Lehal Library

104 The Agrarian Uprising their fellow peasants from the Punjab. The local faujdar (military commander), and those who could get away, fled to Delhi. Of those that remained 'many men of noble and respectable families fell fighting bravely and obtained the honour of martyrdom.''~ Saharanpur was ruthlessly plundered. After Saharanpur, fell the neighbouring towns of Behat and Ambheta. Just as the monsoons broke, Nanauta was captured by the Gujjars and razed to the ground. Panic spread in the Jumna-Gangetic Doab. The rich fled eastwards to Oudh or northwards into the hills. The sight of one Sikh lancer on horseback was enough to terrorize a whole village.H Banda's progress eastwards was halted by the monsoons and the resistance put up at Jalalabad. He also received appeals from the peasants of the Jultundur Doab to help them against the Mughal faujdar. He raised the siege of Jalalabad and recrossed the Jumna before the monsoon made it unfordable. The news of Banda's return to the Punjab was enough to put heart into the Malwa peasantry. They defeated the Mughal faujdar at Rabon. The faujdar was the first victim of the tactics for which the Sikhs became famous. This was the dhai phurhit, run, and turn back to hit again. They seized Jullundur and Hoshiarpur and by the autumn of 1710 liberated the whole of Jullundur Doab. 13 Munlabhib--ul-Lubiib, n, 655. 14 The revolution that had taken place in one year is well summed up by Irvine in his Lain Mughuls: 'A low scavenger or leather dresser, the lowest. of the low in Indian estimation, had only lo leave home and join the Guru [referring Lo Banda], when in a shon time he would rewrn to bis birthplace as its ruJer with bis order of appointment in bis hand. As soon as he set foot within the boundaries, the well-born and wealthy went out to greet him and escon him home. Arrived there, they stood before him with joined palms, awaiting his orders. . . . Not a soul dared to disobey an order, and men who had often risked themselves in battlefields became so cowed down that they were afraid even to remonstrate. Hindus who had not.joined the sect were not exempt from these.' (i, 9~9.)