Not an Accident of Geography: How a Century of Emp...

Summary

• In March 1849, after the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the remnants of the Sikh army surrendered at Rawalpindi, and the district passed to British rule with the rest of the Punjab.
• After 1857 the British rebuilt their Indian Army around a set of lessons, and Rawalpindi fitted nearly all of them.
• The Northern Army was the strongest, charged with defending the frontier against Russia and Afghanistan, with its headquarters at Rawalpindi and Murree in summer.

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How Rawalpindi became the Army’s home, from the Sikh surrender to Partition

I am an engineer by profession, not a historian. But Rawalpindi is my home district, and I have always wondered why a modest town on the Potohar plateau became the address that Pakistanis simply call “GHQ.” The answer is not an accident of geography. It is a story that begins with a defeated Sikh army and a rising in the Murree hills, and it was planned over about a century of British military thinking.

A caution first. The record does not support the idea that Northern Command existed in 1857. What existed then was a new cantonment and a small, anxious garrison. The Northern Army came in 1903 and the name Northern Command in 1920. In my reading, the earlier events explain why the later institution was placed here.

In March 1849, after the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the remnants of the Sikh army surrendered at Rawalpindi, and the district passed to British rule with the rest of the Punjab. The British quickly saw what the Mughals and Sikhs before them had known. Rawalpindi sits where the plains of the Punjab narrow toward the Indus, Peshawar and the Khyber. Roads from Kashmir, the hills and the frontier all converge here. The Grand Trunk Road runs through it.

A cantonment was laid out in the early 1850s. Murree was developed at the same time, on the ridge above, as a sanitarium where British troops and officials could escape the summer heat. Rawalpindi and Murree became twin installations, the winter and summer halves of one military idea. The peace did not last long. A Gakhar-led rising in 1853, which sought to put a pretended son of Ranjit Singh on the throne, was an early reminder that the new order was fragile.

When the Mutiny broke out in May 1857, the Punjab was the one region where the British retained the initiative. Rapid disarming of doubtful regiments, and the loyalty of Sikh and Punjabi Muslim levies, kept the province from going up in flames. But the Murree hills presented their own danger.

In September 1857, the Dhund tribe—now predominantly known as the Abbasis—rose in rebellion, reportedly incited by Hindustani agents. Forewarned by a local man loyal to the British Army, the authorities learned of an impending assault on the Murree hill station. This crucial intelligence bought precious time, allowing officials to evacuate women and children to safety while consolidating European residents and local police into a defensive cordon around the settlement. expecting an undefended outpost, the Abbasis were met instead with an organized resistance that ultimately repulsed their attack. As an Abbasi myself, I often reflect on how history might have unfolded: had the rebellion succeeded, perhaps I, too, would be regarded today as a royal prince of Murree, much like MBS—alas, it remained a fleeting dream.