The Bhangi Misl Takes Multan

The opening

Multan was the fortified key to the south-western Punjab, and in 1772 it was held for the Durranis by a succession of governors who had fallen out with one another. One of the rival claimants, Sharif Beg, asked the Sikhs for help against the others.^1,3

Jhanda Singh Dhillon of the Bhangi misl gave it, and having entered on those terms, took the city. The defeated claimant was allowed to retire with his family. A Sikh governor, Diwan Singh, was installed in December 1772.³

Eight years

The Bhangis held Multan until 1780, when Timur Shah Durrani retook it.

It is a short tenure and it is worth an entry, because it is the furthest a misl reached in that direction and the first time a Sikh power administered the city at all. It also shows how the confederacy actually expanded — not usually by grand campaigns, but by being the nearest organised force when somebody else’s arrangement fell apart, and being invited in.

John Malcolm, writing in 1812 while the system was still recognisable, describes exactly this pattern of territorial acquisition among the misls: a federative body whose chiefs took and held ground individually while the confederacy met and decided collectively.⁴

The rehearsal

Ranjit Singh’s army went at Multan repeatedly from 1802 and was beaten off by the walls every time, until the siege of 1818 brought up heavy artillery and breached them.

The Bhangis got in without any of that, because in 1772 the gate was opened from the inside. The contrast is a fair measure of the difference between the two eras: a confederacy that expanded through other people’s quarrels, and a monarchy that expanded through siege trains.