When we read about Sikh history, we often hear about big names like Ranjit Singh, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, or the Phulkian kings. But there were many other groups of Sikh warriors who played their part and then slowly disappeared from history. One such group was the Nishanwalia Misl.
The word “Nishan” means a flag or a banner. So the Nishanwalias were simply the “flag-bearers” of the Khalsa army. Every time the Dal Khalsa moved from one place to another, a warrior rode in front carrying the saffron flag of the Sikhs. That man was Dasaundha Singh, and his family and followers came to be known as the Nishanwalias.
Nishanwalia Misl: Sons of a Farmer
The story starts with Chaudhary Sahib Rai, a Jat farmer of the Gill sub-caste. He lived in a village called Surdev, which was about 15 kilometres south of Kot Isa Khan. He had two sons, Dasaundha Singh and Sangat Singh.
The two brothers lived like ordinary farmers at first, growing crops on their land. But like many young Sikhs of that time, they took Amrit (baptism of the double-edged sword) and joined the Dal Khalsa, the army of the Sikhs. A little later, they founded a village near Zira, in the present-day Faridkot district, and named it Singhanwala. They made this village their home.
Dasaundha Singh was baptised by Diwan Darbara Singh, a well-known Sikh leader of that time.
How the Name “Nishanwalia” Was Born
Dasaundha Singh was a strong and sturdy man. Because of this, the leaders of the Dal Khalsa often gave him one special duty — to carry the Sikh flag in front of the army whenever it marched. The flag was of saffron colour, the same colour we still see today on the Nishan Sahib.
By the year 1734, Dasaundha Singh had become one of the leaders of the Taruna Dal, the younger wing of the Dal Khalsa. The Sikh jathas respected him a lot. People said he fought with his sword like Rustam, the great hero of Persian stories.
Since he always carried the flag, people started calling him Nishanwalia — the flag-bearer. His followers and his family kept this name forever.
The Battle of Sirhind (1764)
For many years, the Sikhs had wanted to punish the rulers of Sirhind, the men responsible for the deaths of the two younger sons of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji. In January 1764, a large joint force of Sikh misls attacked and captured Sirhind.
Dasaundha Singh took part in this battle. After the victory, the Sikh chiefs divided the land around Sirhind among themselves. Dasaundha Singh received a good share. He took control of Singhanwala, Sanehwal, Sarai Lashkari Khan, Doraha, Amloh, Zira, Liddhar, Shahabad, and Ambala. He made Ambala his headquarters.
But his good fortune did not last long. In 1767, while fighting a battle against the Brar community at a place called Droli, he was hit by a gun-shot and died.
Sangat Singh: The Brave Brother
After Dasaundha Singh, his younger brother Sangat Singh became the leader. Sangat Singh was, if anything, even braver than his brother. He attacked Sirhind a second time with his men.
Sangat Singh did some useful work as a ruler. He got a brick wall built around the town of Ambala to protect it from robbers. But Ambala had two problems for him — the water was not good, and the climate did not suit his health. So he shifted back to Singhanwala.
Before leaving, he handed over Ambala and the nearby areas to his brother-in-law (his wife’s brother), Dhian Singh. Dhian Singh appointed two men, Gurbakhsh Singh and Lal Singh, as thanedars (officers in charge) of Ambala. This small decision would later change the whole future of the family.
Sangat Singh did not live long. In 1774, he died a natural death while on a hunting trip in the hills. He had about 12,000 soldiers under him at that time.
Mohar Singh: The Boy Chief Who Lost Everything
Sangat Singh left behind three young sons — Mohar Singh, Kapur Singh, and Anup Singh. The eldest, Mohar Singh, was only eight years old when his father died. Naturally, he could not run a state, so his uncle Dhian Singh looked after the territories on his behalf.
The family property was divided like this: Mohar Singh got Ambala and Zira, Kapur Singh settled at Singhanwala, and Anup Singh got Sarai Lashkari Khan.
As Mohar Singh grew up, he became known among the Sikh chiefs on this side of the Satluj river. He fought well, collected booty from Sirhind, and added more areas to his name.
But Mohar Singh had two serious problems — he was proud and arrogant, and his own officers did not like him.
Once, when he was visiting his mother at Singhanwala, his thanedars and officers revolted against him. Later, he and his brother Anup Singh cleverly went to the house of Jai Singh at Sarai Lashkari Khan as guests. At night, they caught Jai Singh, threw him out of the sarai, and took over all his property and land. Jai Singh had been appointed there as thanedar by Mohar Singh’s own father — this act betrayed that trust.
War with Patiala
Meanwhile, at Ambala, the two brothers Gurbakhsh Singh and Lal Singh had grown powerful. Each of them had recruited two hundred horsemen. They controlled the areas around Ambala and even collected rakhi (protection money) from areas that belonged to Raja Amar Singh of Patiala.
Lal Singh started building a fort in a deserted village called Loh Shibli. This angered Raja Amar Singh, who sent an army to stop the fort from being completed. But Lal Singh finished the fort anyway.
Now Amar Singh got seriously angry. He collected a huge army — his own soldiers, plus the forces of Gajpat Singh of Jind, the Bhais of Kaithal, and the chief of Ahmad Kot — about 20,000 horsemen in total. He marched to destroy the fort.
On the other side, Lal Singh, Gurbakhsh Singh, Mohar Singh, Anup Singh, and their allies gathered 12,000 horsemen to face him.
The fighting was fierce and lasted two days. Both sides lost many men. At one point, the Patiala forces were surrounded and stuck in a tight corner. A man named Jhandu Singh, fighting for Amar Singh, tried to force his way into the fort. Lal Singh blocked him, and Jhandu Singh was killed in the fight. His brother Dulcha Singh attacked in anger and grief, and in this fighting, Lal Singh himself was killed.
