When Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in June 1839, he left behind the Sarkar Khalsa, a powerful and well-organised Sikh state that stretched across Punjab and beyond. Yet the empire he had held together by force of personality did not long outlive him. Within ten years, two short and bloody wars with the British East India Company would end Punjab's independence and bring the last major self-governing power in the subcontinent under foreign rule. The story of the Anglo-Sikh Wars is one of a strong kingdom undone less by the battlefield than by the instability that followed a great ruler's death.
A Kingdom Without Its Architect
The years after 1839 were marked by deep instability at the court of Lahore. Ranjit Singh's son Kharak Singh was pushed from power within months and later died in prison. His successor, Nau Nihal Singh, died soon after, struck by a falling archway at the Lahore Fort. Rival factions, including the Sikh Sandhanwalias and the Dogras, struggled violently for control, and several claimants to the throne were murdered in turn. By the early 1840s, the young Maharaja Duleep Singh sat on the throne with his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, acting as regent. Real power, however, increasingly lay with the Khalsa army itself.
The Restless Khalsa Army
The Sikh army had grown rapidly, from around 29,000 troops in 1839 to more than 80,000 by 1845. Trained partly along European lines and equipped with strong artillery, it was a formidable force. But with the central government weakened, soldiers' committees known as panchayats became an alternative seat of authority, leading British observers to speak uneasily of a military democracy they could not predict. Wary of this large army on their frontier, and watching the chaos at Lahore, the British also began to mass troops near the Sutlej River, the border between the two powers.
The First War and Its Great Battles
In December 1845, Sikh forces crossed the Sutlej, and the British declared war. The First Anglo-Sikh War was fought hard and at close range. At Mudki on 18 December 1845, the British won a confused and costly encounter. Days later, at Ferozeshah on 21 and 22 December, they came perilously close to defeat before securing victory. A British column then won a clean success at Aliwal on 28 January 1846.
The decisive blow fell at Sobraon on 10 February 1846, where the Sikhs held an entrenched position along the river. British and Indian troops advanced under heavy artillery fire, breached the fortifications, and broke the Sikh army. Many soldiers died trying to recross the Sutlej.
The Treaty of Lahore
The war ended with the Treaty of Lahore on 9 March 1846. Its terms were severe. The Sikh state ceded the Jullundur Doab, the fertile land between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, and paid an indemnity of fifteen million rupees. Unable to raise the full sum, it also surrendered Kashmir and neighbouring hill territories, which the British sold on to a local ruler. The Sikh army was sharply reduced, and a British presence was installed at Lahore. The kingdom survived in name, but its independence was now hollow.
The gem called the Koh-i-Noor shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.
The Second War and Annexation
An uneasy peace did not last. In April 1848, two British officers sent to take charge of Multan were killed, and Sikh troops soon joined the rebellion. The Second Anglo-Sikh War followed. At Chillianwala in January 1849, fighting in thick scrub and without proper artillery support, British forces suffered heavy losses, lost guns, and saw some units break, an outcome regarded in Britain as close to disaster. The reckoning came at Gujrat on 21 February 1849, where a well-handled British attack won a complete victory and shattered Sikh resistance.
The End of an Empire
On 29 March 1849, Lord Dalhousie annexed Punjab to the East India Company. The Sarkar Khalsa, the state built by Ranjit Singh, ceased to exist. The young Maharaja Duleep Singh, then about ten years old, was deposed and granted a pension; he was later sent to England. His mother, Jind Kaur, was exiled from Punjab. Under the final settlement, the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, once worn by Ranjit Singh, passed to the British crown and Queen Victoria.
With annexation, the last major independent power in the subcontinent came under British control, and Punjab entered a new and very different chapter of its long history. The memory of the Sikh Empire, brief but brilliant, endured in the land and its people long after the wars were over.