Ranjit Singh (; – 27 June 1839) was the founder and the first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, ruling from 1801 until his death in 1839.
Born to Maha Singh, the leader of the Sukerchakia Misl, Ranjit Singh fought his first battle alongside his father at the age of ten. After Maha Singh died in his early teenage years, Ranjit Singh became leader of the Misl. He was the most prominent of the Sikh leaders who opposed Zaman Shah, the ruler of Durrani Empire, during his third invasion. After the retreat of Zaman Shah in 1799, he captured Lahore from the Sikh triumvirate which had been ruling the city since 1765. At the age of 21, he was formally crowned at Lahore.
Before his rise, the Punjab had been fragmented into a number of warring Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu states. A large part of Punjab was under direct Durrani control. By 1813, Ranjit Singh had successfully annexed the Sikh misls and taken over the local kingdoms; the following decades saw the conquest of Durrani Afghan-ruled territories of Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar into his expanding Sikh Empire. Ranjit Singh established friendly diplomatic relations with the British after the treaty of Amritsar.
During his reign, Ranjit Singh introduced military reforms, structural changes in administration, and modernisation. His Khalsa army and government included Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, and Europeans. His legacy includes a period of Sikh cultural and artistic renaissance, including the rebuilding of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar as well as other major gurdwaras, such as the Takht Sri Patna Sahib and the Hazur Sahib Nanded under his sponsorship despite being located outside of his realm. Ranjit Singh was succeeded by his son Kharak Singh after his death in 1839.
Early years Ranjit Singh was born in a Sandhawalia Jat Sikh family on 13 November 1780 to Maha Singh and Raj Kaur in Gujranwala, Punjab (present-day Punjab, Pakistan). His mother Raj Kaur was the daughter of Sidhu Jat Sikh ruler Raja Gajpat Singh of Jind. Qadir Yar, his court poet, later traced his descent from Salban, the legendary monarch of Sialkot; the scholar Sumail Singh Sidhu sees resurrection of "ancient Punjabi tradition and its heroes" in the fact that instead of traditional Suryavanshi or Chandravanshi lineage, Ranjit Singh was ascribed a distinct Punjabi genealogy.Upon his birth, he was named Buddh Singh after his ancestor who was first in line to take the Amrit Sanchaar. The child's name was changed to Ranjit (literally, "victor in battle") Singh ("lion") by his father to commemorate his army's victory over the Chattha chief Pir Muhammad. Ranjit Singh contracted smallpox as an infant, which resulted in the loss of sight in his left eye and a pockmarked face.
Reign
In 1792 at age 12, his father died and Ranjit Singh became the minor head of the Sukerchakia Misl. He then inherited his ancestral Sukerchakia misl estates and was raised by his mother Raj Kaur, who, along with Lakhpat Rai, also managed the estates. The first attempt on his life was made when he was 13, by Hashmat Khan, but Ranjit Singh prevailed and killed the assailant instead. At age 18, his mother died and Lakhpat Rai was assassinated, and thereon he was aided by his mother-in-law from his first marriage. He succeeded to the throne in 1799 after removing his mother as regnant by putting her to death. The young Ranjit Singh formed relations with the Kanhaiya and Nakkai misls and would consolidate his territory.
Early conquests Ranjit Singh's fame grew in 1797, at age 17, when the Durrani Shah Zaman attempted to bring Panjab into his control through his general Shahanchi Khan and 12,000 soldiers. The victory in the 1798 battle of Amritsar gained Ranjit Singh recognition. Ranjit Singh did not resist Zaman Shah when he entered Lahore in 1798. Blocked off all food and supplies, and burnt all crops and food sources that could have supported the Afghan army, which retreated to Afghanistan.
In 1799, Ranjit Singh leading an army of 25,000, supported by another 25,000 soldiers led by his mother-in-law Rani Sada Kaur of Kanhaiya misl, attacked the region controlled by Bhangi Sikhs centered around Lahore. The Bhangis escaped, marking Lahore as the first major conquest of Ranjit Singh. The Sufi Muslim and Hindu population of Lahore welcomed the rule of Ranjit Singh. In 1800, the ruler of the Jammu region ceded control of his region to Ranjit Singh.
In 1801, Ranjit Singh was coronated at a formal investiture ceremony carried out by Baba Sahib Singh Bedi a descendant of Guru Nanak. On the day of his coronation, prayers were performed across mosques, temples and gurudwaras in his territories for his long life. Ranjit Singh called his rule "Sarkar Khalsa", and his court "Darbar Khalsa". He ordered new coins to be issued in the name of Guru Nanak named the "NanakShahi" ("of the Emperor Nanak").
Expansion In 1802, Ranjit Singh, aged 22, took Amritsar from the Bhangi Sikh misl, paid homage at the Harmandir Sahib temple, which had previously been attacked and desecrated by the invading Afghan army, and announced that he would renovate and rebuild it with marble and gold.
On 1 January 1806, Ranjit Singh signed a treaty with the British officials of the East India Company, in which he agreed that his Sikh forces would not attempt to expand south of the Sutlej River, and the Company agreed that it would not attempt to militarily cross the Sutlej River into the Sikh territory.
In 1807, Ranjit Singh's forces attacked the Muslim-ruled principality of Kasur and, after a month of fierce fighting, defeated the Kheshgi chief Qutb-ud-Din, thus expanding his empire northwest towards Afghanistan. In the same year he also annexed the Sial-ruled Jhang.