After losing important men on both sides, the war stopped. Amar Singh and Gurbakhsh Singh made peace and never fought again.
The Murder That Destroyed Mohar Singh
Here is where Mohar Singh’s arrogance led to his downfall.
There lived near Ambala a saintly man called Sayyid Mir Munir. People loved him and went to him for advice and help. Mohar Singh could not tolerate anyone being more popular than himself. In 1785, he killed the Sayyid with an arrow.
This one act turned all the people against him. The angry people called Gurbakhsh Singh from Morinda with his army. In the fight that followed, Mohar Singh was killed. His widow went to Zira, where she lived until 1806, when she was driven out by the Lahore army under Diwan Mohkam Chand.
Gurbakhsh Singh now became the ruler of Ambala. But he too died soon after, in 1786, from paralysis.
Rani Daya Kaur
Gurbakhsh Singh had no children, so his widow, Daya Kaur, took over his territory. She ruled with the help of her Diwan, Sipahimal Bhandari.
Her period was peaceful. There were no dacoities or murders in her territory. The British always treated her with respect. A British officer, Captain Mathews, passed through her land in 1808 and praised her administration highly. The famous historian Lepel Griffin later wrote that she was “an excellent ruler” and that her estate was one of the best managed in the whole protected territory.
But the good times were ending. Maharaja Ranjit Singh crossed the Satluj in 1808 and drove Daya Kaur out of Ambala. He gave her territory to Bhag Singh of Jind and Lal Singh of Kaithal, and left 5,000 soldiers at Ambala to stop any public uprising in her favour.
Daya Kaur did not give up. She appealed directly to the British officer Ochterlony. He reached near Patiala in February 1809 and forced the Lahore troops to leave Ambala. Daya Kaur got her territory back. In 1809, the Treaty of Amritsar placed her under British protection.
She died in 1823, and since she had no heir, her territory was taken over (lapsed) by the British government.
The Other Branch: Sodha Singh and His Family
There was another branch of the family. Santu Singh, a nephew of Sangat Singh, founded a village called Dahaleke near Singhanwala. He captured the area of Sahnewal and became its chief. After him, his brother Sodha Singh ruled there.
Sodha Singh ruled for a long time, but in his later years, he became greedy. In 1797, he increased the state’s share of the crop from the people from 100 maunds to 150 maunds — a rise of fifty percent. The zamindars and tenants begged him to withdraw this increase, but he refused and ordered them to be removed forcibly.
His death came in a strange way. While he was marching from Ambala, his elephant-driver warned him that the elephant was restless and dangerous, and requested him not to climb on it. He did not listen. On the way, the elephant went wild, threw him down, and trampled him to death. His men then shot the elephant dead.
After his death, his property went to his second wife, Lashmi, even though he had a son named Daya Singh. Daya Singh and Lashmi fought with each other for years. Finally, in 1806, Ranjit Singh took over both their possessions and ordered half the revenue of five villages to be given to them. Lashmi died in 1821, Daya Singh died a little later, and their remaining land passed to the British.
The Second Branch: The Two Blue Flags
There was one more branch of the Nishanwalias. Two brave leaders, Jai Singh of village Karanke Dhirke (near Attari, Amritsar) and Kaur Singh of Dhand Kasel (near Tarn Taran), were close followers of Sangat Singh. Sangat Singh gave each of them a blue-coloured Nishan (standard) as a mark of honour.
With these flags, they occupied Sarai Doraha, Lidhran, and Chahal with their surrounding areas. Later, they divided the land between themselves. Kaur Singh got Sarai Doraha, and Jai Singh got Lidhran with twenty-seven villages.
Jai Singh made a marriage alliance with the royal house of Nabha by marrying his daughter, Daya Kaur, to Raja Jaswanta Singh of Nabha. (This princess, by the way, later became one of the most famous and powerful queens in the history of Patiala and Nabha.)
Jai Singh died in 1773 and was succeeded by his son Charhat Singh, who accepted British protection in 1809.
Kaur Singh and his son Fateh Singh were killed in a battle at Tajpur. Their Doraha territory changed hands several times — first through a conspiracy against Kaur Singh’s widow, and later in 1805, when Punjab Singh lost it to Charhat Singh and Karam Singh Nirmala. Finally, in 1808, when Ranjit Singh crossed the Satluj, he took Doraha from them and gave it to Chain Singh, a trusted man of the Patiala family.
The End of the Nishanwalias
First, their chiefs kept dying young or without heirs. Sangat Singh died at 37 (roughly), Mohar Singh was killed, Gurbakhsh Singh died of illness, and both Mohar Singh and Anup Singh died without children. A family that keeps losing its men cannot hold a state together.
Second, bad behaviour destroyed them from inside. Mohar Singh’s arrogance and the murder of the saint Sayyid Mir Munir turned his own people against him.
Third, greedy taxation, like Sodha Singh’s fifty percent increase, made even common people hate their rulers.
Fourth, they were caught between two giant powers — Maharaja Ranjit Singh expanding from Lahore and the British expanding from Delhi. Small chiefships like theirs had no chance of surviving between these two.
By the 1820s, everything the Nishanwalias had built was gone. Some land went to Ranjit Singh, some to the Patiala and Nabha houses, and the rest lapsed to the British.
The story of the Nishanwalia Misl is a small but complete picture of Sikh history in the 18th century. It shows how ordinary farming families became warriors, how warriors became chiefs, and how chiefdoms rose and fell within just three or four generations.
Today, the Nishanwalia name survives mainly in places like Singhanwala village and in history books. But the saffron flag that Dasaundha Singh carried at the head of the Khalsa army still flies at every gurdwara in the world. In a way, the flag-bearer’s work never really ended — only the people carrying it changed.
