Maharaja Sher Singh

Maharaja Sher Singh ruled the Sikh state at Lahore, the Sarkar-i-Khalsa, from January 1841 until he was assassinated on 15 September 1843. He was a son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh by Mahitab Kaur, the Maharaja's first wife, and he took the throne in the years of disorder that followed his father's death in 1839.

Soldier and governor. Born on 4 December 1807, he was given civil and military honours by his father in 1820, including the privilege of sitting on a chair in the Darbar. In May 1831 he defeated Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi, who had begun a jihad against Sikh rule, at Balakot in Hazara. He governed Kashmir from 1831 to 1834, and in 1834 he was one of the commanders who took Peshawar from the Afghans.

Key moments

• November 1840: Maharaja Kharak Singh and Kanwar Nau Nihal Singh died, leaving the throne without a clear heir. Kharak Singh's widow Chand Kaur was proclaimed Maharani on 2 December, and Sher Singh left Lahore for his estate at Batala the next day.
• January 1841: he came back to Lahore with a large force. A ceasefire arranged by Dhian Singh Dogra on the evening of 17 January ended the standoff at the Fort. Chand Kaur gave up her claim and accepted a jagir. Sher Singh took the Fort and ascended the throne on 20 January, and the tilak ceremony followed on 27 January.
• 1841 to 1843: Dhian Singh Dogra, who had backed him, remained chief minister. The Sandhanwalia sardars Atar Singh and Ajit Singh, who had held Lahore in late 1840, fled to British territory when he rose. Sher Singh pardoned them, and they returned, Ajit Singh in November 1842.
• 15 September 1843: at a parade at the Shah Bilawal baradari outside Lahore, Ajit Singh Sandhanwalia, who had brought an English rifle as if to present it, shot the Maharaja and cut off his head. Lahina Singh Sandhanwalia killed Sher Singh's son Partap Singh, about twelve years old, in a garden nearby.

The same day Ajit Singh killed Dhian Singh inside the Fort. On 16 September Dhian Singh's son Hira Singh and his uncle Suchet Singh turned part of the army against the conspirators and, with General Avitabile's battalions, besieged the Fort. Ajit Singh and Lahina Singh were killed. Duleep Singh, then five years old, was proclaimed Maharaja within days, with his mother Jind Kaur as regent.

What he is remembered for. Sher Singh's reign was short and ended in murder at the hands of his own nobles. He is remembered as a soldier of Balakot, Kashmir and Peshawar who took the throne by force of arms and lost it, and his life, to his own nobles. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says that under his young successor real authority passed from the palace to the cantonment and the military panchayats, a measure of how far the court had slipped from the control Ranjit Singh once held.