Maharaja Ranjit Singh, also called “Sher-e-Punjab” (“The Lion of the Punjab”) (1780-1839) was a Sikh emperor of the sovereign country of Punjab and the Sikh Empire. Maharaja Ranjit Singh was a Panjabi belonging to the Sikh faith born in 1780 in North India, Gujranwala, which is now located in modern day Pakistan, into the Sandhawalia family. At the time much of Punjab was ruled by the Sikhs as well Afghan overlords, who had divided the territory among factions known as misls. Ranjit Singh’s father Maha Singh was the commander of the Sukerchakia misl and controlled a territory in west Punjab based around his headquarters at Gujranwala.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh spent his raj years fighting the Afghans, driving them out of western Punjab. He also captured Pashtun territory including Peshawar. This was the first time that Pashtuns were ruled by non-Muslims. In a historical perspective, this event was very important. For more than a thousand years invaders had come down from the Khyber pass and ruled eastern lands. Ranjit Singh reversed this trend. When the Sikh empire finally fell to the English, they were able to retain this province. He captured the province of Multan which encompassed the southern parts of Punjab, Peshawar (1818), Jammu and Kashmir (1819) and the hill states north of Anandpur, the largest of which was Kangra.
Ranjit Singh also hired European mercenaries to train his troops, creating the first modern Indian Army — the Sikh Khalsa Army, a powerful military force whose presence delayed the eventual British colonization of Punjab. He created a powerful and heavily armed state; at this point, Punjab was the only state not controlled by the British. He brought law and order, yet never used the death penalty. Maharaja Ranjit Singh under his rule he abolished capital punishment He stopped Indian non-secular style practices by treating Hindus and Muslims equally. He banned the discriminatory “jizya” tax on Hindus and Sikhs.
The majority of Ranjit Singh’s subjects were Muslim and had an intense loyalty towards him and his Sikhs. This was once highlighted when the foreign minister of the Sikh Empire, a Muslim named Fakir Azizuddin, had a meeting with the British Governor-General. When Lord Auckland asked Fakir Azizuddin which of the Maharaja’s eyes was missing, he replied: “the Maharaja is like the sun and sun has only one eye. The splendour and luminosity of his single eye is so much that I have never dared to look at his other eye.“
His Empire was effectively secular as it did not discriminate against Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus or even atheists. It was relatively modern and had great respect for all religions and non-religious traditions of the Empire. The only main prominent religious symbols of the empire were the Maharaja and royal family being Sikh (but not Khalsa) and the Army being dominated by Sikh nobles and the Khalsa. The Maharaja never forced Sikhism on his subjects. This was in sharp contrast with the ethnic and religious cleansing of past Mughal rulers. Ranjit Singh had created a state based upon Sikh noble traditions, where everyone worked together, regardless of background, and where citizens were made to look at the things that they shared in common, e.g. being Punjabi, rather than any religious differences.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh once punished one his Generals for killing a nightingale when she was warbling, which had annoyed the General[4]. Maharaja Ranjit Singh would help old men with their labour when he used to conduct his afternoon walks through Lahore, with his ministers. One incident was of a elderly man who could not lift a heavy sack. Maharaja Ranjit Singh asked the old man “Night is approaching, old man, why are you sitting here in darkness?”. The elderly man answered that the sack is too heavy for me to carry home. The Maharaja carried the heavy sack all the way to the old man’s house and was blessed by him.