Captain’s Call

The grand ballroom at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi was full,cheeks were kissed and perfume hung heavy in the air. The book launch of Captain Amarinder Singh’s latest book,The Last Sunset: Rise and Fall of the Lahore Durbar brought Delhi and Punjab’s elite and powerful,swishing in with their better halves. The former chief minister of Punjab and Congress leader,Singh is known for his military chronicles such as Lest We Forget and A Ridge Too Far and has always been interested in documenting Sikh history. The book chronicles the rise and fall of the greatest Sikh king,Sher-e-Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh and was released by the Air Marshall Arjan Singh,in the presence of journalist M J Akbar,author Gurcharan Das,cabinet minister M S Gill,Ministers of State Shashi Tharoor and Sachin Pilot.

“A lot has been written about Ranjit Singh by numerous historians. But they have been either chorological details of the events that took place or been determined by which side was telling the story. I wanted to give it a more individual perspective about an illiterate man who expanded his rule over an area that is larger than present day Pakistan,all before he turned 21,” says Singh.

The politician-author travelled extensively through the Punjab in India and Pakistan and made trips to British museums in order to glean Sikh documents from their archives. “The book has been divided into five parts and talks about the history and politics of the Punjab before the rise of Ranjit Singh till his death in 1839 and the events that determined the fate of the region afterwards,” says Singh.