The Sikh Panth in Punjab
- The history of the Sikh Panth in Punjab was as old as that of the Mughal empire itself.
- When Guru Nanak, born in 1469, began preaching his message of inner devotion and equality among all human beings, Babur was founding the Mughal empire.
- Within the bhakti and sant tradition of medieval India, this marked the beginning of Sikhism, which gradually attracted millions of devotees and acquired its distinctive shape and definition under the leadership of the subsequent gurus.
- Aurangzeb was initially not very hostile towards the Sikhs; but as the community grew in size and began challenging Mughal central authority, the emperor turned against them, and Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth in line, was executed in Delhi in 1675.
Origin and Significance of the Khalsa
- The tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, took a defining step in 1699, transforming the Sikhs into a military organisation by establishing the brotherhood of the Khalsa.
- This was a ceremony in which the guru himself — not his deputies or masands — initiated the disciples, who were obliged to maintain five distinctive insignia:
- Kesh — uncut hair;
- Kangha — a wooden comb;
- Kara — an iron or steel bracelet worn on the wrist;
- Kirpan — a sword or dagger; and
- Kacchera — short breeches.
- This was a ceremony in which the guru himself — not his deputies or masands — initiated the disciples, who were obliged to maintain five distinctive insignia:
- The reasons behind this step remain a matter of conjecture:
- One likely reason was the continuing conflict with the Mughals, which had convinced the gurus — first Guru Hargobind, then Guru Gobind Singh — of the necessity of armed resistance for the Panth’s defence.
- It was also probably linked to the rise of the Jat peasantry among the Sikhs, since carrying arms and resolving disputes through force were already part of Jat cultural tradition — a practice to which the community’s other component, the Khatri traders, were not necessarily averse.
- The founding of the Khalsa projected the Sikh community as a militant outfit, although not all Sikhs were necessarily its members.
- The Jat peasants continued to dominate the Khalsa at the expense of the older Khatri leadership.
- Their aspiration for equality was further fulfilled when Guru Gobind Singh decided to terminate the office of guru after his death — henceforth, the guru’s authority was to be vested in the Panth and the Granth (sacred texts).
- Thus, by invoking cultural resources such as the sacred texts, and prescribing initiation and life-cycle rituals, the Khalsa sought to bring order to Sikh life amid the uncertainties of the eighteenth century, thereby constructing a distinctive Sikh social and political identity.
Conflict with the Mughals
- Guru Gobind’s open quarrel with the Mughals followed a complex trajectory.
- From around 1696, he tried to carve out an autonomous domain in and around Anandpur, which drew the hostility of the hill chiefs of Himachal Pradesh, who sought Mughal protection.
- The siege of Anandpur by a combined force in 1704 compelled Guru Gobind to leave; but Aurangzeb, then preoccupied in the Deccan, soon reversed course and sought to conciliate the guru.
- After Aurangzeb’s death, Guru Gobind met Bahadur Shah at Agra in 1707, who promised to restore Anandpur to him. However, the new emperor also had to appease the hill chiefs, and repeatedly postponed his final decision.
- Meanwhile, on 7 October 1708, Guru Gobind was murdered in a conspiracy. Banda Bahadur thereafter continued the Sikh revolt.
- The contest’s stage now shifted to Majha (between the Beas and Ravi) and the Doab (between the Beas and Sutlej), regions mainly inhabited by Jat peasants.
- Mughal oppression at this time placed tremendous pressure on small zamindars and peasants, though not all supported Banda Bahadur, whose main backing came from the small mulguzari zamindars of the Jat community.
- Within a year, a large area between the Yamuna and Ravi rivers came under his influence, where he promptly established his own administration — appointing his own faujdars, diwan, and kardars, minting a new coin, and issuing orders under his own seal.
- In 1710, Bahadur Shah marched to Punjab but failed to crush the Sikh revolt.
- When Farrukhsiyar ascended the throne in 1713, he appointed Abdus Samad Khan faujdar of Lahore, with special orders to put an end to the Sikh upsurge.
- Banda Bahadur’s position had weakened somewhat by this point, owing to internal dissension within the Sikh community.
- Though the Jat peasantry generally supported him, some Jat zamindars — such as Churaman Jat of Agra — sided with the Mughals.
- The Khatri business class, from around 1710, also turned against the Sikh movement, since political stability and secure trade routes were essential to their commerce.
- When the Mughals introduced the ijaradari system in Punjab for land revenue collection, many Khatri traders became revenue farmers, naturally linking their interests to those of the Mughal state.
