Sikh Empire

The Sikh religion began around the time of the conquest of Northern Indian Subcontinent by Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. His conquering grandson, Mughal Emperor 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.[11] His successor Jahangir, however, saw the Sikhs as a political threat. He ordered Guru Arjun Dev, who had been arrested for supporting the rebellious Khusrau Mirza,[12] to change the passage about Islam in the Adi Granth. When the Guru refused, Jahangir ordered him to be put to death by torture.[13] Guru Arjan Dev'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.[14] Jahangir attempted to assert authority over the Sikhs by jailing Guru Hargobind at Gwalior, 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.[14]

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 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.[15]

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 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.[16] The establishment of the Khalsa united the Sikh community against various Mughal-backed claimants to the guruship.[17] 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.[16]

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.[16][18] 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.[19] 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.[20] 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.[19] 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.[21]

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[22] 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,[23] remnants of the Mughals and their administrators, the Mughal-allied Hindu hill-rajas of the Sivalik Hills,[24][25] and hostile local Muslims siding with other Muslim forces.[23] 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.

The Cis-Sutlej states were a group of Sikh[26] states in the Punjab region lying between the Sutlej River to the north, the Himalayas to the east, the Yamuna River and Delhi district to the south, and Sirsa District to the west. These states fell under the suzeraignty of the Maratha Empire after 1785 before 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 Kalsia, Kaithal, Patiala State, Nabha State, Jind State, Thanesar, Maler Kotla, Ludhiana, Kapurthala State, Ambala, Ferozpur and Faridkot State, among others. While these Sikh states had been set up by the Dal Khalsa, they did not become part of the Sikh Empire and there was a mutual ban on warfare following the treaty of Amritsar in 1809 (in which the empire forfeited the claim to the Cis-Sutlej States, and the British were not to interfere north of the Sutlej or in the empire's existing territory south of the Sutlej),[27] following attempts by Ranjit Singh to wrest control of these states from the British between 1806 and 1809[28][29] The Sikh crossing of the Sutlej, following British militarization of the border with Punjab (from 2,500 men and six guns in 1838 to 17,612 men and 66 guns in 1844, and 40,523 men and 94 guns in 1845), and plans on using the newly conquered territory of Sindh as a springboard to advance on the Sikh-held region of Multan,[30] would eventually result in conflict with the British.

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. Rani 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.

The religious demography of the empire is estimated to have been just over 10%[33] to 12%[34] Sikh, 80% Muslim,[33] and just under 10% Hindu.[33] Surjit Hans gave different numbers by retrospectively projecting the 1881 census, putting Muslims at 51%, Hindus at 40% and Sikhs at around 8%, the remaining 1% being Europeans.[35] The population was 3.5 million in 1831, according to Amarinder Singh's The Last Sunset: The Rise and Fall of the Lahore Durbar.[36]

An estimated 90% of the Sikh population at the time, and more than half of the total population, was concentrated in the upper Bari, Jalandhar, and upper Rechna Doabs, and in the areas of their greatest concentration formed about one third of the population in the 1830s; half of the Sikh population of this core region was in the area covered by the later districts of Lahore and Amritsar.[37]

Indian subcontinent in 1805 CE.

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

• Punjab region, to Mithankot in the south
  • Punjab, Pakistan, excluding Bahawalpur State
  • Punjab, India, south to areas just across the Sutlej river
  • Haryana, India
  • Himachal Pradesh, India, south to areas just across the Sutlej river
  • Jammu Division, Jammu and Kashmir, India and Pakistan (1808–1846)
• Kashmir, from 5 July 1819 to 15 March 1846, India/Pakistan/China[38][39]
  • Kashmir Valley, from 1819 to 1846
  • Gilgit, Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan, from 1842 to 1846
  • Ladakh, 1834–1846[40][41]
• Khyber Pass, Afghanistan/Pakistan[42]
  • Peshawar, Pakistan[43] (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)[44]
• Parts of Western Tibet,[45] China (briefly in 1841, to Taklakot),[46]

Jamrud District (Khyber Agency, Pakistan) 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. Ranjit Singh sent his General Sirdar Bahadur Gulab Singh Powind thereafter as reinforcement and he crushed the Pashtun rebellion harshly.[47] In 1838, Ranjit Singh with his troops marched into Kabul to take part in the victory parade along with the British after restoring Shah Shoja to the Afghan throne at Kabul.[48]

Nanakshahi coins of Sikh empire

The Sikh Empire was idiosyncratic in that it allowed men from religions other than their own to rise to commanding positions of authority.[49]

The Fakir brothers were trusted personal advisors and assistants as well as close friends to Ranjit Singh,[50] particularly Fakir Azizuddin, who would serve in the positions of foreign minister of the empire and translator for the maharaja, and played important roles in such important events as the negotiations with the British, during which he convinced Ranjit Singh to maintain diplomatic ties with the British and not to go to war with them in 1808, as British troops were moved along the Sutlej in pursuance of the British policy of confining Ranjit Singh to the north of the river, and setting the Sutlej as the dividing boundary between the Sikh and British empires;[51] negotiating with Dost Muhammad Khan during his unsuccessful attempt to retake Peshawar,[51] and ensuring the succession of the throne during the maharaja's last days in addition to caretaking after a stroke, as well as occasional military assignments throughout his career.[52] The Fakir brothers were introduced to the maharaja when their father, Ghulam Muhiuddin, a physician, was summoned by him to treat an eye ailment soon after his capture of Lahore.[53]

