Banda Singh, Persecution and the Misls
Sikh bands rise against Mughal rule under Banda Singh Bahadur, survive decades of persecution and massacres, and by the 1760s control much of Punjab through confederacies called misls.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
- A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)
- Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the Game of Love — Louis E. Fenech, Oxford University Press (2000)
In 1709 Banda Singh Bahadur, sent north after meeting Guru Gobind Singh, raised a peasant army in Punjab and in 1710 sacked Sirhind, where the Guru’s youngest sons had been killed. He struck coins in the Gurus’ names and is remembered for breaking up big estates. The Mughals hit back hard. Banda was captured in 1715 and executed in Delhi in 1716 with hundreds of his men.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)
- When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
Decades of persecution followed, with prices put on Sikh heads. Sikh fighters lived in jungles and deserts and gathered twice a year at Amritsar as the Sarbat Khalsa. Two massacres are mourned as ghallugharas, “holocausts”: the “small” one of 1746 and the “great” one of 1762, when the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali killed many thousands of Sikhs, including women and children, near Kup and blew up the Harmandir Sahib.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- A History of the Sikhs (2 vols, 2nd edition) — Khushwant Singh, Oxford University Press (2004)
- When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
Yet as Mughal power collapsed and Afghan armies came and went, Sikh bands grew stronger. By the late 1760s some twelve misls, confederacies led by Sikh chiefs, controlled most of Punjab. Their rivalries ended when one misl chief’s son, Ranjit Singh, took Lahore in 1799.
- The Sikhs of the Punjab (The New Cambridge History of India, revised edition) — J. S. Grewal, Cambridge University Press (1998)
- When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799 — Purnima Dhavan, Oxford University Press (2011)
Why it matters today
The eighteenth century gave Sikhs their stories of survival: the martyrs remembered in the daily prayer, the Ardas; the "great holocaust" of 1762; and the Sikh warrior on horseback living in the forests. It also left the idea that the Khalsa should rule, Raj karega Khalsa, "the Khalsa shall rule", sung at the end of the Ardas.