The Longest Race
The Last Sunset
Amarinder Singh
The Last Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Lahore Durbar recreates the history of the Sikh empire and its unforgettable ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Shukarchakia dynasty. An outstanding military commander, he created the Sikh Khalsa army, organized and armed in Western style and acknowledged as the best in India in the nineteenth century. Ranjit Singh's death in 1839 and the subsequent decline of the Lahore Durbar, gave the British the opportunity to stake their claim in the region till now fiercely guarded by Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army. Amarinder Singh chronicles in detail the two Anglo-Sikh wars of 1845 and 1848. The battles, high in casualties on both the sides led to the fall of the Khalsa, and the state was finally annexed with Maharaja Duleep Singh, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, put under the protection of the Crown and deported to England.
Amarinder Singh, born into the royal family of Patiala, was educated at the Doon School. After graduating from the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy, he was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion of the Sikh Regiment in 1963 and served as Company Commander. During the 1965 war against Pakistan, he was ADC to the GOC-in-C, Western Command (Lieutenant General Harbakhsh Singh VrC), in whose theatre of operations the entire war was fought. He spent five terms in the Punjab Legislature, once as minister and then as chief minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007. Presently, he has been elected as a Member of Parliament after his victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Amritsar. A five-time member of the Vidhan Sabha from Punjab, he is also part of the Parliamentary Defence Committee. He has authored numerous books, including Honour and Fidelity: India’s Military Contribution to the Great War 1914-1918 and The Last Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Lahore Durbar.
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