Revolutions in Punjab
Maharajas of Punjab
1801-1839: Ranjit Singh
At the age of 12, Ranjit Singh was crowned ruler of one of the twelve Sikh theocratic states; after fighting several wars with the Afghans and decisively taking control of Lahore, he got crowned Maharaja of Punjab at the mere age of 21. In this title, he successfully unified Punjab, crushing all the other Sikh states and reducing them to mere potentates. He led campaigns which took control of Peshawar from the Afghans, ensuring security for Punjab, and in alliance with Jammu Rajputs, he conquered Kashmir and Ladakh. He also took over Sindh, giving Punjab control of the mouth of the Indus and thus its all-important trade. To make sure he had a good defence against the British, he also ensured the formation of a modernized army trained by French officers, and he sent students to France to learn about modern artillery. And after the British Raj spluttered badly due to Britain proper seeing the Popular Revolution, he used the opportunity to take over Patiala and Cutch, bringing Punjab into spitting distance of India's capital of old, Delhi. In the end, Ranjit Singh left a unified Punjab, even if it it was still feudal and its administration rather decentralized, and he began its long process of modernization.
1839-1839: Kharak Singh
1839-1863: Nau Nihal Singh
Following the mysterious death of Maharaja Kharak Singh, his son Nau Nihal Singh came to power, and he successfully kept the loyalty of feudatories through a combination of negotiation and military force. He continued to send students to France to learn artillery and engineering - although he saw little that they came back not just with knowledge of modern science and technology, but also with certain liberal ideals that they spread to others in the army. But nevertheless, the army served well, deflecting an Afghan attack and protecting against the British Raj, and Nau Nihal Singh spent his administration continuing with modernization efforts, including the establishment of a polytechnic; furthermore, he set up an embassy in France which, he thought, would make the British reluctant to attack. By the time he died at a rather young age, he left his empire stable even if issues continued to grow
1863-1882: Jawahar Singh [overthrown]
Jawahar Singh was, at the outset, more suspicious of growing Enlightenment ideals, and he exiled his uncle Dalip Singh, who he regarded as sympathetic to them, to Jammu - but despite it, he continued modernization efforts, erecting a railroad from Lahore to Amritsar (back when they were still distinct cities), and he also set up a project for a railroad from Lahore to Multan which, though taking longer than expected due to widespread corruption, did achieve completion. But despite it all, the empire remained decentralized, and efforts at establishing centralized provinces largely failed - particularly in the vassal states of the Pahari area. And in the end, its failure was shown at large during the Great Indian Famine of 1876-8. Though Punjab did not see anything approaching the horrors of the Deccan, it did get badly affected, and starvation wrapped the nation. And though the state tried to do famine relief, its decentralization made it close to impossible and made it too easy for middlemen to take their own cut. And officers and intellectuals in coteries and Masonic lodges wondered if they could do better. The famine passed in the end, but its impact remained.
In 1879, Punjab repulsed a massive Afghan invasion at Peshawar after much bloodshed, and the man credited for this was not Maharaja Jawahar Singh, but an ambitious young general named Prem Nath Kaul. He was, though outwardly loyal, nursing illuminist ideals and his own ideas of administration in his bosom. It is said the Punjabi Revolution became inevitable when he returned to his home in Srinagar for Diwali, and found not the prosperous city he remembered, but an empty wreck filled with starving people ill with cholera. But he kept it to himself, and when he shared those feelings at all, it was in Masonic lodges where oaths of secrecy protected him. In 1881, he became the chief general of the Punjabi Army when he claimed his colleagues were plotting a coup, and with this newfound power he got to work, planning. In 1882, he ordered the army to take control of Lahore, and he then entered the royal palace. He dragged Jawahar Singh outside, ripped off his turban, and put him on a ship due to Anvers. His underlings did similar mini-coups against provincial governors. The Punjabi Revolution had begun.
