Mehtab Kaur

Mehtab Kaur
Maharani Sahiba
Maharani Mehtab Kaur by Rattan Singh c.1810
Maharani consort of the Sikh Empire
Tenure	c. 1801 – 1813
Sardarni of Sukerchakia Misl
Tenure	April 1792 – 11 April 1801
Predecessor	Raj Kaur
Successor	Position abolished
Born	1782 Batala, Kanhaiya Misl, Sikh Confederacy (present-day Punjab, India
Died	1813 (aged 30–31) Amritsar, Sikh Empire (present-day Punjab, India)
Spouse	Ranjit Singh ​ ​ (m. 1789; sep. 1797)​ [1][2]
Issue	Ishar Singh Maharaja Sher Singh Tara Singh
House	Kanhaiya (by birth) Sukerchakia (by marriage)
Father	Gurbaksh Singh Kanhaiya
Mother	Sada Kaur
Religion	Sikhism

Maharani Mehtab Kaur (c. 1782 – 1813)^[3][4][5] was the first wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh,^[5][6] the founder of the Sikh Empire. She was the mother of Maharaja Sher Singh,^[7][8] who briefly became the ruler of the Sikh Empire from 1841 until his death in 1843.^[9]

Mehtab Kaur was the only daughter of Sada Kaur and Gurbaksh Singh Kanhaiya. Her father was the first commander or sardar of Khalsa army to protect Punjab. She was betrothed to a six-year-old Ranjit Singh at the age of four.

According to historian Jean-Marie Lafont, the only one to bear the title of Maharani (Great Queen)..^[10][11]

Family

Mehtab Kaur, the only child of Gurbaksh Singh Kanhaiya (Sandhu) and his wife Sada Kaur Dhaliwal, was born in 1782.^[4] Upon her birth she was named "Mehtab" (مهتاب) which means 'moonlight' or 'splendor of the moon' in Persian due to her fair complexion.^[12][13] Her father, Gurbaksh Singh, was the heir of Jai Singh Kanhaiya (a Sandhu Jat), the founder and chief of the Kanhaiya Misl.^[14]

The Kanhaiya Misl, who had replaced the Bhangis as the most powerful misl, disputed the right of Ranjit Singh's father's (Maha Singh) to plunder Jammu, and in one of the many skirmishes between the two misls, Gurbaksh Singh was killed in battle against Maha Singh in February 1785.^[15][16]

Mehtab Kaur's mother, Rani Sada Kaur, an intelligent, high spirited and ambitious woman, used to lend support of the Kanhaiya misl to Ranjit Singh till 1821, when she developed differences with him and as a consequence lost her territory to him.^[14]

Marriage

Painting of Maharani Mehtab Kaur of the Sikh Empire with an attendant

Jai Singh disagreed to betroth his granddaughter, Mehtab Kaur, to Maha Singh's son, Ranjit Singh, but was persuaded by his widowed daughter-in-law, Sada Kaur to agree to the match.^[17] The Kanhaiya chief died shortly afterwards in 1789,^[18] leaving his estates to Sada Kaur who took over the leadership of the Kanhaiya Misl.^[15] The same year the young Mehtab Kaur and Ranjit Singh were betrothed and married.^[19][20] The Muklawa happened in 1796.^[1]

As a teenager, Ranjit Singh took hardly any interest in the affairs of the state, making his mother, Raj Kaur, anxious for his future. She felt that marriage might bring him around to the responsibilities of life.^[21] She approached Sada Kaur to fix the muklawa (tradition where the wife goes back to her maternal home) date. Ranjit was fifteen years old when he left Gujranwala for Batala, the chief town of the Kanhaiyas, to perform the after marriage rituals with Mehtab Kaur in 1796. This alliance between the two important Sikh families was a major event for Punjab. All the leading Sikh chiefs were present at the wedding.^[21] Mehtab Kaur was very beautiful and her looks made her seem mismatched for the rugged Ranjit Singh.^[12] Even if Mehtab Kaur could reconcile herself to her husband's looks, it must have been difficult for her to forget that her father was killed in battle with Ranjit Singh's father.^[22] Plus she was haughty and self-willed, a proud woman born to rich parents^[12][23] while Ranjit Singh was a typically simple Punjabi man, rustic in his habits.^[24] It was a marriage of convenience for both and they rarely stayed together.^[25]

After entering into a matrimonial alliance with the Kanhaiya Misl, Ranjit Singh wanted to consolidate his position further which could only be done by drawing some other misl to his side. He made suggestions to head of the Nakais and early in 1797 took a second wife, who was the sister of the Nakai Sardar Gyan Singh Sandhu- with whom he was betrothed for some time.^[26] The second marriage not only provided Ranjit Singh more political power but a more successful marriage as Datar Kaur become Ranjit Singh's most favorite and mother of his heir, Kharak Singh.^{[27][28][29][30][31]}

Issue

Maharaja Sher Singh (r. 1841 - 1843)

Sada Kaur kept on trying to bring Ranjit Singh closer to her daughter and felt happy when Mehtab bore Ranjit his son (and their first child) in 1804. Thanking God (Ishwar) the child was named Ishar Singh.^[32] The prince died in infancy - at the age of one and a half years.^[10] Mehtab Kaur was pregnant again in 1807 and gave birth to twin boys, Sher Singh and Tara Singh in Batala.^[33] Ranjit was near Jawalamukhi when he received the news of their birth, he rushed to Amritsar to pay a thanksgiving visit to the Golden Temple there.^[34] The birth of his sons was celebrated greatly. There was cheering in the illustrious camp and when Ranjit returned to Lahore, he gave away vast entire-ties in philanthropy and the city was enlightened for a few nights.^[35]

