Mahan Singh Sukerchakia
Father of Ranjit Singh. Expanded the Sukerchakia lands from Gujranwala and died during a siege when Ranjit was twelve.
Mahan Singh was born in 1760, the son of Charat Singh, and became chief of the Sukerchakia misl at ten when his father died. His mother Desan Kaur acted as regent at first.
He married Raj Kaur, daughter of the Sidhu chief of Badrukhan, and their son Ranjit Singh was born at Gujranwala in 1780. He extended Sukerchakia power by force and alliance: he took Rasulnagar from its Muslim chief in the 1770s, renaming it Ramnagar, and fought the Bhangis and the Kanhaiyas, killing Jai Singh Kanhaiya's son Gurbakhsh Singh in 1785.
He died in 1792 at the age of thirty-two, during the siege of Sohdra, leaving the twelve-year-old Ranjit Singh to inherit.
On the timeline
Connected
Grandfather of Ranjit Singh and founder of the Sukerchakia misl's power at Gujranwala, where he beat the Afghan governor in 1761.
Sher-e-Punjab, the Lion of Punjab. United the misls into the Sikh Empire, ruled from Lahore for forty years and covered the Harmandir Sahib in gold.