William Dalrymple

And it's an enormous chunk of territory and was very powerful.

It was the one Indian kingdom which, at the time of Ranjit Singh, had resisted the British.

It had ex-Napoleonic generals running its army.

And it was both economically and militarily a considerable force.

And the British did not tangle with it.

Sheri Punjab.

It is one of those stories which divides depending on which side of the border you are.

Pakistanis remember the very brutal generals, many of them these ex-Napoleonic guys who were regularly hanging people all over the gates of Peshawar and so on.

But in India, he's regarded as one of the most tolerant, most enlightened rulers.

And of course, for Sikhs, he's their great hero.

Every Sikh looks to Ranjit Singh as the greatest warrior who led their people and did this extraordinary work.

job of freeing them from the bondage of both Marathas and Afghans and Mughals and giving them their own enormous state.

So something that's still knocking around in contemporary politics, and anyone that saw our recent series about Mamdani's intervention about the Koh-i-Noor, this links back to Ranjit Singh, because Ranjit Singh prized the diamond out of the Afghans, particularly Shah Shuja al-Mulk, who was his prisoner, allegedly, according to Afghan sources, torturing his son in front of him until he handed it over.

And this is, you know, the symbol, this was the jewel in the crown in the hands of the Sikhs.

So this is a great moment for Sikh history.

With chubby cheeks in the picture.

It's a deeply upsetting story, both politically, because it is the tale of the end of Sikh rule and the conquest by this corporation, by the East India Company.

But also on a personal level, this is a guy who loses his kingdom, grows up to be this beautiful adolescent that sort of Queen Victoria falls in love with, who's famously painted by Winterhalter.

It's one of the greatest, if not the greatest portrait to come from the Raj.

We should have to say that at this point, he is far from virginal.