Raja Lal Singh
Chief minister and army commander in the First Anglo-Sikh War, widely accused of betraying the Khalsa army to the British.
Lal Singh was a Brahmin from the Jhelum region who rose in the household of the Dogra minister Hira Singh. He became the lover of Maharani Jind Kaur and, after Hira Singh's death, wazir of the kingdom in 1845.
In the First Anglo-Sikh War he commanded the Khalsa army. At Mudki and Ferozeshah he withdrew his cavalry at critical moments, and there is evidence that he was passing information to the British. The army was defeated at Sobraon.
The British rewarded him by keeping him as wazir, but within months he was exposed for encouraging resistance to Gulab Singh in Kashmir and exiled. He died in 1867. He is remembered by Sikhs as one of the two traitors who lost the kingdom.
Battles
Connected
Youngest wife of Ranjit Singh and regent for her son Duleep Singh. The British saw her as the most dangerous person in Punjab, imprisoned her and exiled her; she escaped to Nepal.
Commander-in-chief in 1845–46 who withdrew at Ferozeshah and broke the bridge at Sobraon, and was rewarded by the British afterwards.
Raja Lal Singh, of First Anglo-Sikh War, 1846British Library, London · photo Auguste-François Laby / After Charles Hardinge, 2nd Viscount (Wikimedia Commons) ↗
Photograph of Gurdwara Baba Atal Rai in Amritsar, postcard-print by Lal Singh & Co.Wikimedia Commons · Lal Singh & Co. ↗