Treaty of Bhairowal and British control of the Lahore Darbar

Who: For the East India Company, Frederick Currie and Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Lawrence, acting for Governor-General Lord Hardinge. For the Lahore Darbar, the eight-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh and a group of sardars including Tej Singh, Sher Singh Attariwala, Dina Nath and Fakir Nur-ud-din. Maharani Jind Kaur, the regent, was the person the treaty removed.

What: The March 1846 Treaty of Lahore said the British force at Lahore would leave by the end of the year. Hardinge wanted it to stay, but wanted the request to come from the Darbar. Khushwant Singh quotes his letters telling Currie to make the Sikh Darbar propose it, and describes a charade in which the garrison packed up while the ministers begged it to remain. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says Jind Kaur had expected the troops to go, but Currie isolated her and pressed the leading sardars to ask for a new treaty. It was agreed and signed at Lahore on 16 December 1846 and ratified by Hardinge at Bhyrowal Ghat on the Beas on 26 December 1846. Its terms included:

• A British officer, the Resident, with full authority to direct and control every department of the state.
• A Council of Regency of eight sardars, serving at the Resident's pleasure.
• A British force kept at Lahore, and the right of the Governor-General to occupy any fort or post.
• An annual payment of 22 lakh rupees from Lahore for the force and British expenses.
• Jind Kaur removed from power and given an allowance of 1.5 lakh rupees a year.
• All of this to last through Duleep Singh's minority, until he was sixteen, on 4 September 1854.

Where: Lahore, where it was signed, and Hardinge's camp at Bhyrowal Ghat, where it was ratified.

Why it mattered: The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says it made the Punjab a virtual British protectorate. Khushwant Singh adds that the Resident became in effect governor of the Punjab, independent of the Council of Regency, and quotes Hardinge's own description of the ruler as being "in fetters". Henry Lawrence took the post. The Encyclopaedia adds that the Council of Regency ceased to be a sovereign body. The treaty also removed the regent, and the plots, arrests and exile that followed for Jind Kaur began within two months.