Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-1849): The British Conquest of the Punjab

The Anglo-Sikh Wars were two conflicts between the British East India Company and the Sikh Empire of the Punjab, fought in 1845-1846 and 1848-1849. They followed the collapse of strong government after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and they were among the hardest-fought wars of Britain’s conquest of India. The second war ended with the annexation of the Punjab in March 1849, which brought almost the whole of the Indian subcontinent under British control.

Background: the Sikh Empire

Ranjit Singh united the Sikh confederacies (misls) of the Punjab at the end of the eighteenth century. He took Lahore in 1799, proclaimed himself Maharaja in 1801 and expanded his realm to include Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar. His army, the Khalsa, was trained with the help of European officers and became one of the most formidable in Asia. Ranjit Singh’s state was not a purely Sikh one: Muslims and Hindus served as ministers, governors and soldiers, and his capital at Lahore was a centre of a rich courtly culture.

The Treaty of Amritsar of 1809 fixed the Sutlej River as the boundary between the Sikh state and British territory, and Ranjit Singh kept peace with the British for the rest of his life. He cooperated with them at the outset of the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1838-1839.

Causes of the first war

Ranjit Singh died in June 1839, and the state fell into turmoil. His son Kharak Singh died in November 1840, and his grandson Nau Nihal Singh was killed on the same day as Kharak Singh’s funeral, when an archway fell on him. Maharaja Sher Singh was assassinated in 1843. The throne passed to Duleep Singh, a child of about five, with his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, as regent.

Real power increasingly lay with the Khalsa army, which was governed by elected regimental committees. The court’s ministers, Lal Singh and Tej Singh, feared the army’s power. Meanwhile the British strengthened their forces along the Sutlej, which Sikhs saw as preparation for invasion. In December 1845 the Sikh army crossed the Sutlej, and on 13 December the Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, declared war. Historians still debate who was to blame. Some emphasise British designs on the Punjab; others stress the factional politics at Lahore, where some courtiers may have hoped that a war would break the army’s power.

The First Anglo-Sikh War, 1845-1846

The British commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Gough, won a narrow victory at Mudki on 18 December 1845. At Ferozeshah on 21-22 December the fighting was so close that British leaders feared defeat; the Sikh commanders’ failure to press home their advantage, which many historians attribute to Lal Singh’s and Tej Singh’s wish to see the army weakened, helped save the British.

On 28 January 1846 Sir Harry Smith defeated a Sikh force at Aliwal. The decisive battle came at Sobraon on 10 February 1846, where British and Indian troops stormed Sikh entrenchments on the Sutlej. As the Sikh army retreated, the bridge of boats behind it collapsed, and thousands were killed or drowned. Casualties in the four battles were heavy on both sides; British and Indian losses at Ferozeshah and Sobraon alone ran into the thousands.

The Treaty of Lahore of 9 March 1846 made the Sikh state cede the Jullundur Doab, between the Sutlej and Beas rivers, and pay a large indemnity. Because the treasury could not pay in full, Kashmir was ceded to Britain, which sold it a week later to Gulab Singh, the ruler of Jammu, under the separate Treaty of Amritsar. A further agreement in December 1846 placed the Lahore government under the supervision of a British Resident, Henry Lawrence, until Duleep Singh came of age.

The Second Anglo-Sikh War, 1848-1849

Resentment of British control grew, and the regent Jind Kaur was removed and later exiled. In April 1848 two British officers were killed at Multan, whose governor, Diwan Mulraj, then rebelled. In September 1848 Sher Singh Attariwala, sent to help suppress the revolt, joined it, and his father Chattar Singh rose in Hazara. The new Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, treated the uprising as a war with the Sikh state. Critics have argued that the British allowed the Multan revolt to spread for several months, which gave Dalhousie grounds for annexation, although others point to the difficulty of campaigning in the hot season. Either way, many soldiers of the old Khalsa army, disbanded after 1846, rallied to the rebel leaders, and the conflict grew into a full-scale war.

Gough’s army fought an inconclusive action at Ramnagar on 22 November 1848. At Chillianwala on 13 January 1849 the British suffered about 2,400 casualties in one of the bloodiest battles in the history of British India, and Gough was criticised at home. Multan, besieged since the previous summer, fell on 22 January 1849 after a long bombardment, and Mulraj surrendered. On 21 February 1849 Gough, now using his artillery to full effect, decisively defeated the Sikh army at Gujrat. The remaining Sikh forces laid down their arms in March.

Annexation

On 29 March 1849 Dalhousie proclaimed the annexation of the Punjab. Duleep Singh, then ten, was deposed and given a pension. The Koh-i-Noor diamond, once Ranjit Singh’s, was surrendered and presented to Queen Victoria in 1850. Duleep Singh was converted to Christianity and taken to Britain in 1854.

The Punjab was governed by a Board of Administration led by Henry and John Lawrence, which disarmed the former Sikh army, built roads and canals, and reorganised land revenue. The capital, Lahore, became the seat of the new province, and the Grand Trunk Road was extended towards Peshawar. Large-scale irrigation works later in the century turned much of western Punjab into some of the most productive farmland in India.

Key people

• Ranjit Singh (1780-1839): founder of the Sikh Empire, whose death opened the way to war.
• Sir Hugh Gough (1779-1869): British commander-in-chief in both wars.
• Sir Henry Hardinge (1785-1856): Governor-General during the first war.
• Lord Dalhousie (1812-1860): Governor-General who annexed the Punjab.
• Maharani Jind Kaur (1817-1863): regent for her son and an opponent of British control.
• Duleep Singh (1838-1893): the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.

Timeline

• 1839, 27 June: Death of Ranjit Singh.
• 1845, 13 December: Britain declares war after the Sikh army crosses the Sutlej.
• 1845, 21-22 December: Battle of Ferozeshah.
• 1846, 10 February: Battle of Sobraon.
• 1846, 9 March: Treaty of Lahore.
• 1848, April: Revolt at Multan.
• 1849, 13 January: Battle of Chillianwala.
• 1849, 21 February: Battle of Gujrat.
• 1849, 29 March: Annexation of the Punjab.

Legacy

The wars removed the last major independent power in the subcontinent and extended British India to the Afghan frontier. The British admired the fighting qualities of the Sikh soldiers they had faced and recruited them in large numbers. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the Punjab remained largely loyal, and Punjabi regiments helped the British recapture Delhi. In Sikh memory the fall of the kingdom, and the conduct of the court ministers Lal Singh and Tej Singh, remain a deeply felt subject.

Why it matters

The Anglo-Sikh Wars completed the British conquest of India and ended the only great Sikh state in history. They shaped the Punjab’s place in British India and the long association between Sikh soldiers and the British Indian Army.