Maharaja Kharak Singh

Maharaja Kharak Singh was the eldest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the second sovereign of the Sikh Raj. He came to the throne in June 1839 and was a prisoner in his own capital within months. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism describes him as frail in constitution and records that his powerful minister, Dhian Singh Dogra, envied him from the first day.

Before the throne. He was born on 9 February 1801 and married Chand Kaur, daughter of Jaimal Singh Kanhaiya, in 1812. His father gave him nominal command of the Sheikhupura expedition when he was barely six, put him in charge of the Kanhaiya estates in 1811 and sent him in 1812 to punish the chiefs of Bhimbar and Rajauri. He was given command of the Multan expedition of 1818 and the Kashmir expedition of 1819, and was sent on the campaigns for Peshawar and against the Mazaris of Shikarpur. In 1823 the Sikh army that beat Amir Muhammad Azim Khan at Naushehra was under his command, and Akali Phoola Singh fell there.

Key moments

• 27 June 1839: Ranjit Singh died at Lahore and Kharak Singh succeeded him.
• Dhian Singh resented Chet Singh Bajwa, the Maharaja's old tutor and trusted courtier. The Dogras spread word that the Maharaja and Chet Singh meant to hand the Punjab to the British and disband the Khalsa army, and produced forged letters to prove it. Kanwar Nau Nihal Singh, the Maharaja's son, was won over to their side.
• 9 October 1839: Dhian Singh and other sardars forced their way into the royal chambers in the Fort and killed Chet Singh in front of the Maharaja, who begged them to spare him.
• The Maharaja was removed from the Fort and kept virtually a prisoner by Dhian Singh, while Nau Nihal Singh took the reins of government. The Encyclopaedia says that doses of slow poison were given to him, and that contemporary chroniclers blamed Dhian Singh.
• 5 November 1840: he died. The same day, as Nau Nihal Singh returned from the funeral rites, the northern gate of the Hazuri Bagh was brought down on him. The Encyclopaedia says he was taken into the Fort and that Dhian Singh's men crushed his head with stones there, and dates his death to 8 November.

What he is remembered for. His short reign opened the years of palace murders at Lahore that wrecked the Sikh Raj. The Encyclopaedia's entry on Chet Singh Bajwa calls his killing the prologue to a long drama of intrigue and murder at the Sikh court.