Nau Nihal Singh was born on February 11, 1821 to Yuvraj Kharak Singh and his first wife, Chand Kaur. He was the grandson of Sher-e-Punjab Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Maharani Datar Kaur of the Nakai Misl, he grew up very close to his grandparents. His father was the heir of his grandfather- thus making him second in line of succession to the throne of Punjab.
Like his father, he was brought him up in his family's martial tradition and assigned to a variety of military expeditions. At the age of 13 in 1834 he participated in the Peshawar campaign. He was then appointed to administer the country in the Attock region. The same year, the province of Peshawar was farmed out to him for an annual payment of Rs 12,00,000. In 1835, he suppressed a revolt in the Derajat and Torik.[8]
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In 1836, he accompanied his father to the borders of Sindh to confront the Talpurian amirs. He took part in the operations of the Khyber in April 1839, he commanded a Sikh army which proceeded to Peshawar to assist Colonel Wade`s contingent on its march from Punjab to Kabul across the Khyber Pass.[9]
In 1837 he was awarded with Kaukab-i-Iqbal-i-Punjab by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Upon his father's ascension he became the Tikka Kanwar (Crown prince) of Sarkār-ē-Khālsā. Nau Nihal was raised outside the court politics at Lahore however at the age of eighteen, and forced by his father's incapacity he returned to Lahore. He was instructed to govern in the name of his father under the direction of the vizier, Dhian Singh Dogra. When Kharak Singh became gravely ill, the court physician Johann Martin Honigberger noted that despite his father begging him to see him every day, Nau Nihal rarely visited his father.[10]
Nau Nihal was popular with the royal courtiers and the general public, and was seen as a worthy successor to his father during the latter's sickness. After Kharak Singh died on 5 November 1840, Nau Nihal performed his last rites beside the Ravi River in Lahore. After the ceremony, he started returning to the palace via the Hazuri Bagh, where a massive block of stone from a gate fell upon him and two of his companions.[11] One of the companions - Udham Singh (nephew of Dhian Singh)- broke his neck and died on the spot.
The contemporary English political correspondence, which details even the most insignificant happenings at the Darbar, makes no references to any suspicion entertained in any quarters regarding the Jammu Rajas. It has been asserted that as far as contemporary European writers go, it was their studied policy to denounce the Jammu Rajas, especially Dhian Singh, because of his anti-European attitude which he had consistently maintained throughout his career. On enquiry into the matter of the 'accident', J.M. Honigberger found "more reason to suppose that the partisans of Kurruck Singh and Chet Singh were the authors of this plot against the prince, as he had intended to ask them for an account of their perfidious behaviour during his father's long illness... He (the prince) to order seven of their houses to be closed and inquiries to be made".[14] 2ff7e9595c
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