Death

After suffering from a failing health for a long time,Maharani Mehtab Kaur died in 1813. At the time of her death, Maharaja Ranjit Singh was at Amritsar, he did not attend her cremation and only after Dewan Mokham Chand's persuasion he attended other condolatory ceremonies.^[36][37]

In popular culture

• Mehtab Kaur is portrayed in the TV series Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
• A teenage Mehtab Kaur is portrayed by Tunisha Sharma in Life OK's historical drama Sher-e-Punjab: Maharaja Ranjit Singh.^[38]

See also

• Sher Singh
• Kanhaiya Misl

References

1. Atwal, Priya (2020-11-01). "Royals and Rebels". doi:10.1093/oso/9780197548318.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-754831-8. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
2. Atwal, Priya (2020). Royals and Rebels:The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. London: C. Hurst Limited. ISBN 9781787383081.
3. "The Panjab Past and Present". 20. Department of Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University. 1 January 1986: 122. Retrieved 3 May 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. Noor, Harbans Singh (2004). Connecting the dots in Sikh history. Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies. p. 67. ISBN 9788185815237.
5. "The Sikh Courier International". 38–42. Sikh Cultural Society of Great Britain. 1 January 1998: 9. Retrieved 27 April 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. "The Sikh Review". 53. Sikh Cultural Centre. 1 January 2005: 45, 86. Retrieved 29 April 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
7. "Punjab District Gazetteers". Compiled and published under the authority of the Punjab government. 1 January 1905: 226. mehtab kaur ranjit singh. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
8. "Calcutta Review". University of Calcutta. 1 January 1944: 74. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
9. Grewal, J.S. (1998). The new Cambridge history of India : II. 3 The sikhs of the Punjab (Rev. ed., 1st pbk. ed.). Cambridge[England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 249. ISBN 9780521637640.
10. Lafont 2002, p. 251
11. Lafont 2002, p. 252
12. Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2016). Kohinoor: The Story of the WorldÕs Most Infamous Diamond. Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-93-86228-08-6.
13. Richardson, John (1777). A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English. Clarendon Press. p. 1905.
14. Singha, H.S. (2000). The encyclopedia of Sikhism (over 1000 entries). New Delhi: Hemkunt Publishers. p. 137. ISBN 9788170103011.
15. Singh, Patwant; Rai, Jyoti M. (2008). Empire of the Sikhs : the life and times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. London: Peter Owen. pp. 63, 169. ISBN 9780720613230.
16. Garrett, Joseph Davey Cunningham (1994). H.L.O. (ed.). A history of the Sikhs from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. p. 175. ISBN 9788120609501.
17. Singh 2008, p. 3
18. Roy, Kaushik (2015). Military Manpower, Armies and Warfare in South Asia. Routledge. p. 82. ISBN 9781317321286.
19. Proceedings - Punjab History Conference. Department of Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University. 2006. ISBN 978-81-302-0094-1.
20. Atwal, Priya (2020). Royals and rebels : the rise and fall of the Sikh empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-755459-3. OCLC 1256081616.
21. Singh 2008, p. 6
22. Vaḥīduddīn, Faqīr Sayyid (1965). The Real Ranjit Singh. Lion Art Press.
23. Singh, Sarbpreet (2019). The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia: Stories from the Court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Tranquebar by Westland Publications Private Limited. ISBN 978-93-88689-47-2.
24. Duggal, Kartar Singh (2001). Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Last to Lay Arms. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 978-81-7017-410-3.
25. Amini, Iradj (2013-06-01). The Koh-i-noor Diamond. Roli Books Private Limited. ISBN 978-93-5194-035-7.
26. Griffin, Lepel (2004). Ranjit Singh and the Sikh hindrance between our developing domain and Central Asia (AES Repr. ed.). New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. p. 108. ISBN 9788120619180.
27. Tibbetts, Jann (2016-07-30). 50 Great Military Leaders of All Time. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. ISBN 978-93-85505-66-9.
28. Sardar Singh Bhatia. "Mahitab Kaur (d, 1813)". Encyclopaedia of Sikhism. Punjabi University Patiala. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
29. Singh 2008, p. 35
30. Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2016). Kohinoor: The Story of the WorldÕs Most Infamous Diamond. Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-93-86228-08-6.
31. Singh 2008, p. 8
32. Noor, Harbans Singh (2004). Connecting the specks in Sikh history. Chandigarh: Institute of Sikh Studies. p. 70. ISBN 9788185815237.
33. Singh 2008, p. 300
34. Lafont 2002, p. 25
35. Singh 2008, p. 62
36. Atwal, Priya (2020). Royals and Rebels.
37. Suri, Sohan Lal. Umdat Ul Tawarikh.
38. Sher-E-Punjab: Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Retrieved 29 April 2017. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)

Bibliography

• Singh, Khushwant (2008). Ranjit Singh. Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0143065432.
• Lafont, Jean-Marie (2002). Maharaja Ranjit Singh : Lord of the five rivers (2. impression ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-566111-8.