Narindar Singh Dhesi

Muslims and Sarkar-i-Khalsa Narindar Singh Dhesi

It is a book about the Sikh Gurus and their amicable relations with the Muslims. It continues with the repression of the tiny community by the Mughals and the Afghans. After much bloodletting, Sikhs became sovereign of the Punjab, led by Maharajah Ranjit Singh. He rose from the status of a petty chieftain of a few villages and by welding together the rude Barons of the Sikh Confederacy became a King of an Empire extending from Tibet to the deserts of Sindh and from the Khyber Pass to the Satluj. He died in 1839. Yet within a few years of his death, all the hard-earned and cherished victories of the 'Lion of the Punjab' were wasted by his unscrupulous successors, and subsequently the Sikh kingdom fell to the British. 'The Sikh monarchy founded by Ranjit Singh was 'Napoleonic in the suddenness of its rise, the brilliancy of its success and the completeness of its overthrow'. His foresight and his fair conduct earned him the allegiance and loyalty of the Muslim majority in the Punjab. Despite the Muslim repression in the rich history of the Sikhs, he skilfully handled the relationship between Sikhs and Muslims. At his death the British East India Company cunningly exploited this opportunity and waged wars against the Sikhs to realize their long-held dream of taking over the Punjab. The British and their Dogra allies were successful in capitalizing on the situation and were able to capture and merge the Punjab into the British Raj. An attempt has been made in this book to in how some Muslim states reacted to the declining Sikh rule in the Punjab and their policies. It is ironic as some of the Muslim soldiers paid the ultimate price in the defence of the Punjab, while the Sikh royalty and Dogras were in league with the enemy to shatter the Punjabi army!