Hari Singh Nalwa, the General in command of the Sikh Khalsa army, seated at an alcove window

Punjab, circa 1835

Footnotes

This senior commander of the Khalsa Army and scourge of the Afghans first made his mark in his early youth. Maharaja Ranjit Singh was in the habit of recruiting his soldiers from the fittest of the Punjabi populace and to this end he organised wrestling, athletic and equestrian competitions. The young Hari Singh came to prominence at one of these gatherings when he defeated three wrestlers simultaneously in the Maharajah's presence. Impressed by the performance, the ruler of Lahore appointed him as a bodyguard.

Hari Singh's subsequent career as a military commander began following an incident during a hunting trip. According to tradition, Ranjit Singh witnessed him courageously wrestle a tiger barehanded before dispatching the beast with a sword blow. For this heroic feat, Hari Singh was bestowed the epithet 'Nalwa', having emulated the hero of a popular folk tale who also decapitated a tiger in front of his king. He was rapidly promoted and received a commission in command of 800 horse and foot. He showed promise as a young commander of a regiment in the Battle of Kasur in 1807. After several distinguished performances in a succession of campaigns, circumstances led him to more testing assignments in distant and turbulent provinces. He was chiefly instrumental in the capture of Multan in 1818, and in the following year he commanded a division of the army invading Kashmir, where he was later appointed governor. He was, however, destined to spend the most important years of his career on the frontier with Afghanistan, initially as governor of Hazara and subsequently in command at Peshawar.

From collecting revenue and suppressing criminality, to constructing forts and tackling Sayyid Ahmed Shah, he became the firm favourite of the Sikh soldiery. He was equally the bane of the Afghans – Pathan mothers even used his name to scare their children into doing as they were told.

A very similar drawing of the same figure is in the Lahore Museum (D.20).
There are two paintings in the Toor Collection depicting Hari Singh Nalwa: the first showing him inspecting mounts alongside Maharajah Ranjit Singh and other officers, dated circa 1830-32; the second showing him riding on an elephant amidst his heavily-armed retinue, dated circa 1825-35; and a gold-plated shield dated 1824-25 and inscribed to him. See D. Toor, In Pursuit of Empire: Treasures from the Toor Collection of Sikh Art, London 2018, pp. 106-117.