Lehal Library

* 6. The Rise and Fall of Banda Bahadur The First Round: Peasant Upsurge in Eastern Punjab G uru Gobind Singh tried for many months to persuade Bahadur Shah to take action against Wazir Khan before be arrived at the conclusion that he would obtain nojustice from the Mughals. He continued to negotiate with the Emperor, but decided to send one of his followers back to the Punjab to rouse the peasantry in the event that the negotiations proved fruitless. Although there were many old and trusted disciples with him, the choice fell on a comparative stranger whom the Guru had known for only a few weeks. This was an ascetic named Lachman Das, who had spent the last fifteen years or more of his life in a hermitage on the banks of the river Godavari. Being a northerner, he was well acquainted with the Guru's mission and in full sympathy with it. The Guru caught the fanatic gleam in the hermit's eye and felt that in the spare frame of the ascetic smouldered the Promethean fire which could be fanned into a Dame. He summoned Lach man Das and charged him with the duty of punishing the men who had persecuted the Sikhs and murdered his sons. He gave Lachman Das a new name which the latter bad himself chosen to describe his relationship to the Guru-banda, or the slave. 1 Guru Gobind Singh armed Banda with five arrows from his l Banda was born in 1670 al Rajauri (Poonch) of Rajput parents and named Lachman Das. He joined an order of ba-iriigi (mendicants) at an early age and was given a new name, Madho Das. He went south and spent