. The Sikhs became the spearhead of the nationalist movement which had gathered the parent communities within its fold. The achievements were those of all Punjabis alike, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. It was in the fitness of things that in the crowning successes of Punjabi arms, the men who represented the state were drawn from all communities. In the victory parade in Kabul in 1839 (a few months after Ranjit Singh's death) the man who bore the Sikh colours was Colonel Bassawan, a Punjabi Mussalman. And the man who carried the Sikh flag across the Himalayas a year later was General Zorawar Singh, a Dogra Hindu. This is the theme and substance ofVolume 1 and the first part of the projected second volume. The rest of the next volume will continue the narrative and describe how the nationalist movement, having run its course, began to peter out and finally collapsed in a clash of arms with the British in 1848-9. It will also recount how the Sikhs, who, within a couple of centuries of their birth, had evolved a faith, outlook, and way of life which gave them a semblance of nationhood, have had to fight against the forces of dissolution to preserve their identity. It will deal with the political and social movements that took place during British rule, the fate of the Sikhs in the partition of their homeland in 1947, their position in independent India, and the demand for an autonomous Puajabi state within the Indian union. Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Percival Spear of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Dr Sir Gokul Chand Narang, Sardar Sardul Singh Caveeshar, and Sardar Bahadur Ujjal Singh for reading the manuscript and making valuable suggestions; to Krishna Shungloo for his assistance in translating the hymns published in the appendix; to V. S. Suri, Curator of the Punjab Government Archives, Patiala, for placing unpublished material on Ranjit Singh at my disposal; and above all to Ms Yvonne Le Rougetel, who collaborated with me in the research.