The Dal Khalsa & The Misls

The Punjabi forces that entered the second half of the eighteenth century were no longer fighting only to survive.

Scattered jathas became larger military formations.

Seasonal raids developed into systems of protection and revenue.

Horsemen who had once disappeared into forests began taking possession of towns, forts and entire districts.

This transformation did not produce a centralised kingdom immediately. Punjab instead came under a shifting confederacy of misls: military associations led by individual sardars, capable of fighting independently but also combining their forces when a larger threat demanded it.

The system was decentralised, competitive and frequently unstable. Yet it allowed the Punjabi forces to do something that repeated Mughal campaigns and Afghan invasions had failed to prevent: turn mobility into lasting political power.

From Jathas to the Dal Khalsa

During the decades of persecution, Sikh fighters had operated through numerous jathas scattered across Punjab. Each followed its own leader, recruited its own horsemen and survived through local support, concealment and rapid movement.

This arrangement made them difficult to destroy, but it also limited the size of the operations they could undertake. Small bands could ambush patrols and attack exposed positions; they could not easily coordinate the conquest or defence of larger territories.

Efforts to bring these groups together began before the misl period. Under Nawab Kapur Singh of the Singhpuria Misl, Sikh fighting forces were divided into the Buddha Dal and Taruna Dal. The Buddha Dal generally contained the older and more established warriors, while the Taruna Dal brought together younger fighters and became increasingly active in offensive operations.

In 1748, the forces were reorganised again at Amritsar. Numerous jathas were consolidated into larger military groupings known as misls, while their combined strength became known as the Dal Khalsa.

This was not a standing national army in the modern sense. Each misl retained its own leader, followers and military interests. When several misls assembled for a major campaign, their sardars might accept a common direction while continuing to command their own men.

The Dal Khalsa was therefore strongest as a mechanism for concentration. Forces that usually moved separately could gather for a particular invasion, siege or defensive operation and disperse again when the immediate purpose had been achieved.

This allowed the Sikhs to preserve the flexibility of guerrilla warfare without remaining permanently divided into small bands.

The Misl as a Military Association

A misl was originally an association of fighting men, and not considered an official state or group.

A prominent sardar attracted horsemen through military reputation, personal loyalty, kinship and the promise of protection or reward. Smaller commanders could attach their followers to a more powerful chief while retaining considerable control over their own men.

Membership was not always permanent. A warrior’s position depended more upon active service and allegiance than upon a fixed place within a formal military hierarchy. Chiefs who could provide successful campaigns, horses, weapons and access to revenue attracted larger followings; those who could not risked losing their position to another leader.

This produced a military culture in which authority was personal and continually tested. A sardar could command thousands of cavalry, while a lesser chief might possess only a village and a handful of mounted followers.

As territory was conquered, these military associations acquired a geographical form. Sardars and their followers received shares of land or revenue from the areas they had helped to capture. Forts were occupied, local officials appointed and collections organised.

The misl was gradually becoming both an army and a territorial power.

Its lands, however, did not always form one continuous block. A chief might hold villages, forts and revenue rights scattered across several parts of Punjab. Control followed conquest and allegiance rather than the clean borders expected of a modern state.

Raiding as Warfare

Raiding remained central to misl warfare even after Sikh forces began acquiring territory.

A raid required fewer supplies than a prolonged campaign and allowed mounted forces to strike beyond the land they directly controlled. Horsemen could attack an isolated post, intercept baggage, seize animals or collect wealth before a larger enemy force arrived.

Against the Afghans, this method was particularly effective. The Dal Khalsa rarely needed to defeat an entire invading army in one pitched battle. Its horsemen could avoid the main force, attack detachments, disturb communications and descend upon stragglers or baggage during the return journey.

The objective was often cumulative rather than immediate. Each lost horse, interrupted convoy and exhausted detachment weakened an opponent whose army depended upon moving men, animals and supplies over enormous distances.

