Conquest of Kashmir

Who: A Khalsa army led by Misr Diwan Chand, with Prince Kharak Singh, Hari Singh Nalwa and Akali Phula Singh, sent by Ranjit Singh; and Jabbar Khan, the Afghan (Durrani) governor of Kashmir.

What: An earlier Sikh expedition in 1814 had failed to take the valley. In 1819, according to Wikipedia's account, Birbal Dhar, a revenue minister of the Afghan side, urged Ranjit Singh to annex Kashmir, saying Afghan rule was unpopular. The army set out in the spring, defeated Raja Aghar Khan at Rajouri on 1 May, crossed the Pir Panjal range and met Jabbar Khan's entrenched army at Shopian on 3 July 1819 (some sources say 5 July). The Sikh attack stalled until the guns were moved forward. When a counter-attack threw the Sikh left into confusion, Phula Singh rallied his men and charged the Afghan guns, and the Afghan line broke. Jabbar Khan fled. The army entered Srinagar on 15 July, and Prince Kharak Singh guaranteed the safety of the citizens and prevented plunder. Ranjit Singh appointed Moti Ram as governor; the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says Hari Singh Nalwa succeeded him in 1820, reorganised the civil administration, built forts and gurdwaras, and was allowed to strike a coin in his own name.

Where: The Kashmir Valley. The decisive fight was at Shopian, south of Srinagar, on the road over the Pir Panjal.

Why it mattered: The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says the province of Kashmir came to include the whole valley, Muzaffarabad, Ladakh and Gilgit, and a mint was opened at Srinagar in 1819. Wikipedia describes the conquest as a large addition that raised the kingdom's revenue and territory; Srinagar was a major centre of the shawl trade. Kashmir stayed under Lahore for twenty-seven years. Khushwant Singh records that after the First Anglo-Sikh War it was taken from the Punjab as part of the 1846 settlement and sold to Gulab Singh Dogra.