Lehal Library

102 The Agrarian Uprising The preponderance of numbers gave them an advantage in the hand-to-hand struggle that ensued. Wazir Khan was killed and the morale of his troops collapsed. The battle ended in the complete rout and massacre of the Mugbal army and the z_ho.u.s. 'Not a man of the anny of Islam escaped with more than his life and the clothes he stood in,' wrote Khafi Khan. 'Horsemen and footmen fell under the swords of the infidels, who pursued them as far as Sirhind. ' 9 Two days later Banda stormed Sirhind. He entered the town on 24 May 1710. Wazir Khan was dead, but Sucha Nand, the Dewan who had pressed him to exerute Guru Gobind's sons, was taken alive. Besides the odium which attached to the names of these men for their share in the crime, the peasants had their own grievances. 'I have beard from reliable people of the neighbourhood,• wrote a diarist of the times, 'that during the time of the late Khan there was no cruelty that he had not inflicted upon the poor subjects, and that there was no seed of which he now reaped the fruit that he had not sown for himself. •10 Sirhind was destroyed in detail; only a few mausolea were spared. Wazir Khan's palace and the treasury of Sucha Nand yielded handsome booty to the conquerors. Banda was now virtual master of the territories between the Jumna and the Sutlej, yielding an annual revenue of thirty-six lacs of rupees. His sun was in the ascendant. Either from conviction or fear or profit (or a combination of the three) a great many Hindu and Muslim peasants accepted conversion to Sikhism. 11 Banda was too shrewd to place much reliance on the loyalties of the new converts and he made the old fort of 9 MuntaMib-ul-Lubab, u, 654; Laur Mughuls, pp. 27-8 (where I.he atrocities committed by Banda's peasants are mentioned in detail). 10 Mohammed Qasim, l/Jrat Niima, 20-l. 11 Names of officers on record bear testimony to quick conversions, for example, Ali Singh, Mir Nasir Singh, Dindar Singh. This is supported by a contemporary accOWJ.t by Aminuddaulah: 'A large number of Mohammedans abandoned Islam and followed Lbe misguided path and took solemn oaths and firm pledges to stand by him.• (Ganda Singh, Banda Singh Bahadu.r, p. 73.)