Raiding also financed military growth. Captured horses could be ridden in later campaigns; weapons could be redistributed; money and goods helped sustain fighters who did not receive regular salaries from a central treasury.

This did not make every raid defensive or liberating. As the misls grew stronger, their expeditions could also be predatory. Rival territories were plundered, tribute was demanded and villages lying beyond permanent Sikh control could face repeated collections.

Raiding was not separate from the emerging political system. It was one of the methods through which that system expanded.

Rakhi and Protection

A more stable source of revenue developed through the system known as rakhi - protection.

Under this arrangement, a village or locality recognised the protection of a Sikh chief and surrendered a share of its revenue or produce. In return, the chief was expected to defend it from rival collectors, raiders and competing armies.

The amount was not necessarily uniform. Contemporary and later accounts vary, although it was often described as a fraction of the revenue that would otherwise have been paid to the existing government.

Rakhi occupied the space between raiding and direct rule. A misl did not need to station a permanent administration in every protected village. Its authority rested upon the ability to return, collect the agreed payment and punish anyone who violated its claim.

For communities facing several armed powers, this could provide genuine protection. Payment to one effective chief might prevent collections by several others. Where protection was not actually provided, however, rakhi could become little more than an enforced demand.

It should therefore be understood neither simply as benevolent protection nor universally as extortion. Its character depended upon the relationship between the chief and the locality.

In many parts of Punjab, rakhi became a transitional step towards occupation. Once a misl had established the right to protect and collect from an area, it could later place that territory under more direct control.

Warfare had begun producing revenue, and revenue could now sustain further warfare.

Military Administration

The misl armies remained far less standardised than the forces later developed under Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

There was no single system of uniforms, salaries, ranks or equipment across the confederacy. Individual sardars maintained their own followers, and many warriors were responsible for obtaining their own horse, weapons and provisions. This reduced the cost of maintaining a large central army. A chief did not need to feed and pay every soldier throughout the year. When a campaign began, mounted retainers assembled with the equipment required for service.

Land and revenue assignments increasingly supported this military structure. Men who received control over villages or shares of revenue could be expected to appear with a certain number of armed horsemen when called. Political possession and military obligation became closely connected.

Local administration was similarly decentralised. A chief might leave existing village headmen and revenue intermediaries in place so long as collections continued and allegiance was maintained. Important forts and towns required closer supervision, but much of the countryside could be governed through established local structures.

Collective decisions were sometimes made when Sikh leaders gathered at Amritsar, particularly over major questions of war, defence and alliances. These resolutions helped coordinate action, but they did not create a permanent central government over every misl.

Even during a joint campaign, each sardar usually retained command of his own contingent. The Dal Khalsa could unite rapidly, but its unity depended upon agreement among leaders whose interests did not always remain aligned.

The same flexibility that protected the confederacy from the destruction of one central command also made internal rivalry almost unavoidable.

From Confederacy to Control

By the 1760s, Sikh forces were no longer merely moving through Punjab’s political landscape. They were occupying it.

Lahore, Amritsar, Sirhind and large sections of the doabs fell under the authority of different Sikh chiefs. The misls collected revenue, controlled forts and competed for strategically valuable towns and routes.

Their success also changed the nature of their warfare. Once land had been acquired, it had to be defended. Chiefs who had once shared a common enemy increasingly fought one another over territory, tribute and succession.

The confederacy had been exceptionally effective at surviving persecution and dismantling external control. It was less effective at producing permanent unity after that control had collapsed.

Yet this decentralisation was not simply a weakness. It was the structure through which the Sikh forces expanded. No single defeat could remove the entire system because no single ruler, capital or army contained all of its power.

The misls converted the lessons of the Age of Survival into a form of government suited to eighteenth-century Punjab: mobile, distributed and sustained by cavalry.

They did not create the centralised army of the Sikh Empire. They created the military territory from which that army would eventually emerge.