Sikh Empire

Sikh Empire Sarkar-e-Khalsa
←   ←   ←   ← 1799–1849 →   →
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem Deg o Tegh o Fateh
Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire
Capital		Lahore (1802-1849) Gujranwala (1799-1802)
Languages		Persian (official),[1] Punjabi
Government		Federal monarchy
Jathedar, Maharaja
-	1733-1735	Nawab Kapur Singh
-	1762-1783	Jassa Singh Ahluwalia
-	1801-1839	Ranjit Singh
-	1839	Kharak Singh
-	1839-1840	Nau Nihal Singh
-	1840-1841	Chand Kaur
-	1841-1843	Sher Singh
-	1843–1849	Duleep Singh
Historical era		Early modern period
-	Capture of Lahore by Ranjit Singh	1799
-	Second Anglo-Sikh War	1849
Currency		Nanakshahi
Today part of		India  China  Pakistan

The Sikh Empire was a major power in the Indian subcontinent, that arose under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh who established the empire basing it around the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849 and was forged on the foundations of the Khalsa from a collection of autonomous Sikh misls.^[2][3] At its peak in the 19th century, the empire extended from the Khyber Pass in the west to western Tibet in the east, and from Bahawalpur in the south to Kashmir in the north.

The foundations of the Sikh Empire could be traced to as early as 1707, the year of Aurangzeb's death and the start of the downfall of the Mughal Empire. With the Mughals significantly weakened, the Sikh army, known as the Dal Khalsa, a rearrangement of the Khalsa inaugurated by Guru Gobind Singh, led expeditions against them and the Afghans in the west. This led to a growth of the army which split into different confederacies or semi-independent "misls". Each of these component armies, or misl (from a Persian word that means "similar"), controlled different areas and cities. However, in the period from 1762–1799, Sikh commanders of the misls appeared to be coming into their own as independent warlords.

The formal start of the Sikh empire began with the conquest of these "misls" by Ranjit Singh of Sukerchakia misl who snatched Lahore from another misl and slowly subjugagted other misls. He was crowned on 12 April 1801 (to coincide with Vaisakhi), creating a unified political state. Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak, conducted the coronation.^[4] Ranjit Singh rose to power in a very short period, from a leader of a single misl to finally becoming the Maharaja of Punjab. He began to modernise his army, using the latest training as well as weapons and artillery. After the death of Ranjit Singh, the empire was weakened by internal divisions and political mismanagement. Finally, by 1849 the state was dissolved after the defeat in the Anglo-Sikh wars.

The Sikh Empire was divided into four provinces: Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, and Kashmir from 1799-1849.

History

The Harmandir Sahib, known as the Golden Temple at Amritsar

Mughal rule of Punjab

The Sikh religion began at the time of the conquest of Northern India by Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. His grandson, Akbar, supported religious freedom and after visiting the langar of Guru Amar Das got a favourable impression of Sikhism. As a result of his visit he donated land to the langar and the Sikh gurus enjoyed a positive relationship with the Mughals until his death in 1605.^[5] His successor, Jahangir, however saw the Sikhs as a political threat. He arrested Guru Arjun Dev because of Sikh support for Khusrau Mirza^[6] and ordered him to be put to death by torture. Guru Arjan Dev's martyrdom led to the sixth Guru, Guru Har Gobind, declaring Sikh sovereignty in the creation of the Akal Takht and the establishment of a fort to defend Amritsar.^[7] Jahangir attempted to assert authority over the Sikhs by jailing Guru Har Gobind at Gwalior and released him after a number of years when he no longer felt threatened. The Sikh community did not have any further issues with the Mughal empire until the death of Jahangir in 1627. The son of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, took offense at Guru Har Gobind's "sovereignty" and after a series of assaults on Amritsar forced the Sikhs to retreat to the Sivalik Hills.^[7]