- The emperors sought to exploit this internal dissension: during the reigns of Jahandar Shah and Farrukhsiyar, many Khatris were granted high positions within the Mughal nobility, and Farrukhsiyar even attempted to use Guru Gobind’s widow to drive a wedge between Banda and his Sikh followers.
- This, however, did not necessarily weaken Banda’s movement, since oppressive Khatri ijaradars often drove desperate Jat peasants into the rebel camp.
- Ultimately, Banda surrendered to Abdus Samad Khan in 1715. He was taken to Delhi along with several close followers, and all were executed in March 1716.
- The execution of Banda did not mean the end of Sikh power in Punjab, although no single leader was immediately available to take charge.
- Even without centralised leadership, roving bands of Sikh rebels took advantage of the breakdown of imperial control in north India to assert their independence.
- Even the Afghan invader Ahmad Shah Abdali failed to bring Punjab firmly under his command; his governors were soon thrown out.
The Misls
- The Misls refer to the sovereign states of the Sikh Confederacy that rose during the 18th century in the Punjab region.
- At this stage, power in the Sikh polity became more horizontally structured, as misls — combinations based on kinship ties — now held territories as units.
- Whenever a misl conquered new territory, it was distributed among its members according to each one’s contribution to the conquest.
- The highest share naturally went to the chief, but even the lowest soldier received his own patti, or portion of land, which he could enjoy as a co-sharer with absolute freedom.
- By 1770, more than sixty misls held territories in this manner, with the Dal Khalsa, under a chosen leader, standing above them.
- The weakness of the Mughals and the invasions of Ahmad Shah Abdali created general confusion and anarchy in Punjab — conditions that helped the organised Dal Khalsa consolidate further.
- The misls did unite on occasions, as they did in 1765 against the Afghans; but on the whole, political authority in Punjab remained decentralised and horizontally dispersed through this period, until Ranjit Singh, chief of the Sukerchakia misl, sought to raise a more centralised Sikh state towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Ranjit Singh
- After repelling the third Afghan invasion under Abdali’s successor Zaman Shah in 1798–99, Ranjit Singh emerged as one of the outstanding Sikh chiefs and conquered Lahore.
- At the time of Ranjit Singh’s birth (2 November 1780), there were 12 important misls.
- He was the son of Mahan Singh, leader of the Sukerchakia misl; Mahan Singh died when Ranjit Singh was only 12 years old.
- Towards the close of the 18th century, all the important misls (except the Sukerchakia) had fallen into a state of disintegration.
- Afghanistan, meanwhile, was engulfed in a civil war stemming from a power struggle that lasted the next three decades — events Ranjit Singh fully exploited, following a ruthless policy of “blood and iron” to carve out a kingdom in central Punjab.
- Leading an army with improved artillery and infantry trained by European officers, by 1809 he had brought under his control large areas across the five doabs of Punjab.
- By the Treaty of Amritsar that year, the English recognised him as the sole sovereign ruler of Punjab.
- This gave him the opportunity to round off his conquests by ousting the Afghans from Multan and Kashmir, and subduing most of the other Sikh chiefs, many of whom were reduced to the status of tribute-paying vassals.
- By the time of his death, his authority was recognised across territories stretching from the Sutlej river to the mountain ranges of Ladakh, Karakoram, Hindukush, and Sulaiman.
- Like the Marathas, the new administration he introduced was a careful mix of the Mughal system and local traditions — the continuity of Mughal institutions was remarkable in the organisation of administrative divisions, the nomenclature of officials, and the tax collection system.
- Trade and commerce flourished in Punjab, as the powerful state under Ranjit Singh provided safe passage to traders and caravans; yet land revenue remained the state’s main source of income.
- Although land revenue collection increased, about 40 per cent of it was alienated as jagir; in the rest of the territories, revenue was directly collected through kardars, though this penetration of the state stopped at the village level, leaving the power of clans and their chiefs undisturbed.
- Local traditional hierarchies and the concept of a centralised monarchical state thus existed in a delicately balanced relationship — a dualism between “national” and “local” systems of governance.
- This process of incorporation and adjustment was visible at the cultural level too, where the Khalsa’s attempt to construct an exclusive Sikh identity gradually came to incorporate non-Khalsa Sikhs, or sahajdharis, as well.
- At the level of durbar politics, Ranjit Singh maintained a careful balance between powerful Sikh chiefs on one hand, and freshly recruited military commanders from among the peasants of central Punjab and non-Punjabi nobles — such as the Dogra Rajputs of Jammu — on the other.
