Warfare Before the Khalsa

Long before the creation of the Khalsa, Punjab was already an armed society.

A chief inside his fort. Horsemen gathered beneath him.
Cultivators defending a village. Clans guarding the roads through their own country.

There was no single Punjabi army and no one military tradition shared by the entire region. Warfare belonged to many different worlds: local chiefs and landholders, Rajput courts, pastoral and agricultural communities, imperial garrisons, tribal confederacies and men who entered military service in return for pay, land or protection.

Their methods were shaped by the part of Punjab in which they lived - open plains rewarded movement and cavalry, the Salt Range and Potohar favoured strongholds, ambushes and control of narrow approaches, the Shivalik hills were divided among small kingdoms whose rulers defended forts and mountain routes. Along the rivers, control of a ferry or crossing could be as important as control of the land around it.

Punjab therefore had deep military experience before the Sikh community became militarised. What it did not yet possess was a single force capable of joining these scattered traditions together.

Power Close to the Ground

Punjab was repeatedly ruled by large states - including the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire - but authority did not flow neatly from an emperor to every village.

Much of the countryside remained under local chiefs, hereditary landholders and zamindars - landlords. A zamindar might be a village headman, the leader of several villages or a powerful lord controlling a substantial tract of country. The strongest maintained their own armed followers, collected revenue, occupied forts and negotiated with neighbouring powers from a position of strength.

Their forces were rarely permanent armies in the modern sense. A chief kept a smaller body of personal retainers close to him and called upon a wider circle of dependants, clansmen and cultivators when fighting began. A wealthy leader could provide horses, weapons and payment; a smaller one might rely upon men bringing whatever arms they already owned.

The bond between a chief and his followers was personal. Men fought for kinship, loyalty, protection, land, wages and the expectation of reward. If a chief was defeated, his followers might disperse, enter another lord's service or return when his fortunes improved. Alliances could change just as quickly. A family might resist an empire in one generation and accept rank within it in the next. This was not always a sign of disloyalty. It reflected the way power operated. Empires needed local chiefs because they knew the terrain, controlled revenue and could raise men. Chiefs needed empires because imperial recognition could confirm their lands, strengthen them against rivals and give them access to greater wealth. Punjab was governed through a constant mixture of force, negotiation and accommodation.

Fighting on the Frontier

Punjab stood between the political centres of northern India and the routes leading towards Kabul and Central Asia. Armies entering from the north-west had to cross the Indus and then move through Punjab before reaching Lahore or Delhi. Yet the region was not simply an open gateway through which invaders passed.

The Salt Range, Potohar Plateau and the land near the Jhelum River were held by powerful local groups, including the Khokhars, Ghakkars and Janjuas. Their authority rested upon clan networks, difficult terrain and fortified positions. An invading army might defeat a ruler in open battle and still struggle to secure the roads, gather supplies or force every stronghold into submission.

The First Mughal Emperor Babur encountered this political world during his early sixteenth-century campaigns. His account of the region identifies local peoples and chiefs rather than an empty frontier awaiting conquest. He attacked the Ghakkar stronghold of Pharwala, yet members of the same ruling network later entered Mughal alliances and imperial service. The encounter reveals a pattern repeated throughout Punjab's history: resistance could become negotiation, and negotiation could become resistance again whenever the balance of power changed.

Frontier warfare was often fought on a smaller scale than the famous battles recorded in royal chronicles. Chiefs raided rival territory, intercepted supplies, attacked exposed detachments and withdrew into hills, forests or forts before a larger army could answer. Cattle, crops, wells and roads all mattered because they sustained both soldiers and the communities supporting them.

The purpose was not always to destroy an enemy. It could be to collect tribute, defend grazing land, avenge an earlier attack, demonstrate independence or force a stronger ruler to negotiate. Survival depended upon knowing when to fight, when to withdraw and when an alliance offered more than resistance.

Rajput Traditions in Punjab

Rajput military traditions formed one important part of this landscape, but Rajputs did not represent one united people or army. The name encompassed many ruling and landholding lineages, divided by clan, territory, religion and political loyalty.

In Punjab, Rajput communities were established across the plains, Potohar and the hills. The Katoch rulers of Kangra and the related houses of Guler, Jaswan and other hill states governed from fortified centres in the north-east. Elsewhere, Rajput chiefs and soldiers entered the service of the Delhi sultans, the Mughals and regional rulers.

