The Slow Unravelling: Anglo-Sikh Treaties (1806 – 1849)

A chronicle of diplomacy, deception, and decline as the Sikh Empire yielded to British dominion through calculated stratagems and binding treaties.

By Karan Bir Singh Sidhu
Retired IAS Officer (Punjab Cadre), Former Special Chief Secretary, Punjab Government; Student of history with a focus on Sikh history, geo-strategy, and the re-examination of entrenched historical interpretations; Writes on law, governance, defence, and India’s frontier policy.

The Chronology of Anglo-Sikh Treaties (1806 – 1849)

Following our earlier discussion of the 1842 Treaty of Chushul, this essay traces every formal agreement that bound the Khālsā Rāj and its Dogra neighbour to the rising power east of the Sutlej. Arranged in strict chronology, each treaty is set against its strategic backdrop, its immediate clauses, and—most painfully—its long-term impact on Sikh and Dogra sovereignty.

1. Treaty of Lahore – 1 January 1806

Context. Ranjit Singh sheltered the fugitive Maratha leader Jaswant Rao Holkar, yet carefully avoided a frontal clash with Lord Lake’s pursuing columns.
Terms. A “Treaty of Friendship and Amity” obliged Ranjit Singh and Fateh Singh Ahluwalia to expel Holkar and to keep clear of any British enemy; in return the Company promised never to enter, seize or sequestrate their lands. allaboutsikhs.com
Impact. The Sikh court won time to consolidate in the Punjab heartland, but the price was a first diplomatic acceptance of British arbitration in Sikh affairs. The Khālsā ad stepped onto a slippery slope where the Company would henceforth claim a right to judge who might shelter under the Darbār’s protection.

2. Treaty of Amritsar – 25 April 1809

Context. With Napoleon courting Persia and rumours of a Franco-Russian thrust through Central Asia, the Company was determined to freeze Ranjit Singh’s eastward ambitions.
Terms. The Sutlej became the inviolable boundary; Ranjit Singh renounced designs on the Cis-Sutlej Sikh states, while the Company pledged non-interference north-west of the river. britannica.comen.wikipedia.org
Impact. Militarily, the Khālsā was freed to sweep west into Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar—but emotionally the treaty felt like a clipped wing; the vision of a single Sikh polity from Kabul to Delhi was officially foreclosed. For the British it was a master-stroke: without firing a shot they erected a diplomatic glacis guarding Delhi.

3. Interlude of Sikh Expansion – 1810-1839

The three decades after 1809 saw Ranjit Singh at his zenith: Multan (1810), Kashmir (1819) and Peshawar (1834) fell to modernised Khālsā columns. Yet every victory west of the Sutlej made the Company more anxious about the moment the “Lion of Punjab” would inevitably die. London’s sympathies quietly shifted to the Dogras of Jammu whose loyalty, unlike that of the Khālsā army, could be bought in silver and titles.

4. Treaty of Lahore – 9 March 1846 (First Anglo-Sikh War)

Context. Court intrigue after Ranjit Singh’s death and the fatal decision of the Khālsā Panchāyat to cross the Sutlej handed Governor-General Hardinge his casus belli.
Terms. Huge territorial cessions (the Jullundur Doab), a war indemnity of 1.5 crore rupees, reduction of the Khālsā army and virtual British control of Lahore’s foreign policy. en.wikipedia.orglotusarise.com
Impact. The treaty bled the treasury white and, worse, inserted British officers into the machinery of state. Sikh morale reeled; the empire built by Ranjit Singh now depended on the forbearance of men who only months earlier had shelled Sikh gun lines at Sobraon.

5. Supplementary Articles – 11 March 1846

At the Lahore Darbār’s “request”, a British garrison would stay in the citadel until 31 December 1846, ostensibly to “protect” the boy-king Duleep Singh while the Khālsā was reorganised. allaboutsikhs.com
Impact. Protection swiftly turned into occupation; the Union Jack flew over the Fort, and Punjabi traders paid for the very troops that watched them.

