Harnik Deol

British Annexation and Sikh Resistance (1849–1919)

This advanced course traces the seventy-year arc from the fall of the ਸਰਕਾਰ-ਏ-ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ (the Sikh state of Maharaja Ranjit Singh) to the eve of the Akali agitation. It examines the two Anglo-Sikh Wars, the diplomacy of the Treaty of Lahore and the Treaty of Bhairowal, the formal annexation of ਪੰਜਾਬ in 1849, and the dispossession of Maharaja Duleep Singh. Students will study the paradox of Sikh participation in the suppression of the 1857 rebellion, the transformation of the ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ into the colonial "martial race," and the deep currents of religious and political reform that followed: the Nirankari and Namdhari (ਕੂਕਾ) movements, the ਸਿੰਘ ਸਭਾ revival with its contest between ਤੱਤ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ and ਸਨਾਤਨ ਸਿੱਖੀ, the founding of Khalsa College and the codification of a distinct Sikh identity, the transnational radicalism of the ਗ਼ਦਰ Party, and the trauma of the ਜਲ੍ਹਿਆਂਵਾਲਾ ਬਾਗ਼ massacre. The course closes at the threshold of the Gurdwara Reform Movement, the ਅਕਾਲੀ ਦਲ, and the SGPC. Drawing on Harnik Deol's sociology of religious nationalism and the major historiography of colonial Punjab, the course equips students to analyze how conquest, collaboration, reform, and resistance together forged modern Sikh political consciousness.