POONA RESIDENCY CORRESPONDENCE

POONA RESIDENCY CORRESPONDENCE is an English rendering, in several volumes, of selections from the Persian records of the Peshwa Dafiar, a collection of British official records of the Resident`s transactions concerning the cis Sutlej region. Prior to the establishment of the Delhi Residency (1803) and the Ludhiana Agency (1809), the British Resident with the Scindia at Fatehgarh was responsible for all such political transactions. The correspondence contains information, sometimes trivial, even conjectural, about the Sikhs before and after 1800.Mr Collins, who was .

the British Resident with the Scindia those days, drew the attention of the Governor General of India to the fact that the Sukkarchakkia chief (Ranjit Singh) had received a. jkhill`at from Kabul and that Sikh Afghan coalition against the British was in the offing (12 September 1797, No. 21A). However, Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s communication to the Governor General stating that the Afghan ruler was desirous of reconciliation with the British and that he was as inimical to the Sikh State as he was to the British State proves that Collins` report was unreliable.There is detailed information about Wellesley`s mission to the Malva and Majha Sikh chiefs under Mir Yusuf `AIT Khan.

Collins furnished the British emissary with letters of introduction to Ranjit Singh and other principal Sikh chiefs (24 June 1800, No. 7). Yusuf `Ali Khan was entrusted with the task of weaning away the Sikhs from the Afghans and impressing upon Ranjit Singh and the Malva Sardars the superiority of the British arms and the fact that, if they permitted the Afghans to enter Hindustan, the Sikh country would be utterly ruined (24 June 1800, No. 17B Enclosures). Very interesting details of the reception of the British mission at the Court of Ranjit Singh are furnished. BJ.H.