Three Answers to One Question: Sikh, Hindu, and Sufi Constitutional Logics in Mughal Panjab, 1469-1708

Between 1469 and 1708, Sikh, Hindu, and Sufi communities in Mughal Panjab developed three incompatible answers to the same question: what makes political authority legitimate? This paper identifies each as a distinct constitutional logic. Sikh foundational sovereignty, rooted in Guru Nanak's critique of Babur and consolidated through two centuries of scriptural and institutional development, rejected imperial legitimacy outright. Hindu monastic centers at Pindori and Jakhbar pursued negotiated autonomy, accumulating Mughal farmāns as trans-dynastic legal precedent. Sufi spiritual jurisdiction, drawing on Ibn ʿArabī's Hidden Caliphate, claimed ontological superiority over temporal rule precisely by refusing to document it. These were not different tactics for the same game but structurally incommensurable frameworks—each community's founding commitments ruled out the political paths available to the others. Drawing on Persian, Panjabi, Brajbhasha, and Sanskrit sources, the paper recovers these competing political imaginations.