Rajput influence was visible in the close relationship between land, lineage and the right to rule. A chief's authority was expressed through his ancestry, his fort, his armed following and his ability to protect dependants. Elite warfare placed great value upon cavalry, personal courage and loyalty to a recognised leader. Forts protected ruling families and treasuries, but they also acted as symbols of legitimate possession: to hold the fort was to hold the country around it.

These traditions travelled through military service. Rajput commanders served in imperial armies, while courts adopted weapons, dress, titles and ideals from one another. Under the Mughals, Rajput mansabdars could command troops far beyond their ancestral territories, carrying their experience into a much larger military system.

This influence should not be described as something imported into an otherwise separate Punjab. Many of these lineages were themselves Punjabi. Rajput warfare was one strand within the region's culture - important, prestigious and widely imitated, but never the only way Punjabis fought.

Jat Martial Traditions

The Jats occupied a different position within pre-Khalsa Punjab (the Khalsa was founded by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699). Most were cultivators or pastoralists rather than members of a formal warrior aristocracy, although some had become influential zamindars by the Mughal period. They were spread across the region and did not yet form one political or religious body.

A village had to protect its animals, crops, wells and stored grain. Cultivators were vulnerable to raiders, rival landholders and officials attempting to extract more than a community would surrender. Kinship networks allowed men from related households and neighbouring settlements to assemble quickly. Some served in the forces of zamindars or larger rulers; others defended their own locality with staffs, spears, bows and, as firearms became more available, matchlocks. Wealthier men could maintain horses and more expensive arms.

Agricultural life did not make the Jats soldiers by itself. It did, however, produce qualities that could be transferred into battle: physical endurance, cooperation within kin groups, knowledge of the countryside and the ability to return to ordinary work when a campaign ended. A man could be a cultivator for most of the year and take up arms when his chief, village or clan required him.

These traditions later became important to the growth of Sikh military power, particularly as increasing numbers of Jats entered the Sikh community. The Khalsa did not simply inherit a ready-made Jat army. It gave existing rural networks a wider identity, a shared discipline and a cause that could reach beyond one village or clan.

An Earlier Punjabi Military Culture

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Punjab's military culture had been shaped by centuries of contact between South Asia, Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia.

Mounted archery and fast cavalry remained associated with armies arriving from the north-west and with the imperial elites who followed them. Rajput houses maintained their own traditions of mounted service, swordsmanship and fort defence. Local chiefs raised horsemen when they could afford them, while much larger numbers fought on foot.

The ordinary soldier did not resemble the heavily armoured figure often shown in court paintings. Equipment depended upon wealth and status. Elite warriors often had mail, a helmet, a shield and several weapons. Others fought more lightly with a spear, bow, sword, dagger or staff. From the 1500s, matchlock firearms became increasingly common, although they did not immediately replace older weapons. Artillery gave large states a major advantage in sieges, but guns remained costly, difficult to move and far less accessible to a village chief than to an imperial army.

Nor did soldiers wear one Punjabi uniform or fight only beside men of the same faith. A military following could contain relatives, dependants, hired soldiers and men drawn from different communities. Service was fluid - capable horseman or experienced matchlockman could seek employment wherever a commander offered wages or reward.

This made warfare part of the economy as well as politics. Military service offered landless men a livelihood and ambitious families a path towards influence. For rulers, the ability to attract soldiers was just as important as the ability to command them. An army could expand rapidly around a successful leader and disappear just as quickly when payment ended or defeat destroyed confidence.

Before the 1700s, Punjab was therefore neither peaceful nor permanently at war. It was a region in which the capacity for violence was widely distributed. Chiefs guarded their territories. Villages defended their resources. Forts anchored local power. Men moved between farming, herding and military service, while larger empires attempted to draw these armed communities into their own systems.

The Sikh military tradition would emerge from within this world, but it would not merely reproduce it. Under Guru Hargobind, arms would become connected to the defence of an organised religious community. Under Guru Gobind Singh, the Khalsa would carry that transformation further - challenging the older boundaries of lineage, inherited status and loyalty to a local chief.

Punjab already knew how to fight. The change to come was in who would fight together, what bound them to one another and the purpose for which they took up arms.