In the eighteenth century, under a number of able leaders the Sikhs organized themselves into a number of bands called jathas, and later misls. Their combined forces were known as the grand army (dal khalsa).
The entire body met at Amritsar during Baisakhi and Diwali to take collective decisions known as “resolutions of the guru (gurmatas)”.
A system called rakhi was also introduced to offer protection to cultivators on the payment of a tax of 20 percent of the produce.