1882-1883: Dalip Singh [overthrown]
As the youngest of Ranjit Singh's sons, Dalip Singh was not in the line of succession. But he was influential, and beginning in the 1850s, he was drawn to certain Enlightenment ideas. He saw Punjab's problems, and promoted certain panaceas, namely industrial development, free trade, and the creation of a parliament. Together, he thought, it would create a strong state and strengthen, not weaken, the position of the Maharaja. This meant he was exiled to Jammu, then as now a backwater, and there he lurked, gathering a coterie of reformers around him. When General Kaul overthrew Jawahar Singh, Dalip Singh was the best choice for a people's Maharaja, and so in 1882 he was inaugurated as such. Upon coming to power, he convened a Constituent Assembly to write a constitution. Many candidates were elected with the endorsement of variously fraternal orders, caste associations, and religious clerics, and they gathered. However, Dalip Singh all but dictated the new constitution to them, and it became increasingly clear that he was scheming against General Kaul for power, who despite everything was very powerful. This autocratic behavior, annoyed many, and in the end the Constituent Assembly denounced Dalip Singh. This was all Kaul needed to repeat the events of 1882. Storming the royal palace, he dragged Dalip Singh outside, ripped off his turban, and put him on a ship due to Anvers. And this time, he had no intention of establishing some sort of people's monarchy.
1883-pres: Constitution of Punjab
With the ever-watchful eye of Prem Nath Kaul, the Constituent Assembly wrote a new constitution declaring Punjab a republic, to the astonishment of many - particularly the British, who feared this would serve as an example to the subjects of the Raj, and had unsuccessfully tried to convince Kaul to declare himself Maharaja. Strangely, however, the new constitution was declared the Maharaja of Punjab, a move intended to evoke the Guru Granth Sahib's status as the guru of the Sikh religion, as well as establish a positive cult of republican legalism onto the nation. Crown jewels were auctioned off and the money so obtained was deposited into a fund for famine relief. Today, every Republic Day, the Constitution is 'coronated' Maharaja with full monarchical rites and a crown and all. This crown is then destroyed, and its bits are auctioned off. And despite all the changes in regime and society since 1883, this ritual is unlikely to ever end.
Heads of Government (Sadr-i-Hukumat; "Sardar") of the Punjabi Republic
1883-1883: Prem Nath Kaul [provisional]
General Kaul, the moving force of the Revolution was made provisional Sardar, until elections were held for the new Majlis. But almost immediately upon the declaration of the republic, crises developed. The Maharaja of Patiala refused to be transformed into a mere department prefect and instead declared himself Maharaja of Punjab with British support, the Nawab of Bahawalpur issued a request for British protection, the Pahari states continued to recognize Dalip Singh as the legitimate monarch, and Afghans across the border became restless. All of this threatened to encircle Lahore and partition Punjab to death. And Kaul knew only one man could save Punjab - himself. And so, he led his army into battle himself.
1883-1886: Upinder Singh Arora (French Rite Masonic)
1883 def. Abdulrashid Bajwa (Scottish Rite Masonic), Abhishek Agarwal (Marwari Sabha), Jagjit Singh (Rajshahi), Abdullah Md Khan (Majlis-i-Muslimeen), Aryan Singh (Hindu Rakshak Sabha), Tara Singh Pindi (Akali), Anand Mohan Bose (Hindustan Azad Samaj)
The 1883 election saw parties form around fraternal orders, caste associations and religious clerics, but in addition a royalist party loyal to variously Jawahar or Dalip Singh (much talk of controversy in its headquarters), and a party which sought the liberation of the British Raj, emerged. The French Rite Freemasons, who served as the moving force of the revolution and represented a sort of union of diplomats, officers, and the burgeoning middle class in a spirit of Francophile fraternity, quickly formed a government. In office, they made peace with the British, who following Kaul's crushing defeat of Patiala and Bahawalpur recognized Punjabi borders; they also saw rising religious tensions, as neo-Vedic, Vedanta Spinozist, and Islamic heterodox movements made as many fans as they made adherents, causing riots and massive religious tensions. Furthermore, Sikhs of the rural Jat caste, seeking to take control of their religion from urban Khatris, formed the Sarbat Khalsa, which claimed to be successor of the pre-imperial parliament of the Sikh religion, and met in the Golden Temple. An Afghan invasion in 1886 caused a rapid loss of confidence, and French Rite Freemasons lost power.
