Sham Singh Attariwala
Veteran general who, dressed in white, rode into the British lines at Sobraon and died with his men.
Sham Singh was born around 1785 at Attari, near Amritsar, into a family of Sidhu Jat chiefs. He fought in Ranjit Singh's campaigns at Multan, Kashmir and on the frontier, and his daughter was married to the Maharaja's grandson, Nau Nihal Singh.
After Ranjit Singh's death he withdrew from the court intrigues in disgust. But when the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out in 1845 and he heard that the Khalsa army was being betrayed by its own commanders, Lal Singh and Tej Singh, he came to the battlefield. Before the battle of Sobraon, on 10 February 1846, he dressed in white, mounted a white mare and vowed to die rather than see the Khalsa defeated.
When the British broke through and Tej Singh fled across the Sutlej, breaking the bridge behind him, Sham Singh rode into the British lines at the head of his men and was killed with seven bullet wounds. He is the image of the loyal Khalsa general abandoned by a treacherous court.
Battles
Connected
Sher-e-Punjab, the Lion of Punjab. United the misls into the Sikh Empire, ruled from Lahore for forty years and covered the Harmandir Sahib in gold.
Governor of Hazara whose rising in 1848, with his son Sher Singh, turned the Multan revolt into a full war.
Muslim poet whose Jangnama laments the fall of the Sikh kingdom in the First Anglo-Sikh War as Punjab's own loss.
Sham Singh Atariwala
Sham Singh Attariwala (Sirdar Sham Singh (Atariwala))National Army Museum, London · photo Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons) ↗