Maharaja Ranjit singh

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, popularly referred to as “Sher-e-Punjab” or the “the lion of Punjab”, rose from an obscure Sikh chieftain of the local “Misl” ( MISL refers to a unit or brigade of Sikh warriors of the time. At that time there were 12 Mils in the region) and become the “Maharaja” of Punjab – ruling over a vast territory extending across Kashmir and Ladakh in the north, the Indus delta in the south, Baluchistan and Jamrud in the west and north-west and the river Sutlej in the east.

Born on 13TH November 1780, his father Sardar Mahan Singh was the chief of the Sukerchakia misl. Little is accurately known about his childhood- in fact according to historians there is only one “real” image of what he even looked like much later- (and that is from a painting by Emily Eden) the rest of the paintings are all based on hear-say and folk lore where various people have cast his image in their own way.

However, it is widely acknowledged that an attack of small pox deprived him of his left eye in childhood. As a boy he was sent to Bhagu Singh’s dharamshala at Gujranwala to learn Gurumukhi but he was more interested in warfare. He was quite matchless in that art.

When his father died in 1790, the young Ranjit Singh was only 10 years OLD. When most boys that age would be busy playing, Ranjit Singh found himself in the center of the political scenario and became the heir to his father’s legacy.

After Winning the Amritsar and Lahore Maharaja Ranjit Singh turned his ambitions in other directions.
The British soon became vary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s growing power and On 1 January 1806, Maharaja Ranjit Singh signed a treaty with the East India Company, in which the Company agreed that it would not even attempt to cross the Sutlej River into the Sikh territory and Maharaja Ranjit Singh agreed that his Sikh forces would not expand south of the Sutlej River.
However, Maharaja Ranjit Singh was busy expanding west and northwards.
By 1807, Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s forces attacked Misl of Kasur and after a month of fierce fighting, defeated the Afghan chief Qutb-ud-Din- allowing Maharaja Ranjit Singh to expand his empire towards Afghanistan.
In December 1809, the aid of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra, asked for his help and after defeating the Ghurka forces, Maharaja Ranjit Singh acquired Kangra too.

In 1810, he annexed Multan after a long siege.

However, as history turned, infighting broke into the family of the Durranis- with brothers killing, blinding and overthrowing each other- in 1812 one of the brothers Shah Shuja was dethroned by another step brother and was trying to flee Kabul with his entourage when the British captured him and sent him to Kashmir to his own brother where he was imprisoned!

His wife Wafa Begum, then came to Maharaja Ranjit Singh ask for help. Thus it was that the “Afghan royal family- the very same people who had been invading and looting Punjab for years, arrived at Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s doorstep pleading for help” in getting the release of Shah Shuja from the clutches of the British.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh obliged and it was then that he acquired the Koh-i-noor – In exchange for helping Shah Shuja get back the throne of Afghanistan.

Early in his career, he had observed how the British troops with their discipline and training, had defeated Indian forces that were much superior in numbers. Their well-drilled infantry and artillery were very impressive. But Maharaja Ranjit Singh did not trust the British, instead he used the French and Italian generals to modernize his army- many of these Generals had served under Napoleon. Accordingly, he restructured and trained his army.
It is important to note that Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s was a huge secularist. In fact, his armies were composed of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. Even his commanders as well as his ministers were from different religious communities. The Maharaja never forced Sikhism on his subjects. This was in sharp contrast with the ethnic and religious cleansing of past Muslim rulers – Afghani or Mughal.

His modernized artillery and infantry army fought very well in campaigns in the North-West. Maharaja Ranjit Singh spent the following years fighting the Afghans, driving them out of western Punjab. In 1823 a treaty brought the province of Peshawar under his rule. This was the first time that Pashtuns were ruled by non-Muslims. In a historical perspective, this event was a landmark event. “For more than a thousand years’ invaders had come down from the Khyber Pass and ruled eastern lands. Maharaja Ranjit Singh reversed this trend.”