Sikh Confederacy

The Sikh Confederacy was the aristocratic republic of twelve sovereign Sikh states, the misls, that rose in the Punjab after Banda Singh Bahadur's resistance to the Mughals left the Khalsa without a single leader. Forged in 1748 to defend the Darbar Sahib at Amritsar, which the Sikhs made their centre after Banda Singh's defeat at Gurdas Nangal, under custodians such as Bhai Mani Singh, each misl ruled its own territory as an equal while joining the common Dal Khalsa army against Mughals, Afghans and hill rajas. The initiation of the Khalsa, the end of personal guruship with Guru Gobind Singh, and the shrine at Amritsar gave the scattered horsemen one faith and one rallying ground against Mughals, Afghans, hill rajas and the Gulab Rai and Gangu Shahi sects that clung to living gurus. For half a century the misls raided from the Indus to the Yamuna until the Sukerchakia chief Ranjit Singh folded them one by one into a united Sikh Empire in 1799.