The Battle of Muktsar December 1705

The next guru Guru Har Rai maintained the guruship in these hills by defeating local attempts to seize Sikh land and taking a neutral role in the power struggle between two of the sons of Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh, for control of the Mughal Empire. The ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, moved the Sikh community to Anandpur and travelled extensively to visit and preach in defiance of Aurangzeb, who attempted to install Ram Rai as new guru. Guru Tegh Bahadur aided Kashmiri Pandits in avoiding conversion to Islam and was arrested by Aurangzeb. When offered a choice between conversion to Islam and death, he chose to die rather than compromise his principles and was executed.^[8] Guru Gobind Singh assumed the guruship in 1675 and to avoid battles with Sivalik Hill rajas moved the guruship to Paunta. There he built a large fort to protect the city and garrisoned an army to protect it. The growing power of the Sikh community alarmed the Sivalik Hill rajas who attempted to attack the city but the Gobind Singh's forces routed them at the Battle of Bhangani. He moved on to Anandpur and established the Khalsa, a collective army of baptized Sikhs, on 30 March 1699. The establishment of the Khalsa united the Sikh community against various Mughal-backed claimants to the guruship.^[9] In 1701, a combined army of the Sivalik Hill rajas and the Mughals under Wazir Khan attacked Anandpur. The Khalsa retreated but regrouped to defeat the Mughals at the Battle of Muktsar. In 1707, Guru Gobind Singh accepted an invitation by Aurangzeb's successor Bahadur Shah I to meet. When he arrived at Nanded in 1708, he was attacked by two agents of Wazir Khan, then governor of Sirhind, one of whom died by the sword of Guru Gobind Singh, while the other assassin was murdered by a member of the Khalsa army. It was said that later the Guru had died due to the wounds inflicted during the fight.

Banda Singh Bahadur

Banda Singh Bahadur (also known as Lachman Das, Lachman Dev and Madho Das^[10]), (1670–1716) was a Dogra who met Guru Gobind Singh at Nanded and adopted the Sikh religion . A short time before his death, Guru Gobind Singh ordered him to reconquer Punjab region and gave him a letter that commanded all Sikhs to join him. After two years of gaining supporters, Banda Singh Bahadur initiated an agrarian uprising by breaking up the large estates of Zamindar families and distributing the land to the poor peasants who farmed the land.^[11] Banda Singh Bahadur started his rebellion with the defeat of Mughal armies at Samana and Sadhaura and the rebellion culminated in the defeat of Sirhind. During the rebellion, Banda Singh Bahadur made a point of destroying the cities in which Mughals had been cruel to the supporters of Guru Gobind Singh. He executed Wazir Khan in revenge for the deaths of Guru Gobind Singh's sons and Pir Budhu Shah after the Sikh victory at Sirhind.^[12] He ruled the territory between the Sutlej river and the Yamuna river, established a capital in the Himalayas at Lohgarh and struck coinage in the names of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.^[11] In 1716, his army was defeated by the Mughals after he attempted to defend his fort at Gurdas Nangal. He was captured along with 700 of his men and sent to Delhi, where he was tortured and executed after refusing to convert to Islam. His son was also executed and his sons's body parts were forced down Banda Singh Bahadur's throat.

Hari Singh Nalwa

Hari Singh Nalwa was Commander-in-chief of the army of the Sikh empire. He is known for his role in the conquests of Kasur, Sialkot, Multan, Kashmir, Attock and Peshawar. Nalwa led the Sikh army in freeing Shah Shuja from Kashmir and secured the Koh-i-Nor diamond for Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He served as governor of Kashmir and Hazara and established a mint on behalf of the Sikh empire to facilitate revenue collection. His frontier policy of holding the Khyber Pass was later used by the British Raj. Nalwa was responsible for expanding the frontier of Sikh empire to the Indus River. At the time of his death, the western boundary of the Sikh Empire was Khyber pass. His death at the Battle of Jamrud was a significant loss to the Sikh empire.

