A Nihang with a conspicuous tall turban

India, Hyderabad, by William Willoughby Hooper (1837–1912) and George Western (1837–1907), circa 1865

Footnotes

Provenance
Formerly in the collection of M. & Mme Horvat.
Private UK collection.

Another print of this image was published in D. Toor, In Pursuit of Empire: Treasures from the Toor Collection of Sikh Art, London 2018, pp. 266-267.

The most striking aspect of this photograph, which was taken as part of a series illustrating the different types of head-dress worn in British India, is the grand steel emblem bound to this Nihang Sikh's peaked dastar bunga turban.

According to Sikh tradition, only a warrior of ancient times who had proven themselves in battle was deemed worthy of bearing this totemic emblem, known as the gajgah ('grappler of elephants'). Over time it came to represent superior strength, intellect and daring. In the 18th century, the Akali-Nihangs were the only people to maintain the tradition, sometimes to an extreme length. While the practicality of such a tall turban is questionable, these resolute Sikh warriors used it to remain conspicuous during the troubled years following the Anglo-Sikh Wars, when their traditions were at risk of being lost forever if they remained in British-controlled Punjab: 'They are fanatically devoted to their religion, ardent proselytizers. Their chief seat of worship, since the subjection of the Punjab, is a temple in the Deckan standing in a Sikh jageer or estate, obtained from the Mussalman sovereign, the Nizam.' (J. M. Ludlow, British India: its Races and its History Considered with Reference to the Mutinies of 1857, 2 vols., Cambridge 1858, vol. 1, p. 69.)

This striking photograph was probably part of a set of 'forty-five photographs of native heads' by Hooper and Western, which was displayed at the London International Exhibition in 1871 to educate British audiences in the regional costumes, ethnic types and objects associated with different populations of south India. In the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (0932(IS)), a copy of this print is presented as the centrepiece of a group of nine studies including a 'Mogul', a 'Munshi', an 'Arab Jemadar', an 'Arab Horse dealer', a 'Sikh' (the present image), a 'Byraghy', a 'phorud', a 'parsee boy' and a 'parsee girl'.