1886-1888: Abdulrashid Bajwa (Scottish Rite Masonic-Carbonari coalition)
1886 (min.) Upinder Singh Arora (French Rite Masonic), Abhishek Agarwal (Marwari Sabha), Anand Mohan Bose (Carbonari), Santeshwar Singh Ahluwalia (Sipahi), Tara Singh Pindi (Akali Singh Sabha), Abdullah Md Khan (Majlis-i-Muslimeen), Aryan Singh (Hindu Rakshak Sabha), Jagjit Singh (Rajshahi)
The Scottish Rite Freemasons, which was rooted in diplomats inducted into British Freemasonry, tended more towards moderatist attitudes towards the state and foreign relations, came to power in a strange coalition with the Carbonari, a fraternal order which nursed dreams of launching a war of liberation against the British Raj akin to that launched by Italy against the Neapolitan Bourbons and the Papacy. Furthermore, this election saw the rise of the Sipahi bloc, which consisted of candidates from army-occupied areas effectively nominated by officers, and returned as their representatives. The Afghan invasion was successfully thrown back in the massive, gigantic Battle of Rawalpindi, and in its wake, the Pahari region became the new focus of army activities. Kaul's army sought to break the rebellion by invading Jammu, and when it refused to surrender he destroyed it entirely in a battle with lots of street fighting. Modern Jammu, with its fin-de-siecle architecture, is effectively a brand-new city with nothing in common with the old except a few preserved temples and mosques. But this failed to break the rebellion, and instead Kaul had to storm each state bit by bit - famously, he peacefully obtained Kangra's surrender, and when it appeared it was on the verge of an anti-Muslim pogrom he launched an army intervention to stop it. This combination of war crimes and mercy was proving successful, nevertheless, and gave more honors to Kaul. But in the end, this unstable ministry collapsed, and Bajwa left office.
1888-1889: Abhishek Agarwal (Marwari Sabha)
In its wake, the Marwari Sabha, dominated by merchants led by those, as the name implied, whose ancestors came from Marwar, was not very popular: his opposition openly called for a coup d'etat. But new elections in 1889 forestalled such talk, and Agarwal swiftly left power to return to his business activities.
1889-1890: Abdulrashid Bajwa (Scottish Rite Masonic-Akali Singh Sabha coalition)
1889 (min.) Upinder Singh Arora (French Rite Masonic), Tara Singh Pindi (Akali Singh Sabha), Santeshwar Singh Ahluwalia (Sipahi), Abhishek Agarwal (Marwari Sabha), Anand Mohan Bose (Carbonari), Abdullah Md Khan (Majlis-i-Muslimeen), Aryan Singh (Hindu Rakshak Sabha)
Coming to power on the backs of the Akali Singh Sabha, which effectively served as the delegation of the Sarbat Khalsa, the new government was despite its Scottish Rite leadership seemingly in the pocket of people regarded as fundamentalist reactionary hicks. Many historians have since regarded this characterization as unfair, but that is how many viewed things at the time. But nonetheless, the Pahari rebellion was finally crushed in this period, and the military returned victorious. But as soldiers paraded in Lahore and received accolades for saving the nation, many watched the bickering in the Majlis - and sneered. In particular, Prem Nath Kaul watched the happenings in Parliament, and he wondered if civilians were even capable of self-government. He pondered if the military needed to save the nation from itself, just as it had previously saved it from external threats. In 1890, these ponderings became fact. He issued a decree declaring his intentions, and he sent troops into the streets, and into a session of the Majlis. They arrested opponents, and the much smaller session of the Majlis declared Kaul the new Sardar.
1890-1903: Prem Nath Kaul [renamed Prem Nath Hemendranathputtar by the Anti-Caste Law in 1894] (Jamhuriyat Sabha) †
1890: Acclaimed by the Majlis
1892: Virtually unopposed
1895: Virtually unopposed
1898: Virtually unopposed
1901: Virtually unopposed
As military dictator, Kaul got to work. He reorganized governance into a one-party system, arrested political opponents, and ensured control over the Majlis by controlling nominations. With this power, he could finally initiate a modernization program. He built ambitious railroads across the nation to unify it, with the finest French and American engineers brought in to do it. He initiated the creation of vast new irrigation networks, resulting in a new expansion of the economy - and he earmarked this land for low-caste people like the Mazhabi Sikhs, increasing their status dramatically. Estates came to an end, as land got broken up into smallholds, although to prevent landowners from rebelling he reluctantly conceded compensation, which landowners put into market investments. This also calmed tensions with the Jats, who benefited the most from such reforms, and the Jat Sikh-dominated Sarbat Khalsa cooled down in its wake, while Jat Muslims similarly stopped contributing to disloyal Muslim societies. With Punjab as ever allied to France, Kaul brought in the new French fashions and pushed them as the norm, a successful effort in the cities if not rural areas. Coffee became a staple, pushed both by overproduction in Ceylon and Meridia and Kaul's desire to promote it as a symbol of Punjabi ties to France (in contrast to tea, a symbol of its old ties to Persia). With Perso-Arabic script already the dominant script used for Punjabi, he implemented a variation with reforms to account for ease of printing and the representation of vowels and retroflex sounds. And he also ensured the Punjabi language would be dominant over most of the nation, save for certain departments where Sindhi, Persian, and Kashmiri were to be made co-official.