Dal Khalsa

Sultan ul Quam Nawab Jassa Singh Ahluwalia

Sikh misls

The period from 1716 to 1799 was a highly turbulent time politically and militarily in the Punjab region. This was caused by the overall decline of the Mughal empire^[13] that left a power-vacuum in the region that was eventually filled by the Sikhs in the late 18th century, after defeating several invasions by the Afghan rulers of the Durrani Empire, and occasionally fighting off hostile Punjabi Muslims siding with other Muslim forces. Sikh warlords eventually formed their own independent Sikh administrative regions (misls), which were united in large part by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Cis-Sutlej states

The Cis-Sutlej states were a group of states in Punjab region lying between the Sutlej River on the north, the Himalayas on the east, the Yamuna River and Delhi district on the south, and Sirsa District on the west. These states were submitted to the Scindhia dynasty of the Maratha Empire, with various Sikh and Hindu rulers paying tribute to the Marathas. This stopped following the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803-1805, after which the Marathas lost control of the territory to the British East India Company. The Cis-Sutlej states included Kaithal, Patiala, Jind, Thanesar, Maler Kotla, and Faridkot. They were not part of the Sikh Empire and there was a ban on warfare between the British and the Sikhs within them.^[14]

Formation

Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Miniature painting of Maharajah Ranjit Singh of Punjab in 1830. From Photo album of princely families in the Sikh and Rajput territories by Colonel James Skinner (1778-1841)

Ranjit Singh holding court in 1838.

Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore.

The Sikhs had strong collaboration in defence against foreign incursions such as those initiated by Nader Shah and Ahmad Shah Durrani of Persia. The city of Amritsar was attacked numerous times. Yet the time is remembered by Sikh historians as the "Heroic Century". This is mainly to describe the rise of Sikhs to political power against large odds. The circumstances were the hostile religious environment against Sikhs with a large Sikh population compared to other religious and political groups.

The formal start of the Sikh Empire began with the merger of these "Misls" by the time of coronation of Ranjit Singh in 1801, creating a unified political state. All the Misl leaders, who were affiliated with the army, were nobility with usually long and prestigious family histories in Sikhs' history.^[2][15] The main geographical footprint of the empire was the Punjab region to Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north, to Sindh in the south, and Tibet in the east. The religious demography of the Sikh Empire was Muslim (70%), Sikh (17%), Hindu (13%).^[16] Gujranwala served as his capital from 1799. In 1802, he shifted his capital to Lahore.^[17]

End of Sikh empire

After Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, the empire was severely weakened by internal divisions and political mismanagement. This opportunity was used by the British East India Company to launch the Anglo-Sikh Wars.

The Battle of Ferozeshah in 1845 marked many turning points, the British encountered the Punjab Army, opening with a gun-duel in which the Sikhs "had the better of the British artillery". As the British made advances, Europeans in their army were especially targeted, as the Sikhs believed if the army "became demoralised, the backbone of the enemy's position would be broken".^[18] The fighting continued throughout the night. The British position "grew graver as the night wore on", and "suffered terrible casualties with every single member of the Governor General's staff either killed or wounded".^[19] Nevertheless, the British army took and held Ferozeshah. British General Sir James Hope Grant recorded: "Truly the night was one of gloom and forbidding and perhaps never in the annals of warfare has a British Army on such a large scale been nearer to a defeat which would have involved annihilation"^[19]

The reasons for the withdrawal of the Sikhs from Ferozeshah are contentious. Some, especially Sikh fundamentalists, believe that it was treachery of the non-Sikh high command of their own army which led to them marching away from a British force in a precarious and battered state. Others believe that a tactical withdrawal was the best policy.^[20]

The Sikh empire was finally dissolved after a series of wars with the British at the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849 into separate princely states and the British province of Punjab, which were granted statehood. Eventually, a Lieutenant Governorship was formed in Lahore as a direct representative of the British Crown.

Geography

Sikh Empire at its peak

The Punjab region was a region straddling India and the Afghan Durrani Empire. The following modern-day political divisions made up the historical Sikh Empire:

• Punjab region till Multan in south
  • Punjab, Pakistan
  • Parts of Punjab, India
  • Parts of Himachal Pradesh, India
  • Jammu, India

• Kashmir, conquered in 1818, India/Pakistan/China^[21][22]
  • Gilgit, Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan. (Occupied from 1842–1846)^[23]
• Khyber Pass, Afghanistan/Pakistan^[24]
  • Peshawar, Pakistan^[25] (taken in 1818, retaken in 1834)
  • Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan (documented from Hazara (taken in 1818, again in 1836) to Bannu)^[26]

Jamrud, Khyber Agency, Pakistan. District was the westernmost limit of the Sikh Empire. The westward expansion was stopped in the Battle of Jamrud, in which the Afghans managed to kill the prominent Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa in an offensive, though the Sikhs successfully held their position at their Jamrud fort.

