Lehal Library

Banda Bahadur 105 The Second Round: From the Plains to the Hills The revolt spread across the Sutlej over the whole of the Majha country. Starting from Amritsar, the peasant armies marched northwards towards the hills, taking Kalanaur, Batala, and Pathankot. Then they overran the tract between the Sutlej and the Ravi. The Punjab became like a surging st=a of free peasantry with only two small islands of Mughal authority in its midstthe capital city of Lahore and the Afghan town of Kasur. Mughal officials tried to suppress the uprising by appealing to the religious sentiments of the Mohammedan peasantry. For some time this policy paid dividends and the newly-recruited &hazis helped the Mughal militia to keep the Sikhs at ba) a few miles from Lahore. Then their sympathies with the peasants overcame the feeling of religious animosity which had been whipped up by the landlords, and they wmed back to their homes. The Sikhs advanced, decimated the militiamen near the village of Shilwal, and swanned over the countryside round Lahore. From the Jumna to the Ravi and beyond, the only person who mattered was Banda, and the only power that commanded respect was that of the peasant armies. In those fateful days, had Banda shown more enterprise he could have captured Delhi and Lahore and so changed the entire course of Indian history. But the otherwise daring Banda showed a lack of decision which proved fatal to his dreams. Meanwhile, Bahadur Shah abandoned his plans to subdue the Rajputs and without pausing at Delhi hurried nonh to the Pu1tjab. 1' The Emperor ordered a general mobilization of all his forces in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Oudh, and called for volunteers for 15 Rhafi Khan wrilcs: 'For eighl or nine months, and from two or lhree days march from Delhi to lhe em-irons of Lahore, all lhe towns and places of note were pillaged by lhese unclean wretches, and trodden under foot and destroyed. Men in countless numbers were slain, lhe whole country was wasted, and mosques and tombs were razed. . . These infidels had set up a new mle, and had forbidden lhe sh,mng of the hair of the head and beard.... The revolt and ravages of this perverse secl were brought under the notice of His Majesty. and gy-eatly Lroubled him" (32-3).