He developed a new school system, though it was as much about turning peasants, particularly those in Pahari areas, into Punjabis, as it was about making education universal. More controversially, he issued a new secular civil code based on the French model, and when this removal of religious and caste law from the books caused Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh rebellions, he promptly crushed them with the fist of the state and executed many of those rebels. In its wake, however, he sought to come to terms with religious leadership and make them subsidiary to the state. To this end, he established new religious bodies filled with appointees who would be given authority over temples, mosques, and gurdwaras respectively, with the many sects given even more precise sub-appointments. Those who refused to recognize them - well, he banned them. Other religious minorities - Armenian Christians from the overland trading diaspora; Baghdadi, Marathi, and Cochin Jews from the Indian Ocean trading diaspora;, Parsis who immigrated from Bombay and Gujarat; and the Tibetan Buddhists of Ladakh, were given recognition on a more ad-hoc basis in the various departments in which they lived. But in all of these cases, the state took ultimate control of places of worship, as well as their maintenance and renovation.
With that, in 1894, Kaul felt free to issue a more revolutionary measure - the Anti-Caste Law. This banned caste and a wide varieties of behaviors associated with its expression, and simplified turbans, which formerly expressed social status, to a simplified national model. Most decisively, last names, which typically expressed caste, were eliminated entirely in favor of patronymics. And in place of caste's social purposes, he promoted fraternal orders such as the French Rite Freemasonry that was already strongly associated with the state, which had the potential to bind people together across religious lines in ritualistic fraternity. The powerful Grand Occident of Punjab quickly developed a gigantic stature, and it became crucial to state patronage, tying the state to the powerful conglomerates set up to promote industry. Its rituals quickly developed a strange religious fusion of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism, today simply known as Masonic Yoga. But the Anti-Caste Law was only partially successful, and though caste began to fray in the city, in rural areas its impact could barely be found. Most famously, though Prem Nath Kaul dropped his own last name, the masses still called (and call) him Kaul.
But in the end, Prem Nath Kaul died, absolutely revered as a hero by Punjabis. The streets were filled by crowds, with not one eye free of tears. His body would be burned in with traditional Hindu rites, but strangely a modern cremation chamber which turned his body into fine dust, placed in a samadhi constructed in his honor; it often is said today that, absent the traditional Kashmiri Hindu rite of cracking the skull to free the soul, his spirit lives on there. When the British finally conceded it in 1906 after a diplomatic crisis, his ashes were at last dropped in the Ganges, though to their horror a great crowd gathered and chanted "Prem Nath Kaul Zindabad". Today, Prem Nath Kaul is absolutely revered as a hero synonymous with the Punjabi nation, and his name has been used and abused by all of his successors. To be sure, a few intellectuals denounce him as an autocrat, a destroyer of democracy, and the harbinger of the military shadow state - but the average Punjabi reviles such statements. And thus it is, and it no doubt shall always be.
1903-1913: Azimullah Muhammadputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1904: Virtually unopposed
1907: Virtually unopposed
1910 def. Abdullah Ayubputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
Azimullah came to power not without controversy, but it was clear to all he was the great Kaul's handpicked successor. Nevertheless, his weakness vis a vis the miliary led him to adopt a program of civilianizing the administration - a policy he was largely successful in, even if a certain military aesthetic remained in the halls of government. Furthermore, the growth of railroads under Kaul finally reached its fruition under him, as they led to a massive movement to people. Karachi grew into a massive port with a large Punjabi-speaking minority with the growth of trade, and the Pashtun lands saw the rise of a large Punjabi minority - including many Hindus and Sikhs coming in. While in Kashmir, the growing Punjabi population resulted in a strong assertion of Kashmiri identity, and among Kashmiri and Punjabi Hindus this caused a growing dispute over shrine administration, as it became clear the latter was a larger minority than the former. All of this resulted in various questions over identity that inevitably got violence
Furthermore, Azimullah took a softer line towards dissent and loosened the restrictions on election registration by formally separating the election office from administration, which allowed for the growth of the opposition. This took the form of a free-market party which opposed the conglomerates' dominance of industry, and also endorsed autonomy against Azimullah's continued centralist instincts. However, increasingly the opposition built well-structured party machines, while the Jamhuriyatis ended up complacent. In 1913, Punjab saw its first change in party.