- This delicate balancing act functioned well until Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839. Within a decade of his death, independent Sikh rule disappeared from Punjab, as struggles for power among mighty Sikh chiefs and royal family feuds allowed the English to take over without much difficulty.
Ranjit Singh and the English
- The prospect of a joint Franco-Russian invasion of India via the land route had alarmed the English. In 1807, Lord Minto sent Charles Metcalfe to Lahore.
- Ranjit Singh offered to accept Metcalfe’s proposal of an offensive and defensive alliance, on condition that the English remain neutral in any Sikh–Afghan war and recognise him as sovereign of the entire Punjab, including the Malwa (cis-Sutlej) territories. These negotiations, however, failed.
- In the changed political scenario, once the Napoleonic danger receded and the English grew more assertive, Ranjit Singh agreed to sign the Treaty of Amritsar (25 April 1809) with the Company.
- This treaty was significant both for its immediate and its potential effects:
- the English recognised him as the sole sovereign ruler of Punjab; but
- it also checked one of his most cherished ambitions — extending his rule over the entire Sikh nation — by fixing the river Sutlej as the boundary between his dominions and the Company’s.
- Ranjit Singh thereafter directed his energies westward, capturing Multan (1818), Kashmir (1819), and Peshawar (1834).
- This treaty was significant both for its immediate and its potential effects:
- In June 1838, political compulsions led Ranjit Singh to sign the Tripartite Treaty (between himself, Shah Shuja, and Lord Auckland); he nevertheless refused passage to the British army through his territories to attack Dost Mohammad, the Afghan Amir.
- The “Great Game” involved Britain’s repeated attempts to install a puppet government in Kabul, aiming to sever Dost Mohammad’s contact with the Iranians and Russians; their chosen puppet was Shah Shuja, who in 1838 secured British and Ranjit Singh’s support to wrest power from Dost Mohammad Khan — this arrangement constituted the Tripartite Treaty.
- The relations between Ranjit Singh and the Company, from 1809 to 1839, clearly reveal his relatively weak position; though conscious of this, he took no steps to organise a coalition of Indian princes or otherwise maintain a balance of power.
- There was no major tension with the British during his lifetime, but Punjab grew politically unstable after his death. He died in June 1839, marking the beginning of the decline of his empire.
Punjab After Ranjit Singh
- A succession of rulers ascended the throne in quick succession, plunging the region into prolonged and bloody succession battles.
- Kharak Singh, Ranjit Singh’s only legitimate son and successor, proved inefficient, and court factions grew active during his brief reign; his sudden death in 1839, followed by the accidental death of his son, Prince Nav Nihal Singh (while returning from his father’s funeral), plunged Punjab into anarchy.
- This is exemplified by the contest for the throne between Sher Singh (another son of Ranjit Singh) and Maharani Chand Kaur, widow of Kharak Singh.
- Sher Singh ultimately became maharaja through a bizarre conspiracy hatched by the Dogras, becoming dependent once again on the overmighty Dogra wazir, Raja Dhian Singh — but Sher Singh was murdered in late 1843.
- Soon after, Daleep Singh, a minor son of Ranjit Singh, was proclaimed maharaja, with Rani Jindan as regent.
- The competing plans and counter-plans of various groups to capture the throne of Lahore ultimately gave the English an opportunity for decisive action.
- Kharak Singh, Ranjit Singh’s only legitimate son and successor, proved inefficient, and court factions grew active during his brief reign; his sudden death in 1839, followed by the accidental death of his son, Prince Nav Nihal Singh (while returning from his father’s funeral), plunged Punjab into anarchy.
- What contributed most to these family feuds and court conspiracies was the breakdown of the delicate balance that Ranjit Singh had carefully maintained — between the hereditary Sikh chieftains and the upstarts, and between the Punjabi and Dogra nobles from Jammu at the royal court.
- Corruption in the bureaucracy and internecine strife among the sardars left the Punjab economy in shambles.
- In the countryside, revenue demands rose sharply after 1839 owing to the increasing cost of the army, provoking zamindar resistance to revenue collection — while the kardars, for their part, increased their extortion of landed zamindars and continued to defraud the central treasury.
- These developments only encouraged centrifugal tendencies within Punjabi society, while the commercial classes, disenchanted by political disruption, left the entire situation ripe for British intervention.
- The army — the pillar of the Sikh state — was, in reality, far weaker than it appeared.