6. Treaty of Amritsar – 16 March 1846

Context. The Company lacked troops to police new hill districts but spied a loyal client in Raja Gulab Singh Dogra.
Terms. For 7.5 million Nanak-Shahi rupees Gulab Singh bought Kashmir, Jammu and their dependencies; he also pledged “perpetual allegiance” and military aid to the Company. en.wikipedia.org
Impact. The Khālsā had won Kashmir by the sword, only to see it sold over their heads. Kashmiris accused Britain of trafficking a people; Gulab Singh gained a kingdom but at the moral cost of being branded the Company’s vassal.

7. Treaty of Bhyrowal – 16/26 December 1846

Terms. A British Resident with “full authority in every department” supplanted Maharani Jindan Kaur’s regency; the Queen-Mother was pensioned off and exiled to Sheikhupura, later Benares. sikhiwiki.orgeos.learnpunjabi.org
Impact. Whatever façade of independence remained in Lahore ended here. The once-mighty Khālsā darbār bowed to a council that reported to Calcutta, not Akāl Takht.

8. Treaty (Proclamation) of Lahore – 29 March 1849 (Second Anglo-Sikh War)

Context. Revolts at Multan and Gujrat gave Lord Dalhousie the excuse he needed.
Terms. Prince Duleep Singh, aged ten, “resigned for himself and his heirs all right, title and claim to the sovereignty of the Punjab”; state property was confiscated; the Koh-i-Noor was surrendered to Queen Victoria; an annual pension of 4–5 lakhs was granted on condition of residence at British-chosen locations. thesikhencyclopedia.comsmithsonianmag.com
Impact. The Khālsā Rāj was extinguished in one curt proclamation. The Dogras, though technically still ruling Kashmir, found their armies and revenue subordinated to Company policy. The British had advanced from cautious ally (1806) to absolute sovereign (1849) in four treaties and forty-three years.

The Arc in Retrospect

Emotionally, the record is a study in lost possibilities: a Sikh state that had modernised its army, outlawed sati and minted its own coinage yet was systematically out-negotiated by ministerial clerks in Calcutta and London. Objectively, each treaty marks a ratchet in British power:

1. Access (1806) → 2. Containment (1809) → 3. Financial Leverage (1846) → 4. Administrative Control (1846 – Bhyrowal) → 5. Annexation (1849).

Dogra fortunes rose briefly on British patronage, but even their “independent” kingdom became a cold buffer state guarding imperial frontiers. By the spring of 1849 the Sikh sword lay sheathed, the Dogra treasury mortgaged, and the Company’s red-coats drilled on the Maidan of Lahore—a transformation wrought less on the battlefield than at the treaty table.

Post-script: The Treaty of Amritsar (16 March 1846) – From Buffer to Battleground, and Finally to Union

While our chronology ends with annexation in 1849, the penultimate pact of 1846 deserves a closing reflection. By selling Kashmir and its dependencies to Raja Gulab Singh for 7½ million rupees, the Company transformed a war-exhausted province into a loyal but cash-strapped buffer state. For the Dogras it was a coronation bought in silver; for the Sikhs, a double loss—territory wrested from Afghans by Khālsā arms now bartered away without a saber drawn. The British secured a glacis guarding Punjab and gained a pliant hill ally, yet they also planted the seeds of a prolonged Himalayan dispute.

And yet, history offered a slender silver lining: over a century later, the Dogra Maharaja’s descendant, Maharaja Hari Singh, would sign the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, bringing Jammu and Kashmir—however fraughtly—into the democratic fold of independent India. Thus the territory once sold in war’s aftermath did, at last, voluntarily join our sovereign republic.

Acknowledgment

Thanks are due to Sardar Nirmal Singh Ji, an erudite Sikh scholar based in Florida, USA, whose valuable guidance and encouragement inspired this essay. His thoughtful response to my article on the Treaty of Chushul rekindled the need to revisit the wider arc of Anglo-Sikh treaties. His email can be shared upon request.