Ranjit Singh was in every way as remarkable a man as his contemporaries, Napoleon and Mohammed Ali. From the status of petty chieftain he rose to become the most powerful Indian ruler of his time. His empire extended from Tibet to the deserts of Sindh and from the Khyber Pass to the Sutlej. His army was one of the most powerful of the time in Asia and was the first Indian force in a thousand years to stem the tides of invasion from the north-west frontiers of Hindustan. This is the first detailed biography of the first and only Sikh ruler of the Punjab by a Sikh writer who has devoted many years of his life to research on Sikh history. In this classic work Khushwant Singh presents Ranjit Singh as he really was. Based on Persian, Punjabi and English sources and drawing upon the diaries and accounts of European travellers like Moorcroft, Sir Alexander Burne, Masson, Fane and Emily Eden, this is a memorable account of the pageantry and brilliance of the Sikh Kingdom at the height of its power, and a lively portrait of one of the most colourful characters in Indian history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. After university education in Lahore and London, he practiced at the Lahore High court before joining the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He began a distinguished career as a journalist with all India Radio in 1951. Since then he has been founder-editor of Yojana, editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India and the Hindustan Times and chief editor of New Delhi. Today he is India’s best known columnist. Khushwant Singh has also had an extremely successful career as a writer. His published works include the classic two-volume A History of the Sikhs, the novels Train to Pakistan, Delhi and The Company of Women, his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, and a number of translated works and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature, Sikh history and religion, and current affairs. Khushwant Singh was Member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. Among other honours he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974 by the President of India (he returned the decoration in 1984 in protest against the Union Government’s siege of the Golden Temple, Amritsar).
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