Describe in brief the political condition of Punjab during 1716 and 1765.

Hello aspirant,

In 17th century, Sikhs became organised and formed into a political community. This caused the building of a regional state in Punjab. Many battles were fought by Guru Gobind Singh against the Rajput and Mughal rulers, both before and after the establishment of the Khalsa in 1699. After his death in 1708, the Khalsa began to revolt against the Mughal authority under Banda Bahadur’s leadership, declared their supreme rule by striking coins in the name of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, and made their own administration between the Sutlej and the Jamuna. Banda Bahadur was arrested in 1715 and executed in 1716.

With a number of great leaders in the eighteenth century, the Sikhs categorized themselves into a number of bands called jathas, and later on misls. The combined army was called the grand army (dal khalsa). The entire body used to meet at Amritsar at the time of Baisakhi and Diwali to take decisions together known as “resolutions of the Guru (gurmatas)”. An ocassion called rakhi was started, giving protection to cultivators on the payment of a tax of 20 per cent of the produce. The Sikh territories in the late eighteenth century expanded from the Indus to the Jamuna but they were divided under different rulers. One of them, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, reunited these groups and created his capital at Lahore in 1799

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