The most significant encounters between the Sikhs in the command of the Maharaja and the Afghans were in 1813, 1823, 1834 and 1837. In 1813, Ranjit Singh's general Mohkam Chand led the Sikh forces against the Afghan forces of Shah Mahmud led by Fateh Khan Barakzai. The Afghans lost their stronghold of Attock Fort in that battle.
In 1813–14, Ranjit Singh's first attempt to expand into Kashmir, which was being governed by Azim Khan, failed. In 1819 at the Battle of Shopian, he successfully defeated the Afghan rulers and annexed Kashmir Valley, stretching his rule into the north and the Jhelum valley, beyond the foothills of the Himalayas, along with a yearly revenue of seventy lakh rupees. Diwan Moti Ram was appointed governor of Kashmir.
In 1818, Darbar's forces led by Kharak Singh and Misr Dewan Chand occupied Multan, killing Nawab Muzaffar Khan and defeating his forces, which ended Afghan influence in Punjab. The whole Bari Doab came under his rule with that conquest. With the defeat of the Nawab of Mankera in 1821, the entire Sind Sagar Doab came under subjugation by the Sikhs. In 1823, the Yusufzai Pashtuns fought the army of Ranjit Singh north of the Kabul River.
In 1834, Mohammed Azim Khan once again marched towards Peshawar with an army of 25,000 Khattak and Yusufzai tribesmen in the name of jihad, to fight against Ranjit Singh. The maharaja defeated the forces. Yar Mohammad Khan was pardoned and was reinvested as governor of Peshawar with an annual revenue of Rs one lac ten thousand to Lahore Darbar.
In 1835, the Afghans and Sikhs met again at the Standoff at the Khyber Pass; however, it ended without a battle. In 1837, the Battle of Jamrud, became the last confrontation between the Sikhs led by him and the Afghans, which displayed the extent of the western boundaries of the Sikh Empire.
On 25 November 1838, the two most powerful armies on the Indian subcontinent assembled in a grand review at Ferozepore as Ranjit Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjab brought out the Dal Khalsa to march alongside the sepoy troops of the East India Company and the British troops in India.Perry, James Arrogant Armies, Edison: CastleBooks, 2005 pp. 109–110. In 1838, he agreed to a treaty with the British viceroy Lord Auckland to restore Shuja Shah Durrani to the Afghan throne in Kabul. In pursuance of this agreement, the British army of the Indus entered Afghanistan from the south, while Ranjit Singh's troops went through the Khyber Pass and took part in the victory parade in Kabul.Ranjit Singh Encyclopædia Britannica, Khushwant Singh (2015)
Extent of the rule
The Sikh Empire, also known as the Sikh Raj and Sarkar-a-Khalsa, was in the Punjab region, the name of which means "the land of the five rivers". The five rivers are the Beas, Ravi, Sutlej, Chenab and Jhelum, all of which are tributaries of the river Indus.
The geographical reach of the Sikh Empire under Singh included all lands north of Sutlej River, and south of the high valleys of the northwestern Himalayas. The major towns at the time included Srinagar, Attock, Peshawar, Bannu, Rawalpindi, Jammu, Gujrat, Sialkot, Kangra, Amritsar, Lahore and Multan.
Muslims formed around 70%, Hindus formed around 24%, and Sikhs formed around 6–7% of the total population living in Singh's empire
Administration Governance
Ranjit Singh allowed men from different religions and races to serve in his army and his government in various positions of authority.Kartar Singh Duggal (2001). Maharaja Ranjit Singh: The Last to Lay Arms. Abhinav Publications. pp. 125–126. . His army included a few Europeans, such as the Frenchman Jean-François Allard, and Italian Jewish Jean-Baptiste Ventura though Singh maintained a policy of refraining from recruiting Britons into his service, aware of British designs on the Indian subcontinent. Despite his recruitment policies, he did maintain a diplomatic channel with the British; in 1828, he sent gifts to George IV and in 1831, he sent a mission to Simla to confer with the British Governor General, William Bentinck, which was followed by the Ropar Meeting; while in 1838, he cooperated with them in removing the hostile emir in Afghanistan.
Religious policies
As consistent with many Punjabis of that time, Ranjit Singh was a secular king and followed the Sikh path. His policies were based on respect for all communities: Hindu, Sikh and Muslim. A devoted Sikh, Ranjit Singh restored and built historic Sikh Gurdwaras most famously, the Harmandir Sahib, and used to celebrate his victories by offering thanks at the Harmandir. He also joined the Hindus in their temples out of respect for their sentiments. The veneration of cows was promoted and cow slaughter was punishable by death under his rule. He ordered his soldiers to neither loot nor molest civilians.
He did prioritise Sikhism, proof of this being that people who converted to Sikhism were given Jagirs and were more likely to get high positions, which is why many started wearing turbans and growing out their beards and moustaches. It was recorded in the Umdat-I-Tawarikh that a young Brahmin asked Ranjit Singh for a Jagir, he had replied that he was only receive it if he became a Khalsa- the fathers boy, a Pandit, wept but the boy became a Khalsa and was received with a plume, 200 rupees and a Jagir. Every official letter started with 'Akal Sahai', 'Sriakalji' or 'Ik Onkar'. The Jagir of Gurudwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib dwarfed all other religious Jagirs, it was around 16,000 acres.