Sikh Empire
The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company following the Second Anglo-Sikh War. At its peak in the mid-19th century the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east, and was divided into eight provinces. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 4.5 million in 1831, it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.
In 1799, Ranjit Singh of Sukerchakia Misl captured Lahore from the Sikh triumvirate which had been ruling it since 1765, and was confirmed on the possession of Lahore by the Durrani ruler, Zaman Shah. He was formally crowned on 12 April 1801 by Sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak. Ranjit Singh rose to power in a very short period, from a leader of a single misl to finally becoming the Maharaja of Punjab. By 1813 all the remaining Sikh misls had been annexed by Ranjit Singh, and the following years saw progressive expulsion of the Afghans from Punjab; the Afghan influence east of Indus ended after the fall of Multan in 1818. In the subsequent decades Durrani Afghans lost Kashmir and Peshawar to the Sikhs as well. By 1840 Ladakh and Baltistan had been brought under Sikh suzerainty by Gulab Singh. Ranjit Singh modernised his army using the latest training as well as weapons and artillery.
After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839, the empire was weakened by the British East India Company stoking internal divisions and political mismanagement. Finally, in 1849, the state was dissolved after its defeat in the Second Anglo-Sikh War.
Terminology
The empire is also referred to as the Lahore State, such as in contemporary British maps. The term Lahore Darbar refers to the Sikh court at Lahore of the empire's ruling government. However, the term "Lahore Darbar" gained currency only around the time of Ranjit Singh's death, and was not found in British sources until then. The empire's own Persian chronicles refers to its ruling government as the Sarkar Khalsaji. According to Priya Atwal, the polity was known in Punjabi as Sarkar-i-Khalsa. The contemporary British and other Europeans referred to the state as the Kingdom of Lahore and its ruling family as the Lahore royal family. The term Sikh Empire came into popular usage in the 20th century, perhaps as an English-language equivalent to the Sarkar-i-Khalsa term.History
Background
The foundation of the Sikh Empire can 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 Fauj 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 controlled different areas and cities. However, in the period from 1762 to 1799, Sikh commanders of the misls appeared to be coming into their own as independent.Mughal rule of Punjab
began during the conquest of North 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 Mughals did not have any conflict with Sikh gurus until his death in 1605.His successor Jahangir, saw the Sikhs as a political threat. He ordered Guru Arjan, who had been arrested for supporting the rebellious Khusrau Mirza, to change the passage about Islam in the Adi Granth. When the Guru refused, Jahangir ordered him to be put to death by torture. Guru Arjan's martyrdom led to the sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind, declaring Sikh sovereignty in the creation of the Akal Takht and the establishment of a fort to defend Amritsar.
Jahangir attempted to assert authority over the Sikhs by jailing Guru Hargobind at Gwalior Fort, but 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 succeeding son of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, took offence at Guru Hargobind's "sovereignty" and after a series of assaults on Amritsar forced the Sikhs to retreat to the Sivalik Hills.
The next guru, Guru Har Rai, maintained the guruship in these hills by defeating local attempts to seize Sikh land and playing 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 the excommunicated Ram Rai as the new guru. Guru Tegh Bahadur aided Kashmiri Pandits in avoiding conversion to Islam and was arrested under the orders of Aurangzeb. When offered a choice between conversion to Islam and death, he chose to die rather than compromise his principles and was executed.
Formation of the Khalsa
assumed the guruship in 1675 and to avoid battles with Sivalik Hill rajas moved the guruship to Paonta. 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 Shivalik Hill rajas, who attempted to attack the city, but Guru Gobind Singh's forces routed them at the Battle of Bhangani. He moved on to Anandpur and established the Khalsa, a collective army of baptised Sikhs, on 30 March 1699.The establishment of the Khalsa united the Sikh community against various Mughal-backed claimants to the guruship. 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 him. The meeting took place at Agra on 23 July 1707.
Banda Singh Bahadur
In August 1708, Guru Gobind Singh visited Nanded. There he met a Bairāgī recluse, Madho Das, who converted to Sikhism, rechristened as Banda Singh Bahadur. 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.Banda Singh Bahadur started his rebellion by defeating the Mughal armies at the Battle of Samana, establishing the First Sikh State in 1709. This was followed the next year by another Sikh victory at the Battle of Sadhaura. The rebellion culminated following their defeat at the Siege of Gurdaspur. 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.
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. 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 they were all tortured and executed after refusing to convert to Islam.
Dal Khalsa period
Sikh Confederacy
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 that left a power vacuum in the region that was eventually filled by the Sikhs of the Dal Khalsa, meaning "Khalsa army" or "Khalsa party". In the late 18th century, after defeating several invasions by the Afghan rulers of the Durrani Empire and their allies, remnants of the Mughals and their viceroys, the Mughal-allied Hindu hill rajas of the Sivalik Hills, and hostile local Muslims siding with other Muslim forces. The Sikhs of the Dal Khalsa eventually formed their own independent Sikh administrative regions, Misls, derived from a Perso-Arabic term meaning 'similar', headed by Misldars. These Misls were united in large part by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.Intra-Misl Wars
After the reign of Jassa Singh Ramgarhia, the Sikh Misls became divided and fought each other. A sort of 'Cold War' broke out with the Bhangi, Nakkai, Dalelwala and Ramgharia misls verses Sukerchakia, Ahluwalia, Karor Singhia and Kaniyeha. The Shaheedan, Nishania and Singhpuria also allied but did not engage in warfare with the others and continued the Dal Khalsa.The Phulkian Misl was excommunicated from the confederacy. Sada Kaur of the Kanhaiya Misl rose in the vacuum and destroyed the power of the Bhangis. She later gave her throne to Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Empire
The formal start of the Sikh Empire began with the unification of the Misls by 1801, creating a unified political state. All the Misl leaders, who were affiliated with the army, were the nobility with usually long and prestigious family backgrounds in Sikh history.The main geographical footprint of the empire was from the Punjab region to Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north, Sindh in the south, and Tibet in the east.
In 1797, Ranjit Singh besieged Rasulnagar and annexed the Chattha State who had been bitter enemies of Sukerchakia Misl, the ruler Jan Muhammad Chattha was killed in the siege.
In 1799, Ranjit Singh moved the capital to Lahore from Gujranwala, where it had been established in 1763 by his grandfather, Charat Singh.
Ranjit Singh annexed the Sial State, a local Muslim-ruled chieftaincy, after invading Jhang in 1807. The basis for this annexation was that the local ruler of Jhang, Ahmad Khan Sial, was conspiring with Nawab Muzaffar Khan of Multan and had signed a secret treaty with the latter.
Hari Singh Nalwa was Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Khalsa Army from 1825 to 1837. 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 the Khyber Pass.
The Namgyal dynasty of Ladakh paid regular annual tribute to the Sikh Empire starting 1819 until 1834. The tribute was paid to the local Sikh governors of Kashmir. The Namgyal kingdom would later be conquered by the Dogras, under the leadership of Zorawar Singh.
The domain of the Maqpon dynasty of Baltistan, based in Skardu, under the rule of Ahmad Shah Maqpon, was conquered in 1839–40 and its local ruler was deposed. The Dogras at this time were under the suzerainty of the Sikh Empire.
During the Sino-Sikh War of 1841, the forces of the empire invaded Tibet, which was then under the control of the Qing dynasty. However, this control was short-lived and the military of the empire was forced to retreat to Ladakh due to a counterattack by the Chinese and Tibetans.