Which of the following statements are correct with regard to Sikhism? (a) From the 1750s onwards the Sikh dals and misals (groups) became more and more powerful, led by individual chiefs (sardars) who organized troops of increasingly, professionally mounted musketeers. (b) There was the tradition of an annual 'Sarbat Singh (1790 - 1839), who established a kingdom in Punjab in the name of the Khalsa. (c) The process was at last checked by Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), who established a kingdom in Punjab in the name of Khalsa. (d) The Gurus were all Khatris, but their principal lieutenants, the Masand were mostly Jatts in the seventeenth century. Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Which of the following statements are correct with regard to Sikhism? (a) From the 1750s onwards the Sikh dals and misals (groups) became more and more powerful, led by individual chiefs (sardars) who organized troops of increasingly, professionally mounted musketeers. (b) There was the tradition of an annual 'Sarbat Singh (1790 - 1839), who established a kingdom in Punjab in the name of the Khalsa. (c) The process was at last checked by Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), who established a kingdom in Punjab in the name of Khalsa. (d) The Gurus were all Khatris, but their principal lieutenants, the Masand were mostly Jatts in the seventeenth century. Choose the correct answer from the options given below: Correct Answer (c) and (d) only
The Khalsa started taking shape in the days of Guru Gobind Singh, who founded the Khalsa in the last quarter of the 17th century.
- The weak control of the Mughal Empire, after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, allowed for regional kingdoms to come up. In the case of Punjab, the Sikhs organized themselves into misls, which was a military and administrative unit. Each of these misls, being 12 in total, were led by powerful Sikh families and wrestled power from their adversaries the Marathas and Afghans. These misls together were known as Dal Khalsa.
- The annual assembly of all Sikh misls at the Harmindar Sahib was called the Sarbat Khalsa. This took place twice a year.
- After the decline of the Durrani empire of Ahmad Shah Abdali, his weak successors could not match up to the power of the Sikh misls, Maharaja Ranjit Singh who was the son of a leader of a misl, became the ruler of this region, after successively leading Sikh misls against the weak Afghan invaders.
- The Dabistan – e- Mahzib a 17th-century travelogue by Mohsin Fani qualified the statement that the Masands of the Gurus were Jatts, the latter was considered the lowest caste among the Vaishyas and yielded great power in the martial prowess of the misl.
- Hence option c and d are correct when we look at the history of Sikhism in this period.