Maharaja Ranjit Singh: The Rise of the Sikh Empire and The Military History of The Punjab

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There is, perhaps no more notable and memorable figure among the chiefs who rose to power on the ruins of the Mughal Empire than Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the short- lived Sikh Kingdom of Lahore. In the stormy days in the second half of the eighteenth century, amid a fierce conflict of races and creeds, he found his opportunity, and seizing it with energy, swiftness, and genius, he welded the turbulent and warlike followers of the teaching of Guru Gobind Singh into a homogeneous nation. Under his strong and remorseless rule, the Sikhs, trained and disciplined on a military system more perfect than there had ever been before in the native States of India, were rapidly converted into a formidable fighting machine which only broke into pieces when the great Maharaja's successors persuaded them to use it against the English.

The Sikh monarchy was Napoleonic in the suddenness of its rise, the brilliancy of its success and the completeness of its overthrow due to the folly and weakness of Ranjit Singh's successors. Like his contemporary, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Maharaja of Lahore failed to found a lasting dynasty on the ruins of petty States, Rajputs, Mohammedan and Sikh, which he in turn had attacked and destroyed. His victories had no permanent result; his possessions, bound together during his lifetime by force of his commanding will, fell apart the moment the restraining band was severed. His throne and the tradition of power and greatness passed into the hands of incompetent successors, who allowed the ship of the state to drift on to the rocks of Raj Britain in irremediable wreck.

The downfall of the Sikh monarchy was chiefly due to the fact that the authority of Ranjit Singh was personal and drew no part of its strength from the inherent respect of the people for an ancient house. Sprung from the people and an outcome of the democratic principles of Sikhism, the one chance of the survival of his dynasty was that his successors should have inherited his character and ability. But this was not the case. His only son Kharak Singh was incompetent; his grandson, Nau Nihal Singh, a youth of promise, died a violent death and a period of anarchy set in, which the men who succeeded had no power to subdue or control.

There were several who claimed the throne as sons of the great Maharaja but there was not one whose legitimacy the Sikhs accepted as proved. Then came the wars with the English, in which the Sikhs, badly led, mainly because of treachery and traitorous commanders, displayed the utmost gallantry in vain; ending in the occupation of the Punjab by a foreigner's army, dismemberment, and finally annexation.

Ranjit Singh was unquestionably a great man. He went by instinct and though young, ruled with sagacity. As he swept through the Punjab, bringing more and more of it under his own control, he showed his understanding of men who obeyed him just on the basis of personal authority, building a team of exceptional administrators to become either his ministers or the holders of key positions, such as the governorship of newly won territories.