1913-1922: Abdullah Ayubputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
1913 def. Azimullah Muhammadputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1914: Coup attempt defeated
1916 def. Azimullah Muhammadputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha (Pro-Coup)), Priyadarshini Premnathdibibi (Jamhuriyat Sabha (Anti-Coup))
1919 def. Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
Abdullah immediately got to work. He issued a new competition law to break up conglomerates, but they simply ended up skirting this regulation through loopholes, and smaller companies ended up having to band together to compete (with the assistance of money from the government). But this was enough for military elements to conclude opposition government a failure, and in 1914 the military declared its intentions to take over administration - just as it did under the great Kaul. Though the opposition sought to cheer this on, one person - Kaul's widow Priyadarshini - denounced this. She declared that, though she regarded the government as abominable and disgraceful, she believed it had a right to govern, and she gathered an anti-coup faction of Jamhuriyatis to join up with the government to denounce the coup. Gathering in Lahore's new public square, Fateh Maidan, together they had the two-thirds majority necessary to be a constitutional session of the Majlis, and as a session they denounced the coup as illegal. The army nonetheless tried to suppress them, and despite the Majlis and its supporters being gathered peacefully, soldiers fired into the crowd. The result was the death of one hundred and three people, and the injuries of many more - among them five Majlis delegates, including Priyadarshini herself, who would end up walking with a limp for the rest of her life due to a slug stuck in her leg. In the wake of this, the coup collapsed, and the Majlis successfully went into session a few days later more properly. And with that, the Fateh Maidan Revolution came to an end.
In its wake, Abdullah attempted to use the rally effect to implement his agenda. He successfully split conglomerates for a time, but to his frustration they reasserted themselves, though competitiveness did increase. While his administration did achieve successes in decentralization, and Karachi, and to a lesser extent Peshawar, Srinagar, Rawalpindi, Sialkot, and Multan benefited from less of a focus on Lahore. But in the end, he would be done in by factors not under his control. The overthrow of Russia's government by the Young Russian movement and the ensuing civil unrest resulted in the price of grain skyrocketing with its exports interrupted, and this greatly diminished food security. The opposition, unifying to condemn this, blamed this on the government's antitrust policies, which it claimed made it harder for companies to obtain grain from abroad. And though the government did purchase grain from abroad itself, it was too late. Combined with rising riots between Punjabis and non-Punjabis in urban areas due to migration, this weakened his government, and it resulted in open talk of a coup - this time, with the opposition much less likely to oppose it. But in the end, the 1922 elections saw the government defeated, and such talk climbed down.
1922-1931: Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1922 def. Abdullah Ayubputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
1925 def. Aryan Krishnaputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
1928 def. Aryan Krishnaputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
The return of the Jamhuriyatis under Ram Singh saw with it a strengthening of the power of the various conglomerates, and they got a deal for American grain, importing it in high numbers. The material prosperity this inaugurated gave the new administration great popularity. This, however, came to an end in 1926, when Afghanistan, under its modernizing monarch Amanullah Khan, fell into chaos which forced him into exile in Punjab. Ram Singh, concerned about the possibility of him leading the Pashtun areas out of the country to use as a base to take back his country, forbade him from entering border departments. Instead, he got to stay in Multan, where he recruited soldiers anyways. This turned into a crisis, and in 1930, Afghanistan, or rather the side ruling Kabul, launched a preemptive invasion of Punjab, which resulted in war. Ram Singh looked singularly inept at dealing with this, and in 1931 he ended up losing power as a result.
1931-1937: Aryan Krishnaputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha)
1931 def. Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1934 def. Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
The new administration saw a refugee wave come in, from both Afghanistan and from Central Asia due to the Russian military junta's conquest of Central Asia. Disproportionately, they tended to be Jews, largely Bukharan with some Afghan and Iranian Jews as well. Krishnaputtar responded by quickly granting them citizenship, turning Jews from a small coastal minority to a sizeable inland minority, albeit still a drop in the bucket owing to the population densities involved. Furthermore, Judaism got recognition as the fourth major religion of Punjab along with Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism, and Jews quickly won acceptance, perceived as slightly weird Muslims for their Persianate culture, their dietary restrictions, and their strict monotheism. In future years, they would be celebrated as "good refugees" (in contrast to other "bad" ones), and today Spinoza Nagar in Lahore remains the centre of Punjabi Jewish life.
