Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s6: § 9. Sikh polity and society
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s6
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§ 9. Sikh polity and society
v3.c36.s6.1
Major Polier designates the Sikh political system "an aristocratical republic. It is properly the snake with many heads. Every zamindar [i.e., yeoman farmer] who, from the Attock to Hansi Hisar, and to the gates of Delhi, lets his beard grow, cries wah guru, eats pork, wears an iron bracelet, drinks bhang, abominates the smoking of tobacco, and can command from ten followers on horseback to upwards,—sets up immediately for a Sikh sardar ; and, as far as is in his power, aggrandises himself at the expense of his weaker neighbours, . . . Hindu or Musalman, and even among his own fraternity."
v3.c36.s6.2
"A large vein of popular power branches through many parts of the Sikh Government. No honorary or titular distinction is conferred on any member of the State . . . The chiefs, who often command parties of not more than 50 men, being numerous, the motions of a Sikh army are tumultuous and irregular. An equality of rank is maintained in their civil society, which no class of men, however wealthy or powerful, is suffered to break down."
v3.c36.s6.3
But it was the equality of the savage state of Nature. "From the spirit of independence so invariably infused amongst them, their mutual jealousy and a rapacious roving temper, the Sikhs this day are seldom seen cooperating in national concert," but they are actuated by the influence of personal ambition only.
v3.c36.s6.4
Such was the great weapon which Guru Govind's martial creed had forged and which long years of injustice and oppression under the dissolving Mughal Government had beaten hard and at last turned against their oppressors.
v3.c36.s6.5
The chance of the Sikhs came during the eclipse of the Delhi monarchy which began in 1760 in consequence of the murder of Alamgir II by his wazir, the prolonged Durrāni invasion, and the knocking out of the Marathas from the North Indian political ring at Pānipat in January 1761; and they were most prompt in seizing it. While the Panjab proper remained for a generation afterwards a debateable ground between the Durrāni governors and the Sikh sardars, the Cis-Satlaj country came, soon after that battle, to be dotted with Sikh principalities, large and small, which swept away all other local proprietors and Governmental authorities from the Satlaj in the west to the Jamuna in the east, and from the foot of the Himalayas to the southern border of the modern Karnal district (the 29th degree of North latitude.) And even beyond this region the Sikh power overflowed fitfully into the upper Doab and the north Delhi portion of the Rohtak district, and through Hariana to Narnaul on the Shekhawati frontier.
v3.c36.s6.6
We have seen (Ch. 24 §§ 4-5) how at the end of 1763 the great conqueror Ahmad Shah Durrānī had practically to admit defeat at the hands of the Sikhs, and their national rising reached its crowning success in the capture of Sarhind (Dec. 1763) and Lahor (April 1764.) The fall of Sarhind, which was the capital of the Cis-Satlaj country in the geography of the Mughal empire, was followed by a rapid and complete transformation of the political map of this tract. Mughal administration disappeared and Sikh rule set in, though it took the Khālsa nebulæ some years to solidify into regular States and baronies in this region. As soon as Zain Khan, the last Muslim governor of Sarhind, had fallen in battle and his city had been sacked, the victorious Sikh confederates seized the country round. "Tradition still describes (as Cunningham wrote in 1849) how the Sikhs dispersed as soon as the battle was won ; and how, riding night and day, each horseman hurled his belt, his scabbard, his articles of dress, his accoutrements, till he was almost naked, into successive villages to mark them as his."
v3.c36.s6.7
§ 10. Sikhs overspread the Cis-Satlaj country; names of their chiefs and their seats.
v3.c36.s6.8
Less than a decade after the fall of Sarhind we find a new political order* that has replaced the old in Cis-Satlaj Panjab:—Amar Singh Jat (a Phulkia Sikh) had been recognised by Abdali as ruler of Patiala and faujdar of Sarhind with the title of "Rajah over Rajahs" in 1767. Before his death fourteen years later, he had systematically extended and consolidated his territories, acquired Sirsa and Fathabad (i.e., the western side of the Hisar district) and made himself the greatest Sikh potentate in this tract. A lesser Phulkia Sikh, Gajpat Singh, founded in 1764 the State of Jhind (capital 42 miles west of Panipat), and seized Karnal for a time. On his death in 1786 he was succeeded by his son Rajah Bhāg Singh, who continued to rule till 1819. Thirty-five miles north of Jhind and the same distance south of Patiala, lies Kaithal, where another Phulkia, Bhāi Desu Singh, founded a kingdom in 1767. On his death in 1780 his son Lāl Singh succeeded, dying in 1818.
v3.c36.s6.9
∗ Ambala Dist. Gazetteer (1883), 16-18, 40, also Ch. VI. Karnal D. Gaz. (1883), 33-46. My list differs in a few points from that given by Browne in his India Tracts (quoted in Dr. N. K. Sinha's Rise, 104.)
v3.c36.s6.10
Twenty-eight miles north-east of Kaithal and in the same latitude as Saharanpur lies the city of Thāneshwar, seized in 1764 by Mith Singh, a Manjha Jat of the Dallewala misl. On his death in 1777 his heritage was divided between his two nephews,—Bhangā Singh described as "the savage master of Thāneshwar" or "the greatest robber among the little chiefs" (d. 1815), and Bhāg Singh (distinct from his namesake the Jhind Rajah.) Both of them increased the family estates by force. Ladwa, 12 miles east of Thāneshwar, and Babain, 7 miles north-west of Ladwa, were respectively the seats of Gurdat Singh and Sāhib Singh of the Dallewala *misl*. They also seized Shāmgarh Karnal and some villages of the Panipat district. Sāhib Singh, nicknamed Khonda and killed in a battle near Saharanpur in 1781, was one of the foremost warriors of that age.
v3.c36.s6.11
The natural leader of the Krora Singhia *misl* during the last 35 years of the 18th century was Bāghel Singh, one of the most active and renowned chieftains of this race. His seat was Chalaundhi, three miles to the east of Ladwa. His comrade in many an adventure was Rāi Singh Bhangi, the master of Buriā and Jagādhri (21 and 23 miles north-east of Ladwa, and close to the west bank of the Jamuna), who was another most notable Sikh sardar of the Cis-Satlaj region. But the nominal head of the Krora Singhias had his seat at Chhachrauli, (26 miles north-east of Ladwa); here ruled Guru-Bakhsh Singh, the founder of the Kalsia State, and after him his son Jodhā Singh. A fourth Phulkia State was Nābhā (with its capital 15 miles west of Patiala) which Hamir Singh founded in 1755. Here Jaswant Singh succeeded his father Hamir about 1772.
v3.c36.s6.12
The historian of Delhi during this period is not so intimately concerned with the Sikh principalities of the Ambala district, such as Ambala town, founded by Guru-Bakhsh Singh of the Shāhid *misl* (died without issue in 1783),— Malodh, 8 miles north of Maler Kotla, founded about 1750 by a nephew of Ala Singh, who was succeeded by his sons Dalel and Bhāg Singh,—Radaur, seven miles north-east of Ladwa, held by Dalja Singh Krora Singhia,—Shāhābād, 13 miles north of Thāneshwar, founded by Karam Singh Nirmala, and far off places like Mani Majra, Ropar and Rahoon (the last two bordering on the Satlaj.)* But the State of Kapurthala, though lying on the western edge of the Jalandhar Doab beyond the Satlaj, deserves mention, as its founder, the ex-brewer Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, was one of the greatest Sikh leaders of his time.