Historians disagree on whether Ranjit Singh was born in Gujranwala, the Sukerchakia seat, or close to the town of Jind at the southern end of Punjab’s Malwa region—his mother’s father was Jind’s Sikh chief. At an early age, the dark-skinned Ranjit was hit by small-pox, which blinded his left eye and left permanent pits on his face. Short in stature—his head dominated the body—Ranjit loved horses. Apparently his ugly appearance was transformed the moment he mounted a horse. Well before entering his teens he became an expert horseman and shot, but he never learnt to read or write.
Though among the smaller misls to start with, the Sukerchakias had acquired substantial tracts in and around Gujranwala, which Ranjit inherited. Three years after marrying Mehtab Kaur—daughter of Sada Kaur, the widow who owned the Kanhiya misl’s lands—Ranjit Singh took a second wife, Raj Kaur, a sister of the chief of the Nakkai misl. Both marriages were aimed at augmenting Sukerchakia power, for Ranjit had also inherited the fierce ambition that had driven his father Maha Singh and grandfather Charhat Singh.
Ranjit seemed to covet power more than affection, of which he did not receive much from Mehtab or her mother. The child Mehtab’s betrothal to Ranjit was above all the political response of a cornered woman whose husband had been killed by the boy’s father. Like her son-in-law, Sada Kaur separated feelings from interests. If the Sukerchakias expected gains from an alliance with the Kanhiyas, the latter hoped to profit from the Sukerchakias’ rapid ascent.
Young Ranjit Singh’s willingness to become a king revealed boldness, for it went against his Jat background and against Sikh tradition as well. It was also bound to invite hostility within his misl and from chiefs of rival misls. Ranjit Singh reckoned, however, that the populace, longing for a return of Mughal-era stability, would welcome a monarchy. Moreover, he and his advisors remembered that Punjab’s numerous chiefs offered allegiance and money to a king or viceroy in Lahore.
Some of these chiefs, especially in the hills, were called rajas, and Abdali had designated the Patiala chief a raja too. In these circumstances, why shouldn’t Lahore’s ruler be a maharaja? Also influencing Ranjit Singh’s step was the birth of Kharak Singh, a son from his Nakkai wife, Raj Kaur. That the child could be turned into an heir-apparent was evidently an ‘irresistible’ pull for the father.
Wishing, however, to be a people’s monarch, Ranjit Singh sat in a chair or on a carpet while granting an audience, rather than on a throne. The new coins he ordered carried Guru Nanak’s name, not his. While the Khalsa Sarkar, as his government was called, and the new Khalsa Durbar (the court), bore a clear Sikh-Hindu imprint (few at the time stressed differences between Hindu and Sikh beliefs), Ranjit Singh desired Muslim loyalty as well. As far as he was concerned, he would be a king for all Punjabis.
Even during his first takeover of Lahore, which occurred two years before his investiture as Maharaja, Ranjit Singh’s earliest public acts had been to pay homage at two mosques: the city’s greatest, the Badshahi Mosque built by Aurangzeb, and the most-frequented one, the Wazir Khan Masjid that Shahjahan’s Chiniot-born governor had created. Also, he made a Muslim, Imam Baksh, the city’s kotwal.
Disregarding objections to monarchy from Muslim clerics, Mughal kings had claimed that they were upholding Islam from the throne. Ranjit Singh similarly ignored Guru Gobind Singh’s warning to Banda Bahadur against princely dreams. But he treated Sikh religious leaders with respect.
In the years to come, these religious leaders would at times censure Ranjit Singh. ‘In personal terms, he was not a model of uprightness or chastity,’ observes Amrik Singh, adding, ‘he had a number of concubines.’ His ‘countless acts of dalliance’ were objected to. Once ‘it was even decided to flog him publicly’ for a transgression. Not wanting a confrontation, Ranjit Singh submitted to the punishment, which however was not carried out.
Following Ranjit Singh’s coronation, many were drawn to his court and to Lahore: sons of chiefs, doctors and scholars, artisans and craftsmen, and others.
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Defeating, in the year 1800, the Kasur-Bhangi-Ramgarhia combination (which was also a Muslim-Sikh combination) in the Battle of Bhasin, Ranjit Singh had also cultivated the prestigious Ahluwalia misl and its leader, Fateh Singh. Given the hold on the Sikh imagination of the late Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, and the abilities of his successor, Fateh Singh, this made sense.
Also, Ranjit Singh had enlisted a talented young Muslim aide with a Sufi background, Fakir Azizuddin Bokhari. Azizuddin, son of a hakim called in to check Ranjit Singh’s eyes, was learning Unani medicine in Lahore, but his gifts lay in diplomacy and flowery, persuasive speech. Recruited as the new ruler’s mouthpiece, Azizuddin soon became Ranjit Singh’s chief confidant and minister for foreign affairs. Two brothers of his, Nuruddin and Imamuddin, also entered Ranjit Singh’s service.
~~Punjab- A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten -by- Rajmohan Gandhi
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