But on the other hand, the ongoing war with Afghanistan was one Krishnaputtar wished to deal with simply. Sending Amanullah Khan across the border with an army of Punjabi Pashtuns, the Afghans were forced into a retreat and the war with Afghanistan effectively turned into a Punjabi intervention in a civil war. Krishnaputtar rapidly pulled out troops, and by 1935 Afghanistan was rapidly under Amanullah Khan's rule, which allowed him to continue with modernization.
The administration, however, would have little time to enjoy this victory. In 1936, following the bombing of Patna, the Hindustani-speaking part of the British Raj broke into revolution. British attempts at suppressing it, enormously heavy-handed and brutal as they always were, resulted in a wave of refugees into Punjab, mostly of the agrarian poor. This in turn caused a backlash, and the government was deemed as weak for not protecting Punjab against the violence across the border. This, combined with panic at the Dust Bowl diminishing American grain exports, was enough for it to lose in 1937.
1937-1940: Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1937 def. Aryan Krishnaputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha), Muhammad Yusufputtar (Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha)
The 1937 elections not only returned the Jamhuriyatis to power, but it saw the rise of a new anti-refugee party which opposed the Hindustani refugees, who they typically called "Bhaiyas" (meaning "elder brother" in Hindustani), for "taking jobs", depressing wages, and often just out of racism. But as for the government, it invaded the border strip to establish it as a buffer, and many peasants celebrated this as liberation as it was precisely those places near the border where the British were the strongest - the anti-refugee Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha, however, simply regarded this as a way to grant citizenship to the "Bhaiyas" by the back door. Their popularity simply increased in its wake, and they won department after department. 1939 saw the end of the Hindustani War of Independence with the British departing, and the rest of the British Raj in a slow collapse; however, many refugees chose to stay as they had nothing to go back to. In the same year, the Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha successfully expanded its support in a meeting in Rawalpindi with dissident Jamhuriyatis and Shasankramvadis cynical enough to endorse them. The result of this strategy was clear in 1940, when the new Rawalpindi Compact won a majority. In one last decision intended to keep the Rawalpindites from annexing the border strip, Ram Singh transferred it to Hindustan - no doubt, this decision saved its people.
1940-1946: Anand Aryaputtar ("Rawalpindi Compact" - Alliance of Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha and nativist Jamuriyatis and Shasankramvadis)
1940 def. Aryan Krishnaputtar (Shasankramvadi Sabha), Ram Singh Upinderputtar (Jamhuriyat Sabha)
1942: Coup attempt defeated
1943 def. Santeshwar Singh Manmohanputtar (Jamhuriyat-Sasankramvadi Mahasabha)
In power, the Rawalpindi Compact had one goal - to send Hindustani refugees back across the border. The riots they helped stir up, however, tended to target elite, educated Hindustanis in Punjab, and it was they who were sent back. Many of them would go on to play very important roles in post-war reconstruction and new institution-building - and Punjab lost their expertise forever. Furthermore, new citizenship laws divided Hindustani refugees into five classes, with class 5 refugees to be deported immediately, with newly set-up camps for this purpose getting established. Elements in the military, horrified by these new laws, attempted a coup; though successful in temporarily taking the halls of government, their coup collapsed after Anand went to the state news service and denounced the coup on a state microphone sending his message to photonics across the nation. Following army counter-mutinies, the coup collapsed, and in its wake Rawalpindites purged military elements and replaced them with their own. This gave them more military support for their policies, and also gave them enough support to narrowly win reelection against the consolidated opposition.
