Author: Parshotam Mehra
Editor(s): Parshotam Mehra
Publisher: Panjab University
Year: 1968
Language: English
Pages: 830
ISBN/UPC (if available): N/A
Description
North-Western Frontier & British India 1839-42 is a collection of Newsletters, the first in a two-volume compendium, that forms part of a larger series, political and Secret Consultations and Proceedings in the Foreign Department, Government of India, housed at the National Archives. It broadly covers the period April 1839-March 1842 with a gap of about one year, January-December 1840.
The events surveyed in these pages are, in certain respects, perhaps the most momentous in the history of British rule in India. For then it was that the John Company went beyond India’s landward periphery and started meddling, in a big way, in the affairs of the kingdom of Kabul; earlier, in the mid-twenties, it had launched into Burma. Within the Indian perimeter, the British had on their hands the Amirs of Sind and the post-Ranjit Singh Punjab. All in all, the volume helps in reconstructing that traumatic period on the eve of the annexation of Sind and the Punjab, in the chequered annals of British rule in India.
Nor does that exhaust the miscellany with its varied fare, of bits and pieces on all sorts of men and affairs. There are, to list only a few, chosen at random-Nepal and its Kala Pandeys; Jodhpur and its rulers, Maun Singh; Oudh and its decrepit Nawab; Bithoor and the last Peshwa; Kurnool and its wayward master. And in the outer periphery: the court of Ava and its woonducks; Bokhara and its luckless British prisoner; the Shah of Iran; Bushalre, Muscat and the Persian Gulf. All important, in a manner of speaking, yet disparate and with a singular lack of any linkage or cohesion. It is only in the context of the North-West Frontier: Punjab in the tumultuous years following the death of both in the Upper and the lower parts and Afghanistan with Kabul, Kandahar and Ghazni loosely hanging together under its Barakzai Amir Dost Muhammad then on the run that there is a certain unity, an integral bond that holds the parts together. The Newsletters, inaptly so-called, were in fact no more than summaries of intelligence reports which were sent from time to time both by the regular, as well as irregularly paid, and sometimes even unpaid, spies and informers. There were also the more formal Residents and Political Agents whom the company had stationed at their various outposts in India and other far-flung lands. In the Governor General’s Secretariat at Calcutta the Reports were put together in the form of a summary or a digest and retailed to various functionaries so as to keep them au fait with affairs that were of vital concern to them.
The volume of Newsletters now published forms part of Scheme III (B) of the publication programme of the National Archives which, In turn, envisaged the publication of five volumes of selections form English Records. The present volume, covering the years 1839-42, is the last in the series.
Contents
VOLUME - I
FOREWORD
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Newsletter 1: April 1, 1839
Newsletter 2: April 12, 1839
Newsletter 3: April 22, 1839
Newsletter 4: May 2, 1839
Newsletter 5: May 11, 1839
Newsletter 6: May 20, 1839
Newsletter 7: May 30, 1839
Newsletter 8: June 10, 1839
Newsletter 9: June 20, 1839
Newsletter 10: July 1, 1839
Newsletter 11: July 10, 1839
Newsletter 12: July 20, 1839
Newsletter 13: July 30, 1839
Newsletter 14: August 10, 1839
Newsletter 15: August 20, 1839
Newsletter 16: August 30, 1839
Newsletter 17: September 10, 1839
Newsletter 18: September 23, 1839
Newsletter 19: October 5, 1839
Newsletter 20: October 15, 1839
Newsletter 21: October 25, 1839
Newsletter 22: November 8, 1839
Newsletter 23: November 18, 1839
Newsletter 24: November 30, 1839
Newsletter 25: December 10, 1839
Newsletter 26: December 20, 1839
Newsletter 27: January 1, 1840
Newsletter 28: January 11, 1840
Newsletter 29: January 25, 1840
Newsletter 30: January 1, 1841
Newsletter 31: January 10,1841
Newsletter 32: January 22,1841
Newsletter 33: February 1, 1841
Newsletter 34: February 10, 1841
Newsletter 35: February 19, 1841
INDEX
MAPS
Punjab in 1838 Facing page No. 166
Sind in 1838 Facing page No. 304
VOLUME - II
CONTENTS OF VOLUME - I
Newsletter 36: March 1, 1841
Newsletter 37: March 10, 1841
Newsletter 38: March 20, 1841
Newsletter 39: April 1, 1841
Newsletter 40: April 12, 1841
Newsletter 41: April 22, 1841
Newsletter 42: May 3, 1841
Newsletter 43: May 10, 1841
Newsletter 44: May 24, 1841
Newsletter 45: June 1, 1841
Newsletter 46: June 9, 1841
Newsletter 47: June 22, 1841
Newsletter 48: July 1, 1841
Newsletter 49: July 10, 1841
Newsletter 50: July 20, 1841
Newsletter 51: August 2, 1841
Newsletter 52: August 11, 1841
Newsletter 53: August 20, 1841
Newsletter 54: September 1, 1841
Newsletter 55: September 10, 1841
Newsletter 56: September 20, 1841
Newsletter 57: October 1, 1841
Newsletter 58: October 11, 1841
Newsletter 59: October 20, 1841
Newsletter 60: November 1, 1841
Newsletter 61: November 10, 1841
Newsletter 62: November 20, 1841
Newsletter 63: December 1, 1841
Newsletter 64: December 10, 1841
Newsletter 65: December 22, 1841
Newsletter 66: January 1, 1842
Newsletter 67: January 8, 1842
Newsletter 68: January 22, 1842
Newsletter 69: February 1, 1842
Newsletter 70: February 10, 1842
Newsletter 71: February 19, 1842
Newsletter 72: March 2, 1842
Newsletter 73: March 10, 1842
Newsletter 74: March 22, 1842
Biographical Sketches
Glossary
Appendix
Index
MAP
Afghanistan during 1839 facing page No. 213