Despite attempts to bribe the army he was butchered in September 1845 in the presence of Jind Kaur and Duleep Singh. For this, he was called to account by the army. In 1845 he arranged the assassination of Peshaura Singh, who presented a threat to Duleep Singh. After the vizier Hira Singh was killed, while attempting to flee the capital with loot from the royal treasury (toshkana), by troops under Sham Singh Attariwala, Jind Kaur's brother Jawahar Singh became vizier in December 1844. The Dogras took their revenge on those responsible, and Jind Kaur, Ranjit Singh's youngest widow, became regent for her infant son Duleep Singh. In September 1843 he was murdered by his cousin, an officer of the army, Ajit Singh Sindhanwalia. Maharajah Sher Singh was unable to meet the pay demands of the army, although he reportedly lavished funds on a degenerate court. British representatives and visitors in the Punjab described the regiments as preserving "puritanical" order internally, but also as being in a perpetual state of mutiny or rebellion against the central Durbar (court).ĭeath of Jawahar Singh, Vizier of Lahore – Illustrated London News, 29 November 1845 Its regimental panchayats (committees) formed an alternative power source within the kingdom, declaring that Guru Gobind Singh's ideal of the Sikh commonwealth had been revived, with the Sikhs as a whole assuming all executive, military and civil authority in the State, which British observers decried as a "dangerous military democracy". It proclaimed itself to be the embodiment of the Sikh nation. The army expanded rapidly in the aftermath of Ranjit Singh's death, from 29,000 (with 192 guns) in 1839 to over 80,000 in 1845 as landlords and their retainers took up arms. The Dogras succeeded in raising Sher Singh, the eldest surviving legitimate son of Ranjit Singh, to the throne in January 1841. At the time, two major factions within the Punjab were contending for power and influence: the Sikh Sindhanwalias and the Hindu Dogras. He was replaced by his able but estranged son Kanwar Nau Nihal Singh, who also died within a few months in suspicious circumstances, after being injured by a falling archway at the Lahore Fort while returning from his father's cremation.
![jhatka sikhiwiki jhatka sikhiwiki](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yL4N-hQkDso/maxresdefault.jpg)
It was widely believed that he was poisoned. Ranjit's unpopular legitimate son, Kharak Singh, was removed from power within a few months, and later died in prison under mysterious circumstances. After his death, his kingdom began to fall into disorder. He hired American and European mercenary soldiers to train his army, and also incorporated contingents of Hindus and Muslims into his army. Ranjit Singh maintained a policy of wary friendship with the British, ceding some territory south of the Sutlej River, while at the same time building up his military forces both to deter aggression by the British and to wage war against the Afghans. The Sikh kingdom of Punjab was expanded and consolidated by Maharajah Ranjit Singh during the early years of the nineteenth century, about the same time as the British-controlled territories were advanced by conquest or annexation to the borders of the Punjab.