They quickly went further. The state apparatus was deployed against the opposition, with its leaders under constant state investigation finding some real, some fake misdeeds which were immediately leapt upon. It spread new racial theories to justify racism against people who looked almost the same, claiming Punjabis to be a "pure" race in contrast to the "mixed-race" Hindustanis. With state pressure, conglomerates were forced to fire all Hindustani employees and direct them to processing centres, which forcefully sent them across the border. This caused a labor shortage, and this forced conglomerates to recruit people from rural areas. This resulted in a chaotic process of urbanization - Lahore in particular grew so massive in this period it merged with Amritsar, creating one gigantic metropolis typically called "Lahore" by its inhabitants. But as most of those new urban dwellers were of the Jat caste and strongly held to that identity, it was a bad match for urban caste. With Jat caste associations forced underground by the Anti-Caste Law, they turned into criminal enterprises with large membership, causing a lot of urban chaos. Furthermore, despite all this there continued to be a labor shortage, causing less production of goods, and with Punjab's longstanding high tariff, this meant expensive goods. Combined, these factors led the Rawalpindi Compact to a defeat in 1946
1946-pres: Santeshwar Singh Manmohanputtar (Jamhuriyat-Sasankramvadi Mahasabha)
1946 def. Anand Aryaputtar (Rawalpindi Compact)
1947: Coup attempt defeated
1949 def. Anand Aryaputtar (Rawalpindi Compact), Karnail Mangalputtar (Nava Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha), Hanuman Singh Upinderputtar (Association of Workers and Peasants), Jarnail Singh Santeshwarputtar (Asli Rawalpindi Compact)
1952 def. Anand Aryaputtar (Rawalpindi Compact), Hanuman Singh Upinderputtar (Association of Workers and Peasants), Karnail Mangalputtar (Nava Punjabiyan Rakshak Sabha)
In the end, the coalition of the "old parties" defeated Rawalpindism. They immediately got to work on permitting foreign workers to come to the country and relaxed naturalization laws. But the extremism of the Rawalpindi Compact years was enough to turn many against immigrating to Punjab. Nevertheless, this relaxation combined with continued urbanization to allow for an end to the labor shortage. Urbanization continued apace, and Jat alienation got dealt with by incorporating them into centres of urban life like the Masonic lodges. But in 1947, the military, dominated by Rawalpindites, attempted to overthrow the government. This, Santeshwar Singh dealt with not only by weaponizing the photonic, but also by calling for loyal elements in the military to stop the coup by any means necessary. This caused, effectively, a military civil war in the streets. But in the end, it was dealt with, and a massively weakened military declared its loyalty to the government. Thus, it both ensured the defeat of the coup, and the defeat of future coups. In later years, the administration would civilianize the Gendarmerie, and it conducted various other measures to make the military just powerful enough to defend against foreign threats, but not so strong it would become a threat in and of itself. And as for the Rawalpindi Compact, it ate itself in opposition, and the government used all the investigative powers of the state to help it destroy itself.
Following the Tibetan Revolution in 1948, the Dalai Lama fled to Ladakh to obtain mass support in an attempt to take back his kingdom. Recognizing this as Amanullah Khan all over again, Santeshwar Singh immediately forced him to go to Dharamsala, high enough he wouldn't find it too hot but not so near to populations he could raise an army with. And to make sure Punjabi Buddhists wouldn't regard him as their savior, the state also made sure to incorporate Buddhism as Punjab's fifth main religion and ensured through threats of exile that the Dalai Lama assented to it. In the end, in 1950, the Punjabi government successfully got the Dalai Lama to consent to a deal that gave him extraterritorial autonomy in Tibet and recognition as a state, and nothing more - he then returned to Tibet, accepting that it would be a republic.
But the Santeshwar Singh administration is best remembered for its agrarian achievements. Recognizing American scientists' work, Lahore University professors advised the government to bring them into Punjab to bring their techniques with them. Following this advice, it did, and scientists led by one Martin F. Johnson proposed new techniques on improving crop yields through new wheat varieties, mechanization, the introduction of fertilizer and pesticides, and modernized irrigation. With a test batch proving successful, this model was imported nationwide; the result was that the 1951 yield was gigantic, so gigantic the state had to appropriate schools and houses to store them. The new day for agriculture this inaugurated can only be called immense. In an instant, not food security was dispelled but Punjab had enough crop it could become a net exporter. Martin F. Johnson immediately became a national hero given virtually every honor Punjab could possibly give him, and this moment was celebrated as a "Second Punjabi Revolution". The only group who dissented from this mood of immense optimism was the labor movement, which inspired by the Andhrulu Revolution had become prominent, but turned to be on the receiving end of state suppression of their strikes. The associationist movement rose quickly in this era, receiving a lot of support among workers in cities only fated to grow larger. But this was but a blip for most Punjabis, who could do nothing but celebrate the crop yields. And so it is to posterity.