- Ranjit Singh’s able generals — Mohkam Chand, Diwan Chand, Hari Singh Nalwa, and Ram Dayal — were all already dead.
- Discontent was growing among the troops owing to irregular payment, and the appointment of unworthy officers bred indiscipline.
- The Lahore government, continuing its policy of friendship with the English Company, permitted British troops passage through its territory — once while fleeing from Afghanistan, and again while marching back to avenge their defeat — marches that caused considerable commotion and economic dislocation in Punjab.
Conflict with the English
- The prospect of no stable government at Lahore made the British increasingly concerned about Punjab.
- In the early 19th century, the Company had wanted to maintain the Sikh state as a buffer between its north Indian possessions and the Muslim powers of Persia and Afghanistan.
- Continuous political instability, however, made this scheme unworkable, and by the early 1840s, many began to see an Anglo-Sikh confrontation as inevitable — British preparations for this began in 1843.
First Anglo-Sikh War (1845–46)
Causes
- The immediate cause of the war has been attributed to the Sikh army crossing the River Sutlej on 11 December 1845 — seen by the English as an aggressive manoeuvre providing them the justification to declare war.
- Underlying causes included:
- the anarchy in the Lahore kingdom following Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death, resulting in a power struggle for domination between the court at Lahore and the increasingly powerful and localised army;
- suspicions within the Sikh army arising from English military campaigns — the annexation of Gwalior and Sindh in 1841, and the Afghan campaign of 1842; and
- the growing number of English troops stationed near the border with the Lahore kingdom.
- The war began in December 1845, with 20,000–30,000 British troops against roughly 50,000 Sikh troops under the overall command of Lal Singh. However, the treachery of Lal Singh and Teja Singh caused five successive defeats for the Sikhs.
- Lahore fell to the British on 20 February 1846, without a fight.
- The failure of leadership and treachery among some sardars thus led to the defeat of what had been a formidable Sikh army.
Treaty of Lahore (8 March 1846)
- The end of the war forced the Sikhs to sign a humiliating treaty on 8 March 1846. Its main features were:
- a war indemnity of over Rs 1 crore payable to the English;
- the annexation of the Jalandhar Doab (between the Beas and the Sutlej) to Company dominions;
- the establishment of a British Resident at Lahore, under Henry Lawrence;
- a reduction in the strength of the Sikh army; and
- the recognition of Daleep Singh as ruler, with Rani Jindan as regent and Lal Singh as wazir.
- As the Sikhs were unable to pay the entire war indemnity, Kashmir, including Jammu, was sold to Gulab Singh, who was required to pay Rs 75 lakh to the Company as its price — this transfer was formalised by a separate treaty on 16 March 1846.
Treaty of Bhairowal
- Dissatisfied with the Treaty of Lahore’s provisions over Kashmir, the Sikhs rebelled; in December 1846, the Treaty of Bhairowal was signed.
- Under its provisions, Rani Jindan was removed as regent, and a council of regency for Punjab was established, comprising eight Sikh sardars presided over by the English Resident, Henry Lawrence.
Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848–49)
Causes
- The defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, and the humiliating provisions of the Treaties of Lahore and Bhairowal, deeply wounded Sikh pride; the inhuman treatment of Rani Jindan, sent to Benares as a pensioner, further fuelled resentment.
- The immediate pretext for aggression was the rebellion of two Sikh governors — Diwan Mul Raj of Multan, and Sardar Chattar Singh Atariwala and his son, Raja Sher Singh of Haripur.
- Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General and a hardcore expansionist, seized on this pretext to annex Punjab completely, personally proceeding to Punjab. Three important battles were fought before Punjab’s final annexation.
Result
- The war ended in the surrender of the Sikh army and Sher Singh in 1849, followed by the annexation of Punjab.
- On 29 March 1849, Maharaja Daleep Singh signed the document of annexation; Punjab thereafter became a province of the East India Company’s empire in India.
- A three-member board was set up to govern Punjab, comprising the Lawrence brothers (Henry and John) and Charles Mansel.
- For his services, the Earl of Dalhousie received the thanks of the British Parliament and a promotion in the peerage, becoming Marquess.
- In 1853, the board was dissolved, and Punjab was placed under a Chief Commissioner — John Lawrence became its first.
- The Anglo-Sikh Wars left both sides with a mutual respect for each other’s fighting prowess; the Sikhs subsequently fought loyally on the British side in the Revolt of 1857, and in numerous other campaigns and wars, right up to Indian independence in 1947.
