ANGLOSIKH TREATY (AMRITSAR, 1809). Napoleon`s victories in Europe had alarmed the British, who, fearing a French attack on the country through Afghanistan, decided to win the Sikhs over to their side and sent a young officer, Charles Theophilus Met caife, to Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s court with an offer of friendship. Metcaife met the Maharaja in his camp at Khem Karan, near Kasur, on 12 September 1808, taking with him a large number of presents sent by the Governor General of India. He told him how the English wished to have friendly relations with him and presented to him the draft of a treaty.Ranjit Singh did not credit the theory that the British had made the proposal to him because of the danger from Napoleon. On the other hand, he showed his willingness to cooperate with the British, provided the latter recognized his claim of paramountcy over all the Majha and Malva Sikhs.
CURRIE, SIR FREDERICK (1799-1875), diplomat, son of Mark Currie, was born on 3 February 1799. He came out to India in 1820, and served in various capacities in the civil and judicial departments before being appointed a judge in the North-West Frontier Province. He became foreign secretary to Government of India at Fort William in 1842. During the first Sikh war (1845-46), he remained with Governor General Lord Hardinge and was instrumental in arranging with the Sikhs the terms of the first treaty of Lahore.
ANGLOSIKH TREATIES (LAHORE, 9 and 11 March 1846). After the end of the first Anglo Sikh war, the British governor general, Lord Harding, entered the Sikh capital on 20 February 1846, and on 9 March imposed upon the young Maharaja Duleep Singh, then aged seven and a half years, a treaty of peace. The preamble to the treaty accused the Lahore government and the Sikh army of having violated the terms of the treaty of 1809 by unprovoked aggression on British provinces. The territories of Maharaja Duleep Singh, situated on the left bank of the Sutlej, were confiscated and annexed.
NAUJAVAN BHARAT SABHA, association of the Indian youth, was established at a convention held on 1113 April 1928 at Jallianvala Bagh in Amritsar at the instance of the management of the radical journal Kirti, including men like Sohan Singh Josh and Bhag Singh Canadian. Like the Kirti Kisan Sabha it aimed at creating a youth wing of peasants and workers with a view to ushering in revolution in the country and overthrowing British imperial rule. Another organization with the same name already existed in Lahore involving mainly the collegians of the city. The Sabha had been active between March 1926 and April 1927, but this was a secret network not known to many outside of Punjab capital.
