Each age has its own historian ! The forces of religious favor unleashed by Guru Gobind Singh, the awakener of consciousness, his trials and tribulations, and  his tearing spirit, inspired his followers who were to transform with a passionate zeal a purely religious sect into  a great military confederacy in the early part of the 18thcentury. It was Ranjit Singh's genius that in the turbulent period he succeeded in galvanizing these forces of theocratic confederacy into establishing a Sikh Kingdom that was to last for half a century, until its collapse at Sobroan.

Within six years of his assumption of power,after seizing Lahore and Amritsar, Ranjit Singh found himself placed in a predicament which exasperated him. On September 19, 1808 there was a striking change in European politics. The French danger of invasion over India had passed away. The British object was therefore limited to only the security of the country south of the river Sutlej, in order to give protection to the Southern Sikhs who were the rulers of small principalities. Ranjit Singh was thus required to withdraw his troops to the right bank of the Sutlej.

On February 8, 1809 Colonel David Ochterlony declared all states on the left of the river Sutlej under British protection. In January, 1809 the British government ordered Ochterlony to advance a military force to the banks of the Sutlej. Ranjit Singh realized the danger of war. He distrusted the British but knew that he did not possess sufficient power to withstand them. Therefore he signed the Treaty of Amritsar on April 25, 1809 with the British government which confined his   territory to the south bank of the river Sutlej with exclusion of a strip of territory on the southbank in which he was bound not to place troops.

For signing the treaty Ranjit Singh has been strongly criticised by historians like Patwant Singh and Sangat Singh on the ground that he had tamely succumbed to the British pressure and forfeited his independence. He knew the limits of his powers. He realized that he could not fight the British. Nor could he find any Indianally support him in his resistance to the British. He also had a free hand to expand his territory in North and the North-West undeterred by the British. When Ranjit Singh died in 1837 at the age of fifty nine, he was the age of fifty nine, he was the undisputed ruler of compact Kingdom. He brought under his sway, three Muslim provinces: Peshawar in the west; Multan in the south west; and Kashmir in the North. He incorporated also the numerous petty states into his kingdom. It was only growth of British power and its strength in India that prevented the Sikhs from succeeding the Mughals as the controlling authority in India but it is a  speculation whether they would have succeeded in this venture.

He thought in plain terms and simplified even the most complex problems. In other words, his experiences were the foundation of his own life. He never ceased learning from others, due to his restless curiosity. In 1812 he rode with the British Commander David Ochterlony to inspected the drill of the English Company, in the style in which they would behave in the field of battle and he admired their performance. He employed French and Italian Generals to train his army on western model. Ranjit Singh had, doubtless, all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent and undisciplined sensualist. Wine and women he could not resist, and he believed that the only way to resist their temptation was to yield.

He was used to taking laudanum almost daily. Ranjit Singh's passion for collecting  guns and horses for the army amounted almost to insanity. What kind of a Kingdom did Ranjit Singh establish? Was it a military monarchy?   Monarchy was the only form of government in India for centuries, and the Sikhs, in spite of their attachment to democratic ideals, could not think of representative government. Ranjit Singh refused to sit on the throne. His name was never inscribed on the coin. He kept the army under control, and never used it as an instrument of tyranny. He set up a Sikh state in the scene that the ruler was Sikh who held power in the name of the Khalsa, and the army was predominantly Sikh. He was indeed a heterogeneous state based on harmony of religious faiths, and cooperation of communities with a rapport with the common man.

By any standard, Ranjit Singh was statesman who out of anarchy and chaos had created order and stability and made Punjab a power to reckon with. His task was enormous, his time was short, and his unworthy successes were a lot of trembling platforms lacking in political instinct who destroyed all the things he had build with political sagacity and will.