Biography Of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Table of Contents

EARLY LIFE

Ranjit Singh was born on 13 November 1780, to Maha Singh Sukerchakia and Raj Kaur – the daughter of Raja Gajpat Singh of Jind, in Gujranwala, in the Majha region of Punjab (now in Pakistan).
He was short in stature, never schooled, and did not learn to read or write anything beyond the Gurmukhi alphabet however, he was trained at home in horse riding, musketry and other martial arts.
At age 12, his father died. He then inherited his father’s Sukerchakia misl estates and was raised by his mother Raj Kaur.

After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal Empire fell apart and declined in its ability to tax or govern most of the Indian subcontinent.
In the northwestern region, particularly the Punjab, the creation of the Khalsa community of Sikh warriors by Guru Gobind Singh accelerated the decay and fragmentation of the Mughal power in the region.
The Sikhs had appointed their own zamindars, replacing the previous Muslim revenue collectors, which provided resources to feed and strengthen the warriors aligned with Sikh interests.

By the second half of the 18th century, the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan and parts of north India) were a collection of fourteen small warring regions.
Of the fourteen, twelve were Sikh-controlled misls (confederacies), one named Kasur (near Lahore) was Muslim controlled, and one in the southeast was led by an Englishman named George Thomas.
This region constituted the fertile and productive valleys of the five rivers – Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Bias and Sutlej. The Sikh misls were all under the control of the Khalsa fraternity of Sikh warriors, but they were not united and constantly warred.

Ranjit Singh’s fame grew in 1797, at age 17, when the Afghan Muslim ruler Shah Zaman, of the Ahmad Shah Abdali dynasty, attempted to annex Panjab region into his control through his general Shahanchi Khan and 12,000 soldiers
The battle was fought in the territory that fell in Ranjit Singh controlled misl.In 1798, the Afghan ruler sent in another army, Much of the Afghan army retreated back to Afghanistan.
In 1799, Raja Ranjit Singh’s army of 25,000 Khalsa, supported by another 25,000 in a joint operation attacked the region controlled by Bhangi Sikhs centered around Lahore. The rulers escaped, marking Lahore as the first major conquest of Ranjit Singh.
In 1800, the ruler of Jammu region ceded control of his region to Ranjit Singh.In 1801, Ranjit Singh proclaimed himself as the “Maharaja of Punjab”,

In 1802 Ranjit Singh, aged 22, took Amritsar from the Bhangi Sikh misl, paid homage at the Harmandir Sahib temple
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.
He took Multan in 1818, and the whole Bari Doab came under his rule with that conquest. In 1819, he successfully defeated the Afghan Sunni Muslim rulers and annexed Srinagar and Kashmir, stretching his rule into the north and the Jhelum valley, beyond the foothills of the Himalayas.

The most significant encounters between the Sikhs in the command of the Maharaja and the Afghans were in 1813, 1823, 1834 and in 1837.
In November 1819, Dost Mohammed accepted the sovereignty of the Maharaja over Peshawar, along with a revenue payment of Rs one lac a year.
In 1837, the Battle of Jamrud and his march through Kabul in 1838, in cooperation with the colonial British army stationed in Sindh, became the last confrontation between the Sikhs led by him and the Afghans, which helped extend and establish the western boundaries of the Sikh Empire.
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.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh allowed men from different religions and races to serve in his army and his government in various positions of authority.
As consistent with many Punjabis of that time, Ranjit Singh was a cultural Hindu 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 Harmandar.

He also joined the Hindus in their temples, prohibited cow slaughter out of respect for Hindu sentiments, and visited Sufi mosques and holy places. He ordered his soldiers to neither loot nor molest civilians.
However, he did convert Muslim mosques into other uses. Singh’s sovereignty was accepted by Afghan and Punjabi Muslims, who fought under his banner against the Afghan forces of Nadir Shah and later of Azim Khan.
His court composition: his prime minister, Dhian Singh, was a Dogra; his foreign minister, Fakir Azizuddin, was a Muslim; and his finance minister, Dina Nath, was a Brahmin.

The army under Ranjit Singh was not limited to the Sikh community. The soldiers and troop officers included Sikhs, but also included Hindus, Muslims and Europeans.
His army included Polish, Russian, Spanish, Prussian and French officers.
The Jagirs system of state revenue collection involved certain individuals with political connections or inheritance promising a tribute (nazarana) to the ruler and thereby gaining administrative control over certain villages, with the right to force collect customs, excise and land tax at inconsistent

Ranjit Singh ensured that Panjab manufactured and was self-sufficient in all weapons, equipment and munitions his army needed.
His government invested in infrastructure in the 1800s and thereafter, established raw materials mines, cannon foundries, gunpowder and arm factories.
Singh made his empire and the Sikhs a strong political force, for which he is deeply admired and revered in Sikhism.