The rapid successes of Ranjit Singh made his intervention in the affairs of the Cis-Sutlej States inevitable. Quarrels among the local Sikh chiefs, and an appeal for his help by some of them, gave him the pretext for undertaking Cis-Sutlej expeditions in 1806 and 1807 and occupying Ludhiana. This extension of Ranjit’s influence was not liked by some of the Sikh chiefs, who waited upon Mr. Seton, the British Resident at Delhi, in March, 1808, soliciting British help against Ranjit Singh. Their appeal passed unheeded.
But for strategic and diplomatic reasons, the English soon thought it necessary to check Ranjit Singh’s eastern advance to the Jumna. They could not, however, resort to force at once, because it would have been prejudicial to their interests to antagonise a power in the north-west of India in view of the possibility of a French invasion of the country in alliance with the Turks and the Persians. Lord Minto took recourse to diplomacy. With the double object of resisting Ranjit’s advance and enlisting his friendship against an apprehended French invasion, he sent Metcalfe on a mission to the Sikh king to negotiate for an offensive and defensive alliance against the French, if they should ever invade India through Persia. Calculating that the British Government stood badly in need of his friendship, Ranjit conquered as much of the Cis-Sutlej territory as he could; and also boldly demanded from the English acknowledgment of his sovereignty over all the Sikh States as the price of the proposed alliance. But in the meanwhile the danger of Napoleon’s invasion of India had disappeared owing to his engagement in the Peninsular War, and relations between Turkey and England had improved after the conclusion of the Treaty of the Dardanelles by these powers in January, A.D. 1809.
Encouraged by this change in the political situation, the British Government decided not to purchase Ranjit’s alliance at such a high cost, but “to oppose the extension on the Indian side of the Sutlej of an ambitious military power which would be substituted upon our (British) frontier for a confederacy of friendly chiefs rendered grateful by our protection and interested in our cause”. A body of troops was sent under David Ochterlony to enforce the demands of the English. The fear of British arms, and the apprehension that the jealous Sikh States on the east of Sutlej would throw themselves under British protection, led Ranjit to sign a treaty of “perpetual friendship” with the English at Amritsar on the 25th April, 1809. By this treaty, Ranjit’s activities were confined to the right side of the Sutlej, and the Cis-Sutlej States came definitely under British protection. The British frontier was extended from the Jumna to the Sutlej and English troops were stationed at Ludhiana,. Thus Ranjit had to give up the most cherished ideal of his life–that of undisputed mastery over all the Sikhs. Ranjit’s “failure to absorb the Cis-Sutlej States was”, remarks his latest biographer, “a tragedy of Sikh militant nationalism and the success of the Cis-Sutlej States with the aid of the British Government marked the disruption of the great creation of Guru Govind Singh”.
Ranjit’s ambition for eastern expansion being thus foiled, it sought outlets in the north, the north-west and the west. He was successful in his conflicts with the Gurkhas from 1809 to 1811 and captured the Kangra district. On the 13th July, 1813, he severely defeated the Afghans at Haidaru and captured Attock, the key to the frontier, which he arranged to have strongly garrisoned. Driven from Afghanistan the Afghan king, Shah Shuja sought shelter at Lahore (1813-1814), when Ranjit took from him the world famous diamond the Koh-i-nur. Shah Shuja succeeded in escaping from Lahore in April, 1815, and retired to Ludhiana within the British sphere of influence. After several attempts, Ranjit captured Multan in 1818 and occupied Kashmir in 1819. Peshawar also became his dependency in 1823. Thus by the year 1824 the largest part of the Indus valley was included within Ranjit’s dominions.
With a view to utilizing the growing Sikh kingdom as a buffer state against the suspected Russian designs on India, Lord William Bentinck met Ranjit Singh at Rooper on the Sutlej in October, 1831, and managed to get the treaty of alliance with him renewed. On the 6th May, 1834, the citadel of Peshawar was captured by the Sikh general Hari Singh Naola (Nalwa) and Peshawar passed formally under Sikh control. But the further ambitions of Ranjit with regard to the Afghans were restrained by the English. The kingdom of Sindh also felt the impact of Sikh expansion. As a matter of fact, the occupation of Sindh was important to Ranjit as it would increase the compactness of his dominions, because Sindh and the Punjab were “provinces of the Indus as Bengal and Bihar are provinces of the Ganges”. But here too he was forestalled and checked by the English. Nevertheless, Ranjit succeeded in establishing a kingdom large in extent and rich in fame, before he died on the 27th June, 1839, at the age of fifty-nine.
Ranjit Singh is one of the most important personalities in the history of modern India. Though his physical appearance was not particularly handsome and an attack of smallpox deprived him of sight in the left eye, he had delightful manners and address and inspiring features. He was, writes Cunningham, “assiduous in his devotions; he honoured men of reputed sanctity, and enabled them to practise an enlarged charity ; he attributed every success to the favour of God, and he styled himself and his people collectively the ‘Khalsa’ or Commonwealth of Govind”.
A born ruler of men, Ranjit is entitled to fame chiefly for his success in effecting the marvellous transformation of the warring Sikh States into a compact national monarchy, though his ideal of Pan-Sikhism could not be realized owing to the intervention of the British on behalf of the Cis-Sutlej States. One of his biographers, Sir Lepel Griffin, observes: “We only succeed in establishing him as a hero, as a ruler of men and as worthy of a pedestal in that innermost shrine where history honours the few human beings to whom may be indisputably assigned the palm of greatness, if we free our minds of prejudice and, discounting conventional virtue, only regard those rare qualities, which raise a man supreme above his fellows. Then we shall at once allow that, although sharing in full measure the commonplace and worse vices of his time and education, he yet ruled the country which his military genius had conquered with vigour of will and an ability which placed him in the front rank of the statesmen of the century.” Victor Jacquenmont, a French traveller to Ranjit’s court, described him as “an extraordinary man–a Bonaparte in miniature”. Ranjit fully realized the need of a strong army for the task which he had set before himself and so radically changed the feudal levies of the Sikh chiefs, “brave indeed, but ignorant of war as an art”, into a strong and efficient national army, which was thoroughly under his command, and which, according to Hunter, “for steadiness and religious fervour has had no parallel since the ‘Ironsides’ of Oliver Cromwell “. The initiative for army reform came from Ranjit himself, and the bulk of his army was formed by the Sikhs. Though he was assisted in this work by European officers of various nationalities like Allard, Ventura, Court, Avitabile, and others, some of whom had experience of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, his army did not become denationalised, and he always maintained a strict control over it. His artillery was very efficient.
