The Sikh Empire

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th Century under Ranjit Singh, pictured above, who unified most of the Sikh kingdoms following the decline of the Mughal Empire. He became Maharaja of the Punjab at Lahore in 1801, capturing Amritsar the following year. His empire flourished until 1839, after which a decade of unrest ended with the British annexation. At its peak, the Empire covered the Punjab and stretched from the Khyber Pass in the west to the edge of Tibet in the east, up to Kashmir and down to Mithankot on the Indus River. Ranjit Singh is still remembered as “The Lion of the Punjab.”

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Gurharpal Singh No other episodes
  Professor in Inter-Religious Relations and Development at SOAS, University of London
• Chandrika Kaul 5 episodes
  Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews
• Susan Stronge 2 episodes
  Senior Curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Reading list

• The Resourceful Fakirs: Three Muslim Brothers at the Sikh Court of Lahore
  Fakir S. Aijazuddin (Three Rivers Publishers, 2014) Google Books →
• Queen Victoria's Maharajah: Duleep Singh 1838-93
  Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001) Google Books →
• Sovereign, Squire and Rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Heirs of a Lost Kingdom
  Peter Bance (Coronet House Publishing Ltd, 2009) Google Books →
• The Lion's Firanghis: Europeans at the Court of Lahore
  Bobby Singh Bansal (S K Foundation, 2010) Google Books →
• The First and Second Sikh Wars
  Reginald George Burton (Westholme Publishing, 2007) Google Books →
• Up the Country: Letters written to her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India
  Emily Eden (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Google Books →
• The Sikhs of the Punjab: The New Cambridge History of India II.3
  J. S. Grewal (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Google Books →
• Pashmina: The Kashmir Shawl and Beyond
  Janet Rizvi with Monisha Ahmed (Marg Foundation, 2009) Google Books →
• Sikhism: An Introduction
  Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (IB Tauris, 2011) Google Books →
• The Encyclopedia of Sikhism
  Harbans Singh (ed.) (Punjabi University, 1998) Google Books →
• New Insights into Sikh Art
  Kavita Singh (ed.) (Marg Publications, 2003) Google Books →
• A History of the Sikhs
  Khushwant Singh (Oxford University Press, 2004-5) Google Books →
• Ranjit Singh: Maharaja of the Punjab
  Khushwant Singh (Penguin, 2001) Google Books →
• Empire of the Sikhs: The Life and Times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh
  Patwant Singh and Jyoti M. Rai (Peter Owen Publishers, 2008) Google Books →
• The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms
  Susan Stronge (ed.) (V&A Publications, 1999) Google Books →

Related episodes

• The Mughal Empire
  
  26 Feb, 2004 950 History of Asia
• The British Empire
  
  8 Nov, 2001 900 History
• The Indian Mutiny
  
  18 Feb, 2010 950 History of Asia
• Ashoka the Great
  
  5 Feb, 2015 950 History of Asia
• The East India Company
  
  26 Jun, 2003 380 Commerce, communications and transportation
• The Sassanid Empire
  
  13 Dec, 2007 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Safavid Dynasty
  
  12 Jan, 2012 950 History of Asia
• Genghis Khan
  
  1 Feb, 2007 950 History of Asia
• The Observatory at Jaipur
  
  19 Feb, 2009 520 Astronomy
• The Korean Empire
  
  1 May, 2025 950 History of Asia

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: b075t5mn

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b075t5mn

Auto-category: 900 (History & Geography)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1799, Rajit Singh and his Sikh army captured Lahore, once the Mughal capital of the North.