Timeline

• 1710 - 1716, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur defeated the Mughals and declared the Khalsa rule.
• 1716 - 1738, turbulence, no real ruler, but Mughals did get back the control for 2 decades but Sikhs engage in guerilla warfare
• 1733 - 1735, The Khalsa accepts only to reject the confederal status given by Mughals.
• 1748 - 1767, invasion of Ahmad Shah Durrani
• 1763 - 1774, Charat Singh Sukerchakia, Misldar of Sukerchakia misl established himself in Gujranwala.
• 1764 - 1783, Baba Baghel Singh, Misldar of Karor Singhia Misl, conquered the Delhi and sourroundings and imposed taxes on Mughals
  

  The Battle of Sobraon in 1846. Contemporary picture
• 1773, Ahmad Shah Durrani dies and his son Timur Shah launches several invasions into Punjab.
• 1774 - 1790, Maha Singh becomes Misldar of the Sukerchakia misl.
• 1790 - 1801, Ranjit Singh becomes Misldar of the Sukerchakia misl.
• 1801 (12 April), coronation of Ranjit Singh as Maharaja.
• 1801 - 27 June 1839, reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
• 27 June 1839 – 5 November 1840, reign of Maharaja Kharak Singh
• 5 November 1840 – 18 January 1841, Chand Kaur was briefly Regent
• 18 January 1841 – 15 September 1843, reign of Maharaja Sher Singh
• May 1841 - August 1842, Sino-Sikh war
• 15 September 1843 – 31 March 1849, reign of Maharaja Duleep Singh
• 1845 - 1846, First Anglo-Sikh War
• 1848 - 1849, Second Anglo-Sikh War

See also

• Aurangzeb
• History of Punjab
• Kapurthala State
• Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Generals
• Maratha
• Maratha Empire
• Mughal Empire
• Rajput
• Rajputana
• Misl
• Punjab Army
• Ranjit Singh
• Punjab Chiefs

References

Bibliography

• Heath, Ian (2005), The Sikh Army 1799-1849, Osprey Publishing (UK), ISBN 1-84176-777-8 
• Kalsi, Sewa Singh (2005), Sikhism (Religions of the World), Chelsea House Publications, ISBN 978-0-7910-8098-6 
• Markovits, Claude (2004), A history of modern India, 1480-1950, London: Anthem Press, ISBN 978-1-84331-152-2 
• Jestice, Phyllis G. (2004), Holy people of the world: a cross-cultural encyclopedia, Volume 3, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-57607-355-1 
• Johar, Surinder Singh (1975), Guru Tegh Bahadur, University of Wisconsin--Madison Center for South Asian Studies, ISBN 81-7017-030-3 
• Singh, Pritam (2008), Federalism, Nationalism and Development: India and the Punjab Economy, Routledge, pp. 25–26, ISBN 978-0-415-45666-1 
• Nesbitt, Eleanor (2005), Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA, p. 61, ISBN 978-0-19-280601-7 

Notes

• Volume 2: Evolution of Sikh Confederacies (1708–1769), By Hari Ram Gupta. (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Date:1999, ISBN 81-215-0540-2, Pages: 383 pages, illustrated).
• The Sikh Army (1799–1849) (Men-at-arms), By Ian Heath. (Date:2005, ISBN 1-84176-777-8).
• The Heritage of the Sikhs By Harbans Singh. (Date:1994, ISBN 81-7304-064-8).
• Sikh Domination of the Mughal Empire. (Date:2000, second edition. ISBN 81-215-0213-6).
• The Sikh Commonwealth or Rise and Fall of Sikh Misls. (Date:2001, revised edition. ISBN 81-215-0165-2).
• Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Lord of the Five Rivers, By Jean-Marie Lafont. (Oxford University Press. Date:2002, ISBN 0-19-566111-7).
• History of Panjab, Dr L. M. Joshi, Dr Fauja Singh.

External links

• Article on Coins of the Sikh Empire
• Sikh Confederacy
• Confederacy of Punjab
• Sikh Kingdom of Ranjit Singh
• Battle of Jamrud

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