Editing Ranjit Singh (section)

====Reforms====
[[File:RanjitSingh by ManuSaluja.jpg|thumb|2009 portrait of Ranjit Singh wearing the [[Koh-i-Noor|Koh-i-noor]] diamond as an armlet.]]
Ranjit Singh changed and improved the training and organisation of his army. He reorganised responsibility and set performance standards in logistical efficiency in troop deployment, [[Maneuver warfare|manoeuvre]], and [[marksmanship]].<ref name=Singh /> He reformed the staffing to emphasise steady fire over cavalry and guerrilla warfare, and improved the equipment and methods of war. The military system of Ranjit Singh combined the best of both old and new ideas. He strengthened the infantry and the artillery.<ref name=tejasingh65>{{cite book|author1=Teja Singh|author2=Sita Ram Kohli|title=Maharaja Ranjit Singh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YrG_aJTgnw0C |year=1986|publisher=Atlantic Publishers|pages=65–68}}</ref> He paid the members of the standing army from treasury, instead of the Mughal method of paying an army with local feudal levies.<ref name=tejasingh65/>

While Ranjit Singh introduced reforms in terms of training and equipment of his military, he failed to reform the old ''Jagirs'' (''Ijra'') system of Mughal middlemen.<ref name=sunitsingh64/><ref name="Brittlebank2008p65"/> The ''Jagirs'' system of state revenue collection involved certain individuals with political connections or inheritance promising a tribute (''nazarana'') to the ruler and thereby gaining administrative control over certain villages, with the right to force collect customs, excise and land tax at inconsistent and subjective rates from the peasants and merchants; they would keep a part of collected revenue and deliver the promised tribute value to the state.<ref name=sunitsingh64/><ref name="Grewal1998p115">{{cite book|author=J. S. Grewal|title=The Sikhs of the Punjab|url=https://archive.org/details/sikhsofpunjab0000grew |url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-63764-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sikhsofpunjab0000grew/page/114 114]–119 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Harjot Oberoi|title=The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKl84EYFkTsC |year=1994|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-61593-6 |pages=85–87 }}</ref> These ''Jagirs'' maintained independent armed militia to extort taxes from the peasants and merchants, and the militia was prone to violence.<ref name=sunitsingh64/> This system of inconsistent taxation with arbitrary extortion by militia, continued the Mughal tradition of ill treatment of peasants and merchants throughout the Sikh Empire, and is evidenced by the complaints filed to Ranjit Singh by East India Company officials attempting to trade within different parts of the Sikh Empire.<ref name=sunitsingh64/><ref name="Brittlebank2008p65"/>

According to historical records, Sunit Singh, Ranjit Singh's reforms focused on the military that would allow new conquests, but not towards the taxation system to end abuse, nor on introducing uniform laws in his state or improving internal trade and empowering the peasants and merchants.<ref name=sunitsingh64>{{cite book|author=Sunit Singh|editor=Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech|title=The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=7YwNAwAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-100411-7 |pages=62–65 }}</ref><ref name="Brittlebank2008p65">{{cite book|author=Kate Brittlebank|title=Tall Tales and True: India, Historiography and British Imperial Imaginings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bnwMAQAAMAAJ |year=2008|publisher=Monash University Press|isbn=978-1-876924-61-4 |pages=65 }}</ref><ref name="Grewal1998p115"/> This failure to reform the ''Jagirs''-based taxation system and economy, in part led to a succession power struggle and a series of threats, internal divisions among Sikhs, major assassinations and coups in the Sikh Empire in the years immediately after the death of Ranjit Singh;<ref name="Low1991p263"/> an easy annexation of the remains of the Sikh Empire into British India followed, with the colonial officials offering the ''Jagirs'' better terms and the right to keep the system intact.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sunit Singh|editor=Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech|title=The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=7YwNAwAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-100411-7 |pages=65–68 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Nicola Mooney|title=Rural Nostalgias and Transnational Dreams: Identity and Modernity Among Jat Sikhs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k1B2vdLBizIC |year=2011|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-9257-1 |pages=68–69 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Major|first1=Andrew J.|title=The Political Inheritance of Pakistan|editor=DA Low|publisher= Springer, Cambridge University Commonwealth Series| chapter=The Punjabi Chieftains and the Transition from Sikh to British Rule|year=1991| pages=53–85|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-11556-3_3|isbn= 978-1-349-11558-7}}</ref>