Baba Ala Singh was born at Phul in 1691 and built the Patiala state out of the collapse of Mughal authority in the Sirhind province. He held Barnala, then built the fort at Patiala in 1763 and made it his seat.
He operated between the Marathas, the Afghans, the Delhi court and the Dal Khalsa, and took whatever each was willing to give. He accepted the title of raja from Ahmad Shah Abdali, which the Khalsa in the Majha regarded as collaboration with the man who had destroyed the Harmandir.
He also took part in the campaign that destroyed Sirhind in 1764 and took a share of it.
The judgement on him depends entirely on whether the Malwa is read as a place that had to survive between two invading armies or as a place that failed to choose a side. Punjabi historians have argued it both ways for two centuries.
The state he founded lasted until 1948 and its records, its army lists and its treasury accounts are among the fullest sets of documents surviving from any Punjab polity.
He built Patiala from a small holding around Barnala into the largest Sikh state, taking amrit from Nawab Kapur Singh Ji and holding territory through the Afghan invasions by paying whoever was strongest.
That accommodation is the criticism made of him and it is also why the state survived. Patiala was the only Sikh power that never lost its territory in the eighteenth century.
He founded the fort at Patiala in 1763 and died in 1765. His descendants ruled until 1947 and his line was the senior Sikh house until the states were merged.