The other Fakir brothers were Imamuddin, one of his principal administration officers, and Nuruddin, who served as home minister and personal physician, were also granted jagirs by the Maharaja.[54]

Every year, while at Amritsar, Ranjit Singh visited shrines of holy people of other faiths, including several Muslim saints, which did not offend even the most religious Sikhs of his administration.[55] As relayed by Fakir Nuruddin, orders were issued to treat people of all faith groups, occupations,[56] and social levels equally and in accordance with the doctrines of their faith, per the Shastras and the Quran, as well as local authorities like judges and panches (local elder councils),[57] as well as banning forcible possession of others' land or of inhabited houses to be demolished.[58] There were special courts for Muslims which ruled in accordance to Muslim law in personal matters,[59] and common courts preceded over by judicial officers which administered justice under the customary law of the districts and socio-ethnic groups, and were open to all who wanted to be governed by customary religious law, whether Hindu, Sikh, or Muslim.[59]

One of Ranjit Singh's first acts after the 1799 capture of Lahore was to revive the offices of the hereditary Qazis and Muftis which had been prevalent in Mughal times.[59] Kazi Nizamuddin was appointed to decide marital issues among Muslims, while Muftis Mohammad Shahpuri and Sadulla Chishti were entrusted with powers to draw up title-deeds relating to transfers of immovable property.[59] The old mohalladari system was reintroduced with each mahallah, or neighborhood subdivision, placed under the charge of one of its members. The office of Kotwal, or prefect of police, was conferred upon a Muslim, Imam Bakhsh.[59]

Sikh warrior helmet with butted mail neckguard, 1820–1840, iron overlaid with gold with mail neckguard of iron and brass

Generals were also drawn from a variety of communities, along with prominent Sikh generals like Hari Singh Nalwa, Fateh Singh Dullewalia, Nihal Singh Atariwala, Chattar Singh Attariwalla, and Fateh Singh Kalianwala; Hindu generals included Dewan Mokham Chand Nayyar, his son, and his grandson, and Misr Diwan Chand Nayyar; and Muslim generals included Ilahi Bakhsh and Mian Ghaus Khan; one general, Balbhadra Kunwar, was a Nepalese Gurkha, and European generals included Jean-Francois Allard, Jean-Baptiste Ventura, and Paolo Avitabile.[60] other notable generals of the Sikh Khalsa Army were Veer Singh Dhillon, Sham Singh Attariwala, Mahan Singh Mirpuri, and Zorawar Singh Kahluria, among others.

The appointment of key posts in public offices was based on merit and loyalty, regardless of the social group or religion of the appointees, both in and around the court, and in higher as well as lower posts. Key posts in the civil and military administration were held by members of communities from all over the empire and beyond, including Sikhs, Muslims, Khatris, Brahmins, Dogras, Rajputs, Pashtuns, Europeans, and Americans, among others,[61] and worked their way up the hierarchy to attain merit. Dhian Singh, the prime minister, was a Dogra, whose brothers Gulab Singh and Suchet Singh served in the high-ranking administrative and military posts, respectively.[61] Brahmins like finance minister Raja Dina Nath, Sahib Dyal, and others also served in financial capacities.[60]

Muslims in prominent positions included the Fakir brothers, Kazi Nizamuddin, and Mufti Muhammad Shah, among others. Among the top-ranking Muslim officers there were two ministers, one governor and several district officers; there were 41 high-ranking Muslim officers in the army, including two generals and several colonels,[60] and 92 Muslims were senior officers in the police, judiciary, legal department and supply and store departments.[60] In artillery Muslims represented over 50% of the numbers while the cavalry had some 10% Muslims from among the troopers.[62]

Thus, the government was run by an elite corps drawn from many communities, giving the empire the character of a secular system of government, even when built on theocratic foundations.[63]

A ban on cow slaughter, which can be related to Hindu sentiments, was universally imposed in the Sarkar Khalsaji.[64][65] Ranjit Singh also donated large amounts of gold for the plating of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple's dome.[66][67]

The Sikhs attempted not to offend the prejudices of Muslims, noted Baron von Hügel, the Austrian botanist and explorer,[68] yet the Sikhs were described as harsh. In this regard, Masson's explanation is perhaps the most pertinent: "Though compared to the Afghans, the Sikhs were mild and exerted a protecting influence, yet no advantages could compensate to their Mohammedan subjects, the idea of subjection to infidels, and the prohibition to slay kine, and to repeat the azan, or 'summons to prayer'."[69]

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• 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, England: Anthem Press, ISBN 978-1-84331-152-2
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